Previous Next

It was always on the cards that a version of the arcade Scramble would soon appear on the C64, and here it is.

It's one of the easiest I've played, but that said, I still can't get beyond the fifth section (out of six).

The aim is to get through all six of the levels right up to the Cobron base. On the way, life is made pretty unpleasant for you by a whole range of different methods.

Another joystick-only game from Anirog, but even if you vastly prefer keyboards, you'll still find Skramble is fun. Your interest is maintained by wide variety and the game is fast and packed with action.

The delay between games, however, is very tedious, and looks like it's just a way of proving that Anirog have the technical ability to move their company logo around the screen. It's interesting to see once, but once only.

You control a small fighter/spacecraft and fly it from left to right. You can move up and down, going forward speeds you up, backwards slows you down.

The fire button gives you bombs and bullets at the same time, and it's almost essential to keep firing. If you don't you're liable to miss out on the ammo dumps and fuel supplies, without which you die, or get killed which spreads your wreckage across the screen.

First you cross mountains, and rockets launch up towards you. If you negotiate this section you then find a series of up and down UFOs waiting for you. They tend not to wait around, so you must shoot them down quickly. If you can.

Section 3 has fireballs coming at you. And you can't shoot them down either, so it's worth dodging them. If you can. Section 4 boasts a city with very tall tower blocks, which means staying at the top, and, if you get through this, you run into the maze. This is the bit I haven't yet mastered. The ups and downs of the maze are pretty tricky, and at this stage you need four-way controlling on the joystick.

I have yet to get on to section 6.

I enjoyed this game a great deal, and can thoroughly recommend it. Quite fast, not too hard, but not too easy either, and fun to come back to.