Previous Next

The three 'bookware' packs which comprise the Trilogy are concerned with the threat to Earth of the reptilian Korth civilisation.

Escape from Arkaron is accompanied by a cassette with three programs on it; Testrun, which is the program of a Simulator developed for a faster-than-light spacecraft called Space Drive 1 which features heavily throughout the trilogy; Prisoner where you have to free a fellow Interplanetary Patrol member, and Raid.

Testrun is a low graphic, poor BASIC program which is basically just very tedious. Raid is a non-real-time arcade-type game (imagine trying to play Jetpac by inputting up to six moves ahead). Besieged! is where the Korth use robot space craft to lay siege to the Solar system.

Parts of this book must be tongue in-cheek, as they are quite hilarious. For example, Professor Heron explaining the current crisis says:

"There are certain similarities with some of the languages we have used. The point is, we have definitely found the GOTO command..."

"So... you can sabotage the programs by writing in closed loops!" burst in Xenia.

"Exactly," said the Professor, smiling. "We write in lots of lines saying 100 GOTO 100, 3000 GOTO 3000 and a few that send the program back to some line at random".

Captain Berry was a simple soldier and didn't understand.

"But why not just destroy the command post?" he asked.

The three accompanying programs are: Simulator, Landfall, and Alpha. Landfall is a Lunar Lander type program which starts off easily enough but gets progressively harder as your craft develops fuel leaks, and you lose part of your controls. A nice rendering of an old favourite but even this program is spoilt by bugs.

Into The Empire is where Earth tries to turn the tables on the Korth, and is accompanied by three programs: Fog, Oldren and Empire. Will they succeed in their quest? Will Earth be saved? Does anyone care?

The programs are slow BASIC ones, one or two are good, but the majority are not really of commercial standard, and are simply boring. The books are probably good for a few hours entertainment for younger children. But I wouldn't go out and buy this one myself.