Previous Next

Personally, I'm sick of seeing classic C64 games converted for the C16. Very few of them seem to come anywhere near their C64 counterparts, tending to suffer from scrappy graphics and jerky animation. Fortunately, Oblido makes none of those mistakes, making full use of the C16's capabilities without overstretching them.

At first glance, Oblido looks incredibly complex, the screen littered with coloured blocks and make-like paths. All becomes clear quickly though, and the actual gameplay couldn't be simpler.

On the screen are four sets of nine blocks, each a different colour and pattern. The idea of the game is to shunt them around, leaving all nine blocks of the same colour at the appropriate depot.

The area that the blocks are allowed to move in is restricted by grey pathways. These enable you to get your man in behind a column of blocks and allow easy passage to other parts of the screen. On its own, this is not a difficult task, but you're racing against the clock and the nasties are escaping from the 'sin bin'.

Nasties move around the pathways firing at you. Stopping a slug or direct contact with one will seriously reduce the time left on the clock, but you can fight back. Your weapon is pretty ineffective, but squashing them with a block or two proved to be more effective. Killing nasties not only makes your task easier, but also scores points.

I really enjoyed playing Oblido, it's not often you find a game as addictive as this at a bargain-basement price. The graphics are bright and clear, the action is smooth and fast and the soundtrack is in character with the action. It's a pity there aren't more games of this quality for the C16. Any chance of converted it for the C64?