Eric & the Floaters

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Getting Started 9/10

Graphics 7/10

Value 7/10

Playability 6/10

MACHINE: Any Spectrum SUPPLIER: Sinclair PRICE: £5.95 This game from Hudson Soft is marketed under the official Sinclair label. Unfortunately, this game doesn't reach the high standards set by most of Sinclairs games in the past. In fact, it's another maze game. Like many other games before, you're lost in the ruins of human civilisation as we knew it. The inhabitants of the remains are called Floaters. Where they acquired this name I don't know. Maybe this tells us something about life in those times. In reality, the Floaters are small blobs of colour on the screen and they are deadly to our hero. His defence comes in the form of bombs. These can be primed at the press of a button (the space key, actually) and Eric then has about three seconds to get clear. If all is well, the Floater will wander helplessly into the path of the bomb and you'll be on screen two, if not, well there's plenty more bombs where that one came from. There are 20 screens to the game and the number of Floaters increases on each screen. If you are lucky then your bomb will dislodge some of the maze and you'll find something to your advantage underneath. This will be either a treasure chest or an exit. The treasure chest is worth extra points. Finding the exit, though, means that you can collect all the bonus points for the current screen but not progress on to the next screen. So you can pick up twice your points ration. The points system is calculated at random. It says so in the inlay card. A treasure chest is worth between 160 and 1260 points, while bursting a Floater with your bomb will net you anything from ten to 200. Movement in this game isn't ideal. Characters move only by a whole square at a time. The choice of keys for the keyboard option is badly thought out, although you can use a joystick if you wish. And if you have one. The Floaters don't normally have any intelligence. They will wander round the screen with no idea of where they're going. But occasionally they turn from purple to red, which means that they know where they're going. You can put this period to good use, as planting a bomb behind you will usually force an unsuspecting Floater into its path. A fairly average game, and maybe good for a few plays on a rainy day.

Sinclair Programs

June Mortimer

We look at the best and the worst releases in a month which offers new games from top software houses Fantasy and Ultimate. ERIC AND THE FLOATERS Eric and the Floaters is a very addictive game, involving moving round a maze, exploding sections of wall to collect treasure and finding the exit to another screen. Points can be gained slowly by collecting treasure, or quickly by bursting the deadly floating balloons as soon as possible and moving to the next more difficult level. Enjoyable though it is, the fact remains that it is a monsters-in-the-maze-type game. Sinclair software used to be state of the art, so why is the company now endorsing products which could have been produced early last year? Produced for the 48K Spectrum by Sinclair Research Ltd, [redacted] Price, £5.95.

Crash

Use of Computer 45%

Graphics 62%

Playability 58%

Getting Started 72%

Addictive Qualities 58%

Originality 62%

Value For Money 64%

Overall 60%

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Producer: Sinclair Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £5.95 Language: Machine code Author: Hudson Soft Eric and The Floaters sounds a bit like a pop group of the mid-Sixties; it also suggests an aerial game of some sort. Both guesses would be wrong, for this new game from Japanese Hudson Soft is an underground maze game. So the story goes: Hidden beneath the rubble of the Brick Lane (wherever they are) are the remains of a lost civilisation. Eric hopes to find part of them by blasting the rubble away with his bombs. But danger lurks in the Lanes, deadly inhabitants of the old system called The Floaters, will kill Eric it they touch him. He must destroy them using his bombs. The Floaters are normally purple, but occasionally, like any arcade player, they lose their tempers and get red in the face. In this state they tend to actually hunt Eric down instead of placidly floating around. The screen display is of a large and reasonably complex maze form, each maze screen being separate. In stage one there is only one Floater, but these increase in number as the game proceeds. Walls may be blasted away by the placing of bombs, especially as sometimes there are totally closed parts to the maze. Objects revealed after the dust has settled may be collected for points by running over them. Once all the floaters have been killed in a stage, the bonus points remaining from the original allowance at the start of the stage are added to your score. An element of strategy is required in the positioning of the bombs, which leave you about two and a half seconds before they explode. The game has 20 stages, during which the number of hidden items vary. COMMENTS Control keys: A or J/D or L left/right, W or I/X or M up/down, SHIFT or SPACE to drop bomb Joystick: ZX 2 Keyboard play: awkward key positions Use of colour: average Graphics: quite good, a bit jerky but your man 'folds' up well when killed Sound: above average Skill levels: 1 but progressive difficulty Lives: 3 Screens: 20 stages Originality: maze games aren't new, but this one is a very different theme

When you're lost and alone in a maze filled with Floaters, there's only one thing to do - explode a bomb.

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 6/10

FEEBLE FOUR FROM SINCLAIR ERIC AND THE FLOATERS Memory: 48K Price: £5.95 Joystick: Interface 2 ZIPPER FLIPPER Memory: 48K Price: £5.95 Joystick: Interface 2 DRILLER TANKS Memory: 48K Price: £5.95 Joystick: Interface 2 BUBBLE BUSTER Memory: 48K Price: £5.95 Joystick: Interface 2 Sinclair Research is continuing its policy of marketing games under licence with four new releases. Zipper Flipper by R.E-D Sunshine is a pinball program with a fruit machine feature included. You have to break down a wall of bricks with the ball to bring the fruit machine into play. The other three games are all by Hudsonsoft. Driller Tanks, which sounds like a video nasty, is a simple game of underground warfare, as you use your tank to prevent marauding monsters tunneling to the surface. Bubble Blaster is a slightly more interesting program in which you must burst bubbles with a ray gun before they land on you. Those three games all suffer from a very simple concept which has not been developed to provide any real variety during the play. The graphics on Bubble Blaster, though they could be better yet, are of higher quality than in the other two programs but are also the least complex when seen on the screen, even though they may be well-programmed. The fourth in the series, Eric and the Floaters, is clearly superior to the other three. Eric is attempting to explore a lost underground civilisation by planting bombs in a network of tunnels to clear blockages and reveal treasures. He is pursued by balloon-like Floaters, which also have to be killed with the bombs. The concept is again simple but in this case there are a number of hidden surprises which increase the enjoyment for the player out of all proportion to the extra trouble taken to program the refinements. To play the games with a joystick you will have to use Interface Two, or one of the programmable interfaces, as Sinclair is clearly not interested in supporting peripherals manufactured by other companies.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online