Crash


Tarzan

Author:
Publisher: Martech
Machine: Spectrum 48K/128K

 
Published in Crash #36

Tarzan

Lady Jane Greystoke - she of "Me Tarzan - You Jane" fame - is in mortal danger in the jungle. She has been captured by Usanga, the chief of the Wamabo (thank you ma'amo). The chief has had seven gemstones stolen from the tribal shrine, and being a sensible cha, he realizes that the only person who stands any chance of recovering these gems for him is Tarzan.

This isn't as easy as it seems though, the chief and Tarzan aren't exactly the best of pals, so the chief kidnaps Jane and threatens to feed her to the ravenous Panther if Tarzan doesn't come up with the gems - and pronto.

Tarzan has just three days to find the seven gems stones (or The Eyes of the Rainbow as the primitive chief calls them), if he has not found them after this time Jane will be slaughtered.

Tarzan

Tarzan's journey will take him from the leafy jungle - where he will confront vicious panthers, lethal quicksand and unpleasant natives - to the Dark Caves and and Temple of the Sun where even more danger lurks.

Each time he encounters one of these dangers some of his energy decreases. Tarzan's energy is shown at the bottom of the screen as a tree creeper. The action takes place over three days. During each day the sun slowly sinks and the screen colour changes from vivid yellow through to more dusky shades, until it's night and it turns to shadowy blue. However, if Tarzan loses energy by falling into quicksand or being leapt upon by a panther, then time passes more quickly. When the sun has set three times the game is over and Jane is fed to the ravenous hordes. Eugh.

Although Tarzan is Lord of the Jungle, he still needs various objects to help him. These are shown on the screen as black boxes, and Tarzan doesn't know what's in them until he picks them up, their contents are then shown at the bottom of the screen. These can be used to help Tarzan look for the games which are also shown as black boxes.

The playing area is viewed from behind trees and shrubs. Tarzan can run left and right from screen to screen, but he can also move upwards and downwards to other screens by finding a clearing in the jungle vegetation. These clearings are not often easy to see and may take some searching for. Tarzan is an agile fellow and can somersault over some obstacles and run through the undergrowth. He can also take on some of the vicious animals, but he only has his bare hands, so sometimes it's better to just try and avoid them. Some of the larger dangers, such as wide stretches of quicksand, mus be swung over using tree creepers.

Comments

Control keys: definable
Joystick:
Keyboard play: pretty neat
Use of colour: monochromatic
Graphics: detailed and effective
Sound: some spot effects when played on the Spectrum Plus 2
Skill levels: one
Screens: 300

Comment 1

'I like the way that Tarzan is presented - the side view is an excellent idea and gives the game a whole new perspective. The sound is practically non-existent, bar a few spot effects, which don't enhance the game at all - this didn't help the atmosphere of the game very much and I didn't feel that it involved the player very much at all. Tarzan is very slightly based on the film, but basically very like Tir Na Nog - and not too exciting at all. MARTECH have come up with a good game, but I'm afraid I've seen it all before.'

Comment 2

'On the whole it isn't a bad game, trudging around the seem- endless jungle (probably in circles) gets a little tiresome after more than half an hour, but if you manage to get some interesting objects you can become absorbed in the game. My only real moan is that the screens take a while to generate, which can really spoil the flow of the game. The graphics are very good, the backgrounds are exceedingly pretty and the characters are well defined. On the whole this isn't really much of a variation on arcade adventures so I wouldn't buy it unless I was an aardvark freak.'

Comment 3

'Gosh, thought I as I loaded up this one, what pretty graphics. Well, I didn't actually think that, but it sounds good. The graphics aren't actually all that good, because the effective border around the screen not only serves as an excuse not to use the whole display area but also masks some rather poor quality sprites. I think this game isn't very playable; this is probably because all the game has to it is wandering through the same ol' screens again and again. No. I don't like it.'

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