Commodore User


Slaygon
By Microdeal
Amiga 500

 
Published in Commodore User #56

Slaygon

Any experienced games player will immediately feel at home with Slaygon, as both the gameplay and the ideas have been used on more than one occasion previously. As with all Microdeal games I have played, Slaygon comes with an okay manual (though they must have made enough money by now to afford something a little more glossy), and yet another mini-novella.

In this case, the story runs that you have developed an all-powerful robot, and that it must reinstate law and order in the world in which you live. The screen is covered in little boxes, with a smallish window showing a three dimensional view of where you are within the maze you must wander around. This maze is in fact the area surrounding the main computer, which you must destroy.

The unfortunate thing about Slaygon is that it has all been done before. The actual game concept is very old, and while playing the game, there is little to illustrate the fact that you are using a 68000, quality graphics, stereo sound computer which is as yet unsurpassed in terms of price and performance.

Slaygon

When playing the game, you must wander about the maze (wonderful for any map makers amongst you, but very dull for people who want to actually explore and not simply spend hour upon hour drawing maps), looking for objects, collecting them, and eventually destroying the main computer. Within the maze there are a variety of doors, some locked and some not, which in turn contain a variety of useful and useless objects; ranging from lasers to little orangey-red balls which I can't get to do anything!

One point in favour of this game that I should mention is that it allows the user to make the most of the machine's multi-tasking, with the game sitting waiting for you to return while you go off to do a bit of real blasting.

The graphics are okay, but compare it to Ferrari Formula One's, or even some of the latest budget releases and they are definitely not up to scratch. Nor is the sound anything worth writing home (or wasting space here) about. What really lets the game down however (if the above is not enough) is the gameplay. Difficult to get into, unimpressive to play and exceptionally easy to get bored with.

Ian Frogasc