Previous Next

The first time I tried to load Beam Rider I thought to myself "Help! The computer's about to blow up!", for as soon as it found the program my Dragon began switching its cassette relat on and off quite merrily half way through each block of the program. After turning the computer on and off several times, and them trying other tapes I came to the conclusion that it must be the Beam Rider program causing all this alarm, so I left the tape running and suddenly, half way through the program appeared the new Microdeal title screen - a full colour hi-res picture of good old Cuthbert!

Anyway, after all the heart attacks I finally loaded Beam Rider to find quite a good game. The right joystick is used in order to move your Beam Rider across the screen. Of the nearest block to you in the direction you want to go is not immediately adjacent then a beam is fired to the block which your beam rider immediately 'rides' at twice the normal speed.

To make matters difficult, Chasers (small red bugs with yellow eyes) follow your beamer around in a desperate attempt to get in the way and destroy you. There is one chaser in the first screen and two on all the others. There are also spinners (spinning yellow rings) which move around at random. If a spinner hits you your beam rider or the energy beam then you lose a beamer. Energizers (multicoloured spinning squares) are formed when a Spinner touches a block.

Hitting these doubles your score for the next 7 seconds (approx) and allows you to temporarily disable any Chaser which may hit you while Energized. Extra points are also awarded for hitting an energizer.