Personal Computer News


Psi Warrior

Author: Mike Gerrard
Publisher: Beyond
Machine: Commodore 64

 
Published in Personal Computer News #090

PSI WARRIOR

Games are becoming so mega that you need a nuclear physics degree to understand the instructions.

The five chapters of introduction say you are a warrior in a gigantic silo, and you are trying to reach the Source at the foot of the silo to destroy it. The silo has guards of course, and is vast, as you can see if you press the f3 key to take you into Remote View mode. This can be done if you are in a transportation chamber, such as when you start the game, and it allows you to leave your body behind and scroll round the silo in peace using the keyboard or joystick. The size makes the Land of Midnight look like someone's back garden. Your immediate vicinity is shown in the centre of the screen.

The silo is inhabited by Psis, Ids and Pupae - weird creatures attacking different parts of your mind. They're ghostly shapes, represented by a group of tiny swirling squares of different colours, and you defend yourself and your sanity by firing your psi-nets at them. You start the game with 80, and they are activated by using the fire-button twice - once to jump). Netting a creature doesn't kill it, but restrains it for a while, allowing your escape.

Psi Warrior

The character you control is rather lacking in fine detail, and resembles an SAS man in jump-suit and white visor, but his movements are a delight. Turning the joystick in a full circle causes him to swivel through 360 degrees, while his head moves constantly from side to side to check all the angles. He glides along, and with a neat switch you can be firing while retreating or advancing on one of the enemy.

There are almost as many controls on the screen as on the flight-deck of Concorde.

If Psi Warrior gets you hooked, it could keep you occupied for months, though it didn't hook me in the way the last few Beyond releases did. It was so complicated, I switched it off with almost a "psi" of relief.

Mike Gerrard

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