Previous Next

It isn't often a game appears that one would willingly play for hours on end. The last such games were the two from Ultimate. However, The Covenant from PSS is such a good game that you have to keep returning to it for another go. In essence it is really a drive round the maze and get the right objects sort of a game, but it goes much deeper than this. The first thing that sets this apart from some other run of the mill games is the size of the sprites and in particular, the character that you control and his craft. Every location is colourful to the point of being a little over the top and your vehicle occupies about four by four Mode 0 character squares - to call this big wouldn't begin to tell the story its absolutely ginormous. I will just mention the one small fault of the program at this point - that is that the movement of this huge sprite is not synchronised with the frame flyback (presumably because it couldn't be refreshed that quickly) so the net effect is that it does flicker a little when it is moved. I don't think, however, that this detracts from the game and can largely be ignored.

The 256 locations in the game are divided into 64 four room locations. Within each there will be one key, one 'antidote', one piece of a scroll and one energy point that will either replenish or diminish your remaining energy (a bit like the cauldrons in Sorcery). Your task is to first locate the antidote, which is then picked up by leaving the ship (at the press of the 'fire' button) and walking over it. Once it is in your possession, you may then fire at the particular type of nasty that inhabits this particular four room section. Early in the game, there is only one baddy per room (four in the whole four room block). But later on there may be up to three per room. If you hit one, he will fall to the ground stunned for a short while. Before he comes round, you must return to the ship, re-enter it (Fire button again) and drive over the helpless soul. He will then be sucked up into your cargo hold.

Having captured the baddies from all four locations in a section, you may then, with the aid of a key that will have been left lying in one of the four locations, go and pick up the piece of scroll - this is picked up -in the same way as the 'antidote' and the key were.

Picking up the scroll then unlocks any doors out of a section and replenishes your energy. The amount of energy and other helpful information can be shown at any time by switching to a second screen by hitting the space bar. The energy you have is shown by three pumping hearts that change colour as energy becomes depleted. It is very important to keep checking one's energy, as loss of all of it ends the game. Energy is drained by contact with the nasties, prolonged movement outside your craft and being hit by your own shots which ricochet off the walls. If the energy situation becomes desperate, the border changes from black to blue - at this point it is a good idea to get to the nearest positive energy point as soon as possible.

Every group of four rooms has its own type of baddy (64 in all) and each type has several frames of animation. Having completed a section, one must negotiate the interconnecting room to the next section these are all identical and have tongues of flame projecting horizontally from the walls, while acidic drops drip from the ceiling -contact with any of these gobbles energy at an alarming rate. One of the drawbacks I can see with the game is that the layout does not, change, so that once completed, it might lose some appeal.

Anyway, before I found the infinite energy POKEs, I never managed to get more than about a third of the way through and that was after many days trying. The current position may be stored on tape and later re-loaded as it would take several hours to complete the game at one sitting. As the pieces of scroll are collected, they fill in a small section of the whole scroll, which occupies most of the information screen. Only by completing the game is it possible to see the whole thing. which, like the rest of the game is very colourful and well designed.

In conclusion, I would not hesitate to go out and buy this game, it has certainly provided an old hack with as much entertainment value as any game lean remember.