C&VG


The Land That Time Forgot
By Ocean
Spectrum 128K

 
Published in Computer & Video Games #83

The Land That Time Forgot

It's taken a long time, but that game with the boobs and the dinosaurs has finally landed on my desk. Better review it I suppose. Dum de dum, look at the inlay. Yarm, yet another 3D filmation type of affair. Load it up. Beee, dip. Bee diddley dip. Usual good loading screen. Nice long wait. Quite a bit of code this, well it is 128K only.

Your plane has crash-landed somewhere in the midst of Tibet, on a small uncharted island. Its four occupants are unharmed but the plane is a write-off. Taking a look around they notice something strange. Something big and strange. Something big, strange and prehistoric. Something dinosaurlike.

You are in control of the four characters in the game, but obviously only one at a time, and can chop and change between them.

Where Time Stood Still

Jarret is the smooth, strong hunk of meat that you see on the inlay artwork. Pilot of the crashed plane, he is almost the perfect person to lead this band to safety.

Gloria, who is the stunning sexpot, also on the inlay, is a newlywed who, despite being a girlie, is one of the strongest members of the group, will wise, and is one of the last to complain about petty little things like falling off cliffs and being hit by boulders. Her husband Dirk is, well, Dirk. You can't really say much about him, apart from the fact that he's a bit of a weed and is always ready for a good moan. Clive, Gloria's dad is a rich, obese lump, and I find great delight in trying to get him to cross the rope bridge near the start of the game.

Oh, it's loaded. So, what have we got there. Chuffing hell! This is berrilliant. This is the game your 128 was made for. This is fantastic. Oh, I'm dead. This is difficult!

Where Time Stood Still

An eight-directional fimation scroller, it's not hard to see why this couldn't fit on a 48K job. The playing area is massive, and all beautifully detailed. Huge mountain ranges bar your way in one direction, with an almost mazelike series of pathways between them. A river cuts across the middle of the island, and ends in a glorious waterfall. Check the screenshot and you'll see what I mean. Walk across the tops of the thick growth within the water, avoiding the tentacled things that lurk within, and you come to the natives. This is where the objects that are scattered about come in.

The objects are manipulated using a little window that you call up with the space bar. In the window are little portraits of the four characters, their current status (alive or dead) and things like a quit and pause option. Move your little arrow to a pecific picture of a person, and another window will appear telling you what they are carrying and what items are nearby.

What makes this game so hard is the things like natives, dinosaurs, stegasauruses, and pterocactyls.

Where Time Stood Still

Everything rlse just tries to run you over, except the natives, who try to rape you. At least, that's what it looks like! All you have to fight back with is a puny little gun.

The game is entirely monochromatic but this doesn't really matter. In fact, if this game was in full Spectrum-O-Colour, I can visualise it being a bit of a mess.

Very easy to use and very attractive to look at, The Land That Time Forgot is yet another notch on Ocean's belt of good reputation. Congrats to Denton Designs on an excellent game.

Tony Dillon

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