Previous Next

Equinox was a superb game, one of the new breed which has helped to keep Mikro Gen programs looking fresh. The problem with producing a game which has originality as one of its strongest points is how to write a follow up. Chris Hinsley of Mikro-Gen has achieved this by taking the spirit of Equinox and building a new game.

Frost Byte is the sequel to Equinox. It uses the same cute 16-colour sprites and rooms with a similar feel. But the gameplay has been changed significantly. Instead of being a floating orb you are now a Keezer, You look like one of those coils which runs down stairs, turning itself end over end. Or to be more accurate you look like the green and yellow aliens from Marble Madness, the ones which jump on the marble and lick their lips.

In your role as a yellow and green liquorice allsort you have to seek out captured friends and release them. As the title would indicate the action takes place on a frozen landscape, a cave which has to be mapped. The CPC does not have a very wide range of blues, so the backgrounds often look a little chunky. The foreground sprites, and some of the large multicoloured monsters are very much better. The Amstrad has five greens, so it's a good job that most monsters are green. The beast on the third screen blinks as if alive. Once armed your bendy toy can shoot - although the ammunition is limited and you will need to pick up more later_

As with Equinox, moving the joystick picks up an object and pushing down again uses it.

There are some magical crystals dotted through the caves, each of which affect your spring. Eating a red crystal speeds you up. but limits the strength of your jumps. A blue crystal gives you the power to leap tall cliffs with a single bound - but slowly. Trampolines add power to your jumps in tight corners.

As winter looms the let's-get-the-game-outfor-Christmas bandwagon rolls on. If Christmas is the 0-level exam then the PCW Show is the mock. Software houses try to have their wares ready for the show, but just like revision they never get it done in time. Miss Christmas and you have to wait another year. Frost Byte was in a pre-release state at the show but will be prepared for the end-of-year software showdown.

Both the tasks and the graphics are truly inventive, something to settle down with as the nights draw in.

Initally the game seems far too hard, and until I'd mastered the art of jumping over falling drops of water I got nowhere. The monsters are wonderfully inventive. I love the creature featured on this month's front cover.

The rules about what can be shot and what needs to be avoided are a bit vague but once killed twice shy and you should conquer most things with time. The tie-in with a frozen waste seems a bit pointless, Still, at least it's not part of a licensing deal. Frost Byte has a very strong "just one more game" appeal, you'll either love it or hate it. I love it.

Frost Byte from Mikro-Gen continues the Equinoctal vein. Instead of a sphere which floats hither and thither, your joystick controls a slinky-like spring which arches its way through the monstrous infestations of an icy cavern. Picking up and using things is again courtesy of a downward twitch on the stick, and again there's an intelligent use for everything.

The usual batch of laconic horrors await you, and not a few cleverly contrived traps. The way in which the spring moves lends itself to some gymnastic manoeuvres to circumvent obstacles, and working these out is half the fun.

A lot of thought has been put into this playable game, and it takes a lot to get the most out of it.