Previous Next

Now this is an arcade adventure in the true sense of the word (or words). The plot is nothing new - a fleet of 20 spaceships have broken down, the alien speciments they were carrying have gotten loose and the crew are all now two hazelnuts short of a Topic bar. Someone has to sort this mess out - and there are no prizes for guessing who.

The game looks much like Bloodwych/Dungeon Master/every other FRPG ever written, but the icon system is an absolute joy to use. The basic idea is to repair each craft enough to send it home, which involves repairing all the systems, finding and replacing the power supply and a lock on the navigation computer, whilst blasting the lower intestines out of anything you come across. Your only allies are the programmable robots you may be lucky enough to find, which can (with the addition of the proper chips) do anything from mop up spilt liquids to taking three paces and (hem) blowing up.

The graphics are fairly good, though nothing stunning, with such charms as two-headed guard dogs and allosaurs roaming the decks. There is a password system for access to later levels as well as a save game option, and you can call up datafiles on the crew members and aliens to tell you how to deal with them - but don't forget you can still be attacked while you're doing this!

There are various weaponry systems dotted around, from a puny dagger to a floor-based missile system, as well as slightly more puzzling objects such as a Red Herring (Hmmm, I wonder what use that could possibly be...)

Average looking but extremely playable (and cheap!) arcade adventure which should appeal to all moderately intelligent games players.