Game Over

Your Sinclair

Overall 52%

Jonathan Davies 52%

BARGAIN BASEMENT A bumper New Year collection of cheapie rubbish (whoops!) from that king of the skin-flints, Marcus Berkmann, and his preppy pauper (ha ha) Jonathan Davies. GAME OVER Summit £2.99 Reviewer: Jonathan Davies Slipping into the role of Arkos, a small flickery sprite with an incurable attribute problem, your task is to destroy the evil Gremla, a power-crazed empress. Not surprisingly, this involves battling from left to right through several action-packed screens. There's plenty of stuff to shoot, all the usual add-on weapons, but the execution is very poor. The colour-clash makes it very tricky to see what's going on at times, and Arkos seems to float around the screen in a manner which defies all the laws of physics. Difficulty is achieved simply by having loads of baddies attacking you at once. You don't stand a chance, and kicking the bucket means starting again from scratch. Not even worth buying for the cover piccie - it's been tragically modified.

Your SinclairYour Sinclair Megagame

Graphics 9/10

Playability 8/10

Value For Money 9/10

Addictiveness 9/10

Overall 9/10

Rachael Smith 9/10

When a megalomaniac tyrant queen threatens the galaxy there's only one person who can help... Rachael Smith. FAX BOX Game: Game Over Publisher: Ocean Designed By: Dinamic Price: £7.95 Reviewer: Rachael Smith What? Game over! You cannot be serious. Okay, some games are so tough you never make it past the first level, but when even the loading screen carries that fateful message... Well, they reckoned without the might of Rachael, who has right on her side. Actually, some of you may prefer not to get past the loading screen as it features the same Amazonian tottie in the skintight bikini who's had you slobbering all over the advertisements recently. But don't get too enamoured with Queen Gremla, because she's the sort of gal who doesn't just give a guy a hard time... she's got it in for whole galaxies. So quit drooling and get your hands onto your joystick - it's time to save the world. To be honest, the plot's unlikely to win any awards for originality. It's Green Bert in another galaxy as you run along, leaping levels and shooting anything and everything that approaches. But when it comes to play balance, Game Over wins hands down. That's not to say that it's easy. The aliens, pretty as they are, come thick and fast, and whenever you think you've mastered them there's something nasty lurking on the next screen, such as a great green giant who bounces around like a manic spacehopper! As well as the flying meanies there are floating platforms to help you cross chasms, unless you want to kiss the canyon floor. And there are red drums for when you feel like a bang but are running low on ammo. Beware though - those arsenals may contain other, less useful supplies! Finally, when you've run the gauntlet of the 20 screens which make up Hypsis, taking you from the depths of the dungeons to a waiting spaceship, you have to load more data and set off on a further chase and shoot session in the forests and palace of Sckunn. Gremla has done all she can to make life difficult for you - not to say short. She's even carpeted her palace with a mine field. Luckily your hero, Arkos, is a sprightly little sprite. Perfect in every tiny detail, as far I can tell, (the Spectrum's resolution wouldn't let me get really intimate) he can run, jump and crouch, and the animation has to be seen to be believed. He's provided with a choice of weapons, and you'll need to suss out the best way to use them against the enemy if you're even going to reach the half-way point. In part one Arkos has a rifle with unlimited firepower, plus a supply of grenades which come in useful for dealing with mobs or some of the bigger monsters. Part two sees him supplied with a giant laser which wastes everything that gets in its way but only has twenty-five shots. Again its useful to hold it in reserve for special circumstances, such as the final mega-challenge which involves the almost invulnerable Laser-Shooter. After all that you may feel you deserve a rest. Tough! Because if I kill Gremla first I know what I'm going to do. I'm stepping into her shoes even before the 'Tyrant wanted' card appears in the Job Centre!

128 Version Game Over will contain an enhanced 128K version on its B side, but as we were only able to see the standard game, all our marks are based on that.

