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Welcome to another episode of...
...Five Games in Five Minutes, from acornelectron.co.uk
BUG EYES, or SPACE AGENT ZELDA MEETS them...
...depending on who you purchased it from, ...
...is a platform game with two controls only.
Left and right.
You have to get from the top left corner...
...to the bottom corner of each screen...
...avoiding everything that moves.
The graphics are very detailed, and the game is done in the Acorn...
...Electron's highest resolution mode.
Despite the lack of controls, this game's also quite engaging.
There's both pixel-perfect positioning...
...and mad dashes that Indiana Jones would be proud of.
Used in combination, you can beat these first few screens quite easily.
It's a shame, then, you can't play ANY screen that you wish...
...in order to hone your skills on it...
...but you can't.
You have to play through every single preceding screen...
...to reach the one that you can't get past...
...just to be able to try it again.
This provides something of a challenge...
...but it's an obvious disadvantage.
Nevertheless, with enough practice...
...or, more likely, emulator Save States, ...
...you'll be able to reach the generator and power down the craft.
Wow!
OMEGA ORB is one of the cutest-looking games on the Electron.
You're a bouncing sales-droid with eyes...
...on an interplanetary cruise liner...
...where all hell has broken loose.
You have to bounce around...
...blasting all of the colourful creatures that teleport in...
...to do you ill.
At the same time, you're expected to collect the items...
...scattered around the liner, to solve a bigger puzzle.
You start the game carrying nothing.
You pick up any item by bouncing on to it.
Although this has got a much better 'arcade' feel to it...
...than pressing a key, it quickly becomes quite irritating.
It's too easy to bounce off with the wrong item!
You start the game in a number of different ways.
Generally, it's advisable to scoop up as many of the...
...twelve "core" pieces as you can find.
Bring them to a computer, and then type USE to get rid of them.
After that, you'll need to enable the teleport grid...
...so you can start to use the teleporters...
...littering the liner, to explore the further areas...
...and gather the rest of the "core" pieces.
OMEGA ORB is a very professional title.
...but the game is far too hard to persevere with.
Definitely worth checking out!
HOBGOBLIN is a sideways- scrolling arcade game...
...where you move ever onward to recover a sacred orb...
...stolen from your village.
You'd better steel yourself for the trip too...
...because you've only got three lives...
...and the game isn't taking any prisoners.
You have to deal with skeletons, ...
... ghouls, birds, flies and some sort of charging bull thing...
...all of them fatal to the touch.
Some of them are also equipped with their own weapons.
So watch out!
Typical puzzles involve learning jump-and-pause motions...
...and then timing them with pixel-perfect accuracy.
Once you've learned them, crossing a screen takes only...
...a few seconds.
IN learning them, you'll use up literally zillions of lives.
Dead enemies leave behind glowing bonuses...
...which can increase the range or strength of...
...your current weapon.
Collecting three skulls also gives you an extra life.
Rather oddly, there doesn't really seem to be any...
...increase in difficulty as the game continues.
It's just permanently tough-going.
If you like an arcade machine style challenge, this is one of the best.
PIPEMANIA is a monochrome arcade game...
...demanding quick thinking, and quicker reactions.
You're given a 10 x 7 grid...
...with a pipe-end somewhere in it.
You need to lay puzzle pieces...
...TETRIS-style in a path, so that the liquid from this pipe...
...runs through them for a certain distance.
To complicate matters, the puzzle pieces arrive...
...in an illogical order.
You can't pause the game, so you have to think quickly...
...and instead, try to lay those that don't fit in with your plan...
...somewhere where they won't get in the way.
Plans are made to be broken too.
You often need to discard them if the pressure is on.
As levels increase, you get blocks obstructing some parts of the grid...
...and reservoirs that slow down the liquid as it enters them.
You also get One Way Only puzzle pieces...
...taxing the old grey matter yet again.
Every four levels, you get a password...
...right up until the last set of levels...
...which you probably need to be a member of MENSA to complete.
You also get these nice bonus levels...
...whereby you drop pieces from an overhead crane.
PIPEMANIA was a best-seller...
...and it remains very playable to this day.
CRYSTAL CASTLES' publicity boasts that it's an "amazing game".
It's a 3D maze game by Atari...
...in which you control Bentley the Bear.
The crystals litter the floor of each castle...
...which is built-up on screen for your, um, entertainment.
There are 18 castles in total to complete.
There are a number of baddies also in residence too.
These also pick up crystals...
...which means that each level is a 'sort of' race.
You get a bonus if Bentley collects the last remaining...
...crystal on any screen.
Something that is nice about this game is that...
...many of the baddies can be killed...
...but they all have to be killed in different ways.
Gem-eaters - the green things that look like vertical centipedes...
...these are killed by running into them mid-gulp.
Berthilda the witch, on the other hand, ...
...requires you to pick up a magic hat and then run into her.
The trees can't be killed...
...but jumping over them will turn them back into seedlings...
...and force them to grow again.
Other baddies have to be avoided.
Nevertheless, CRYSTAL CASTLES is far from being the "great game" it claims.
The trouble is that it's far too easy.
I ran through all eighteen levels without losing a single life.
This means that, despite its own delusions of grandeur, ...
...there's no incentive to come back for any more.
Subtitles by Subtitle Workshop