Personal Computer News


Morris Meets The Bikers

Author: Mike Gerrard
Publisher: Automata
Machine: Spectrum 16K

 
Published in Personal Computer News #048

Morris Meets The Bikers

Morris Askance

We're suffering from a case of Morris Invaders - after Maurice Minor for the Dragon 32 comes this arcade-type game in which the family favourite does battle with the leather-jacketed bikers.

Objectives

You're in a six storey car park and must exit at bottom right, avoiding hazards and collecting enough coins to pay your parking fees. There are nine screens to get through before you reach freedom.

In Play

Morris Meets The Bikers

Morris begins at the top left of the screen, and down either side are travel lifts, which he uses to get from one floor to another. You choose which keys you want to use for moving Morris and firing or, in this case, parping, Before you can exit to the next screen you must collect ten coins which randomly appear one at a time on the various levels. You have to collect each coin, and if you try to exit without all ten coins you lose one of your five lives. You have to keep an eye on the fuel gauge, of course, and collect the cans of fuel which appear.

Having worked out what to collect you must then work out what to avoid. Only by playing the game do you discover that the flashing horseshoe shapes are wheelclamps which hold you still for a few seconds, while the double-prongs are tin tacks which slow down your speed.

The two lifts start at slightly different levels but can be lined up simply by riding one of them to the top. Brick walls block off some levels on each screen, and there are 'P' for parking signs which remove some of your collected coinage when you drive over them. There's no way of avoiding the hazards completely as coins frequently appear between a hazard and a wall.

Morris Meets The Bikers

And finally there are the bikers. These ride from side to side on all levels save the bottom one where you have a free run to the exit. They move at the same speed as Morris (unless he's been tin-tacked) and can be blasted out of existence with a beep from his horn. You can be almost at the safety of the lift when a biker appears from nowhere and you're a gonner. You can't continually sound your horn as you don't move while it's beeping.

Verdict

After the pottiness of Pimania and the glories of Groucho I was disappointed to see Automata putting out a run-of-the-mill arcade game. After just a few plays I'd progressed to the fifth of the nine screens, so ace games players should polish this off in no time.

It's a silly game in the wrong sense of the word.

Mike Gerrard

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