Cleaning up Scum on Sckunn Thought that was hard? Well stay away from Skunn - it could give you a bad scare unless you've absorbed the info below... A stroll in the forest ain't all it's cracked up to be... particularly with the killer kangas on th rebound! Use the high level to cross the lake and watch where you're treading, because even the puddles will splash you back to the start. The palace is packed with lifts to make light work of gliding between levels, but don't tread on the red domes. They're mines (No, they're mines. Gremia) so prepare to hurdle! Make good use of your crouch facility while waiting for an elevator and shoot as you ascend to avoid any stray shots. Now how in hell did I get here? It's a closely guarded secret how to reach this closely guarded mound, but shooting up an innocent statue could pay dividends. Now you'll need the force field to reach the final stage... but only if you can work out where to take it.

Finders Keepers Shoot the drums in part one to find out what lies inside. Here's our easy I-spy guide! Grenades - restock so you can give the big guys a shock. Pow-Up - gives you better blasting and more destructive grenades. Field of Force - protects against collision and shots for a limited period, so move when you're shimmering from its effect. Energy Heart - floats off like one of those helium balloons. Grab it and it boosts your power. Mine - a nasty surprise that kills on contact. Jump it to survive. Gremla's Goons Shots from or collision with this gaggle of grotesques saps your strength. Here's a selection of the sadistic nasties. Flying GUARDIAN ROBOTS appear in the prison and zoom at Arkos. Easy to kill but nasty if they touch you. Troll-like GREEN MONSTERS sprout underfoot in the countryside. Blast them because a bump saps three points of strength. At the end of part one, the GIANT ROBOTS hang around as a welcoming committee. Avoid contact at all costs and save some grenades - they take twenty hits each! LEISER-FREISER's silly name could explain why these fireball hurlers have an attitude problem. It takes two hits to teach them a lesson. You didn't think that we were going to show you the LASER SHOOTER in all it gory glory, did you? You'll have to persevere if you want to see the ultimate monstrosity, which has to be dissassembled by 75 shots before it's finally dead!

GetHip to Hypsis Hypsis introduces all the major features of Game Over in an economical twenty screens. We've chose three to pinpoint the perils ahead. The first platforms float into your life on the third screen, so you'll just have to take one of your lives into your hands and leap. Remember to blast the drum on the ledge first, just in case it contains something useful... but be warned, because a bomb on the edge could prove impossibly impassable. Hi, big boy - glad to see me? Looks something like the Ed but this jolly green giant is twice as bouncy, and ten times as brutal. Too big to stick in the monster box so we've given him a screen to himself. Stick forty shots on Orko to proceed - grenades help. When he's dead you'll reincarnate here, on screen 11 Almost done, but there are some problems with these platforms. You have to time this very carefully, because the lifts tend to dip into the water which can wash away a life. Leap off the furthest edge of the second platform if you're to hit terra firma... or should that be terror firma as another shock awaits!

