Amiga Power


Rick Dangerous

Author: Stuart Campbell
Publisher: Kixx
Machine: Amiga 500

 
Published in Amiga Power #9

Rick Dangerous

The time is going to come when the entire Amiga Power All-Time Top 100 is available on a budget label. At the last count, 45 of said classics are now out on budget, compilation or with back issues of various magazines, and now the list includes No. 71. Er, hurrah!

Rick Dangerous is, to me, one of the most mystifying successes ever - a hugely popular platforms-and-ladders escapade which is actually nothing more than an elaborate memory test. You trek through a couple of screens, get killed by a spike or bullet which appears from out of nowhere without warning, get sent back half-a-dozen screens, and do it all over again until you work out the timing.

Successfully negotiate one such trap and the next one's just a ladder's leap away, giving you another chance to get killed by something you couldn't have foreseen, and so it goes until you've reached, been killed by, worked out, and remembered every trick, at which point you've completed the thing.

While some of the puzzles are reasonably intriguing, Rick Dangerous stretches the definition of the word 'game' just beyond the limit of acceptability as far as I'm concerned. It's initially addictive, but after a few plays you realise that it's the same all the way through, and addiction swiftly turns to total frustration, and then the worst sin of all: The game bores me.

The Bottom Line

Tedious, repetitive, and annoying - it's about time the Rick Dangerous myth was laid to rest. To be fair, it's a passable budget game, but if you want a budget platformer, why not buy Scooby-Doo And Scrappy-Doo instead? It's in a different class.

Stuart Campbell

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