ACORN ELECTRON - FIVE GAMES FIVE MINUTES #24

Hello, everyone! And welcome to another episode of...
...Five Games Five Minutes from acornelectron.co.uk!!!
CLASSIC ARCADE GAMES.
SNAPMAN.
Looks classic enough.
ALIEN INTRUDERS.
Ditto.
PANZER ASSAULT.
Um, don't remember this from the arcade.
And... MAYDAY.
Now just hang on a moment.
This is a mother ....ing text adventure!
OK, total composure at all times.
SNAPMAN I have to confess I kind of like.
It's got the original 'Pac Man' sprites, ...
...even if it does have lines instead of dots.
And it zips around at a fair pace.
There are no obvious bugs.
It's about as playable as you might imagine.
ALIEN INTRUDERS is less playable.
The descending space invaders are difficult to shoot.
The number of bullets they rain down upon you...
...also means you spend far too much time hurriedly retreating.
When there's only one invader left, you REALLY have difficulty...
...picking him off - and being killed by him is very frustrating.
PANZER ASSAULT is an overhead maze game.
In it, you patrol a maze in a tank shooting other tanks.
This is about as boring as a game could get.
No variety. No different maze layouts.
Just very long periods with nothing to do except wait.
And, of course, MAYDAY.
Do I even need to say anything more?
INERTIA is one of those games that few people have actually played.
And that's a shame...
...because it's really fantastic.
You control a craft within a high-quality...
...monochrome 3D environment.
You use the standard keys to move, but you need to gauge...
...heights, gradients, distance and velocity at the same time.
It's a bit like ski-ing.
There are sections of the maze that need to be tackled...
...slowly and carefully - and others where you tackle them like a bobsled team.
You're looking for black tiles, which sounds very unexciting.
The tiles however, aren't just collectables but also are extra lives.
And, believe me, you are going to need all the lives you can find...
...because this game is a real challenge.
When you bite the dust, as you frequently will, it's usually...
...because you temporarily forgot one of the basic rules of play.
Just stop and think before racing in and out of different rooms.
Apparently, this game gets tougher the further into the maze you progress.
I'm currently no further than the first thirty rooms.
But this game does seem to please on all levels.
Recommended.
VINDALOO is a platform game from Kevin Blake and Jason Sobell.
The title VINDALOO is a pun on "FINDALOO".
Find. A. Loo. Get it?
That's your objective - to find the loo in an Indian curryhouse.
There are only two controls - left and right - and you drop...
...through sections of floor- ing where no platform exists.
This is helpful, and allows you to take some shortcuts.
However, a word of warning:
VINDALOO is merciless.
The first few screens are cleared quite easily...
...but later screens, and there are 22 of them in total, ...
...depend on remembering very complicated move combinations.
A pixel out or a milli- second off-target...
...and you're splattered more quickly that you can say dead.
The design quality of the game is good, ...
...with colourful screens, individual titles and some genuinely exciting moments.
It's very, very similar to Icon's BUG EYES.
In fact, it's by the same authors.
But the screens are VERY different.
If you make it to the toilet without cheating, ...
...then your dexterity really should be put to better use!
IMPACT is a Gary Partis game, and it's based on the ARKANOID...
...bat and ball formula.
There are a number of these types of game for the Electron, ...
...each having its own peculiarities.
IMPACT runs in a window on the left-hand side of the screen...
...with a score and status panel on the right.
Each time you launch the ball into a block, the block disappears.
Sometimes it will drop a token.
You can collect the token and buy a power-up from the nine on offer.
These include the regular ball-split functions, sticky-bat, ...
...slow-mo effect and laser gun.
Others are included too.
Such as a powerball, missiles and a smartbomb.
So far, so good.
Tragically however, IMPACT has one fatal flaw.
The bat is just TOO narrow.
On many of these types of game, you can send the ball ricochetting...
...at different angles depending on where it strikes the bat.
With a bat this small, the ball ALWAYS seems to deflect...
...at the same angle at which it struck.
Or it misses the bat entirely.
This small oversight RUINS what could have been...
...a blockbuster title.
LAZER REFLEX is a little-known title from Talent Computer Systems.
Your mission is to protect four silos at the bottom of the screen.
A number of space invader drones descend from above.
First they pummel through the shells surrounding the silos...
...then they start to siphon the fuels out of the silos themselves.
When all four silos have been drained, ...
...you lose a life.
You control a laser cannon which you can move left and right...
...above the silos.
When you fire, the laser beam hits a concave mirror...
...and flies out at an angle from ten to eighty degrees.
You have to try to wipe out the descending drones...
...by working out the angle at which you want your beam to fly...
...and then position the cannon in such a way that...
...the shot flies out at that angle.
Whilst this is a very interesting concept, ...
...it doesn't really make for very engaging gameplay.
I don't know why.
Perhaps your brain is so busy THINKING...
...that you cannot really get into the game proper?
I tired of this very quickly.
Subtitles by Subtitle Workshop