Personal Computer News


Fantastic Voyage

Author: Bryan Skinner
Publisher: Quicksilva
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Personal Computer News #108

FANTASTIC VOYAGE

Not only a neat little 'caverns' game, Fantastic Voyage might teach you more than deft fingerwork.

The title's licensed from the file but - like others - borrows little more than a scenario. Which is not to say it isn't pretty good.

You've been micro-miniaturised and injected into the body of one Dr. Ernest Hacket, and due to a foul-up with the reducto ray, your only hope is to get out. In your search for the eight scattered pieces of your submarine you'll have to reduce infections, excise tumours and blast virtues. When the pieces are brought together in the brain, they shrink, and you can escape.

Fantastic Voyage

You start in the mouth, no exit right; those white pillars are teeth. So pick up part of the rocket that's on the tongue, and it's down the red channel of the throat. A parting of the ways next - trachea or gullet? But the way gutwards is blocked. To the lungs then, picking up a red corpuscle for energy and dodging warily past a flap of flesh that springs out regularly.

It's as you float about in the two-screen cavern of a lung that you get your first full appreciation of the animation. The keyboard response is fast and the movement is smooth, but the collision detection can seem over-enthusiastic.

Lives left, temperature, score, energy, etc are shown at the top of the screen. Let your energy drop too low and you become invisible. To the right is a white torso on which a red square may appear, marking an area under threat from infection. You must sort it out, for your life depends on your host's.

All locations are labelled and, while not spectacular, can be quite detailed. The lung walls have some unusual black and white texturing. Organs and hazards have been given a lot of thought and there are many surprises. Good to look at and fun to play, it's a game you'll come back to time and again.

Bryan Skinner

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