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Welcome, one and all, to Five Games Five Minutes...
...from acornelectron.co.uk
KISSIN' KOUSINS is set in a quaint English village...
...and has no real plotline whatsoever.
You need to get your man, ...
...a dude who can run, jump and shoot...
...to meet his girlfriend on the other side of town.
To reach her, you must cover a number of screens...
...running from left to right, leaping dustbins, postboxes and bushes.
And that's the easy bit!
As you get nearer to your goal, the game unleashes kangaroos, ...
...demon toadstools, flying crabs, worms, long jumps...
...and fiendishly difficult layouts.
The game is responsive, and frighteningly addictive.
However, it's also extremely unfair.
The kangaroos and flying crabs particularly...
...have a nasty habit of appearing...
...at the exact moment you're about to clear the level.
This means that, in the small area at the extreme right of the screen, ...
...you can be picked off with no chance to defend yourself.
You get five lives to tackle the obstacle course -
Nowhere near enough!
- and each time you complete a screen, the next one is...
...scrolled on from the right.
This clever effect really lifts a game which is actually...
...only a few characters high.
Curiously, despite all of these flaws, you do keep coming back...
...to KISSIN' KOUSINS, time after time.
MOUSE TRAP is the type of game that will unite...
...everyone who plays it in feelings of hate!
You control a mouse, on a quest for Christmas puddings, ...
...scattered through 22 screens.
Each one more unforgiving than the last.
You move left and right and jump from platform to platform.
You must remember set sequences of moves...
...and plan your route carefully.
Because if you don't, you'll likely die a number of hideous deaths...
...or end up trapped in a section of the screen...
...from which you can't escape.
Graphically, this game has got a lot going for it.
A certain type of platform gives way when trod upon.
And, right from the very first screen, ...
...you need to stop bouncing around and apply your brain.
Just jumping around, hoping for the best, ...
...will never work.
The first level is difficult enough...
As levels increase, you do start to wonder whether...
...Chris Robson, the game's architect, wanted to drive people to...
...smash up their computers in frustration!
This game is crippled by the mechanics of play...
...which you cannot appreciate until you sit down and give it a go.
Alternatively, you could save yourself an aneurism...
...and give it a miss.
Oh dear.
Next up is LOONY LOCO, ...
...a collection of four completely unconnected subgames, ...
...each one as dreadful as the last.
The plot, such as it is, ...
...runs that an evil Baron has sabotaged the locomotive of the title.
So it's hurtling down a track at 100mph.
You're able to see some way ahead of you...
...and you need to alter the points on the track...
...to keep the locomotive safe.
Oh, and deal with about a million other things...
...happening at once as well!
On level two, for some bizarre reason, ...
...you're now on the roof, being attacked by barrels and arrows.
Then, on level three, you abandon all plans...
...and instead start trying to stop coffee cups falling off a table!
Why?! Well, that's for the game to know and you to find out!
I should also point out that no-one's quite sure as to...
...LOONY LOCO's legality.
Legality? Yes, bad though this game is...
...the first level only of it actually appeared first...
...under the title LOCOMOTION.
It's a shame that there isn't a prize going for crap...
...Acorn Electron computer games because, if there were, ...
...LOONY LOCO would definitely be in the running.
CYLON ATTACK is an arcade shoot-'em-up game...
...from the view of the cockpit of your space fighter.
The idea is that you have just been launched...
...from your mothership and you are cruising around the stratosphere.
You'll come across a variety of other ships -
...all of them unfriendly - and your own mothership.
There are four different kinds of ship to destroy.
On the first level, you'll meet two of these...
...but the more fiendish baddies are lying in wait on later levels.
You take out each ship by accurately positioning it...
...between the cross-hairs in the centre of the screen...
...and letting loose your laser cannon.
You need to be careful that it isn't able to shoot back though...
Well, at least not until you've got out of the way of its bullets!
You can choose from three types of key combination...
...and there's a great deal of skill involved...
...in the way you approach the menace...
...fire off the bullets, then move out of the way...
...of the retaliation bullets, BEFORE they hit your craft.
This game has a certain je ne sais quoi about it.
Some people find it dreary.
Others will sit and play it for hours on end.
It's put together well enough though...
...for everyone to make up their own mind.
This one graphic adventure was some two years in preparation...
...and frankly it's not difficult to see why.
THE LOST CRYSTAL is a graphical text adventure...
...or, if you prefer, a text adventure with graphics.
You're an adventure from the land of Zaloria...
...and you have to recover seven separate crystals...
...scattered around the lands around your home...
...with well over 400 different locations.
So you've got quite a task ahead of you!
As is usual in adventure games...
...you wander around using the commands NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, ...
...WEST and you can TAKE and DROP any items which you find.
You can ask characters to follow you by typing...
... SAY "FOLLOW ME" for example...
...and, in fact, some of the characters you meet are essential...
...to help you solve the puzzles.
The graphics are built up on screen with vectors...
...and this necessarily means you have to wait while they appear.
As the game is so large, it's inadvisable to turn these off...
...even though such an option exists...
...because without them it can be difficult to work out where you are.
All four levels of this game are amazing to play...
...even if you really don't go in for text adventures in general.
Subtitles by Subtitle Workshop