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

Sinclair User

Overall 5/10

Tamara Howard 5/10

Label: Imagine Price: £7.95 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Tamara Howard I did so want to like Game Over from Imagine. I hated the packaging so much that I really wanted to enthuse rapturously over the game. But I couldn't. I even found it hard to laugh at Game Over, and boy, is that serious. We begin with a left-to-right flipping affair, a space-age prison chock-a-block with robotic guards, apparently flying on legs of lamb. Or perhaps they're cylindrical vacuum cleaners. Anyway, the graphics being somewhat on the small side, it's not at all easy to tell, but they're v. peculiar all the same. Off you go, the hardy, fully equipped, but not overly bright Arkos, across twenty screens of flippin' good fun (eh, eh) across the hostile planet Hypsis, in order to gain the access code to the even more unpleasant planet of Sckunn in order to fight the evil queen. She of the infamous advert. The first two screens are dead easy. Just run along and shoot at the meaty guards. Should you see a barrel, shoot it. It could contain something nice, like extra weaponry, a new lease of life in the shape of a heart, or it could be a bomb, in which case, jump like crazy, you're going to die. It should be said now that you can't die merely through being shot. This is one of those games which provides you with an energy allowance at the beginning of the game, which is drained whenever you're shot, and which goes away completely if you touch a bomb or fall off the edge of a cliff. The third screen is far more difficult. A case of leaping across a void on to two platforms, which bob up and down, whilst being attacked by a throng of robots. It's even trickier than it sounds, and unbearingly frustrating because you keep falling off and dropping dead. Then it's Game Over for you sonny. If you do manage to leap across the void and take out a few more aliens, you come to a charming woodland scene. In screen shots these look pretty good. Nice mountains combined tastefully with big slob monsters. (You'll see what I mean.) But wait until they move. Ugh! Because alas Game Over is truly the home of Mr Attribute Clash. Monsters merge with Arkos, who, in an extremely slovenly way merges into anything that comes within his flight path. Not a pretty sight. So this is perhaps the only time that we can be grateful for the fact that the figures are so small. Game play is a redeeming feature, it's fast and frantic, multiple monsters swoop from all over the place firing wildly and zinging into Arkos, draining his energy, and sending him back to the beginning. However, death is a rather attractive event. Arkos disintegrates into little itsy-bitsy twinkling stars which waft away off the top of the screen. An appallingly whimsical display totally out of place within the context of the game. The nicest thing that can be said about Game Over is that it's a run-of-the-mill screen flipping sort of game that gives you a lot to shoot at and not a great deal else. It's simple to play - usual joystick or keyboard controls, but it's not overly enthralling, and the attribute problem is awful. Mostly a disappointment.

Crash

Presentation 73%

Graphics 57%

Playability 46%

Addictive Qualities 54%

Overall 55%

Mark Rothwell 45%

Nick Roberts 63%

Paul Sumner 56%

Producer: Imagine Retail Price: £7.95 Author: Dinamic Software Repulsed by the growing greed and powerlust of Queen Gremla, the warrior lord Arkos resolves to overthrow his monarch. Arkos begins his destructive quest in the dank arcades of the planet Hypsis, running and jumping through the flick-screen underworld, aided by lifts that take him to higher floors or provide moving stepping stones to the next screen. But if Arkos falls from one of these elevated platforms, he loses a life. (He starts with three.) Guardian robots ride the air firing at our hero, and laser-shooters aim at his body. Arkos has only limited energy to survive these assaults. For protection the warrior carries a blaster with unlimited fire power, and a stock of more powerful grenades. Whenever Arkos destroys robots or monsters he gains points. Eventually Arkos encounters red and white barrels, which he can destroy with three blasts. These then endow special powers upon him - energy hearts restore his flagging reserves, 'pow up' increases his fire power, and a force field offers protection from shots and collision. But be warned: some of the barrels conceal mines which kill at the slightest touch. Once through the prison chambers, Arkos must cross a swamp where he finds regenerating green monsters occupying a platform world, and deadly rocket ships which streak across the skies. If our blasting warrior successfully negotiates this monstrous flock he comes face to face with the towering bulk of the Giant Orko, who can with a JUMP and a THUMP squidge the very existence from Arkos's frame. So this overdeveloped creation must be ruptured by 40 shots - a grenade counts as four shots - before it goes to meet its maker. Then only the three giant robots remain, and they can be taken out with 20 well-placed shots each. But Arkos's adventure is far from over. Here Game Over moves to a second world, as Antos travels to the planet Sckunn to test his fighting skills in a forest land. (This second world loads separately, and can only be accessed with a code from the first half.) Now Arkos has a giant laser, with increasable fire power, instead of grenades, This he can use against the enemy Kaikas and secure his passage to his ultimate goal, the Palace Of Greco la herself. There he is confronted with further robots, fireball-shooting Leisers-Freisers, more lasershooters and finally the Giant Guardian. This personification of evil must be destroyed section by section with 60 carefully-aimed shots before it gives up its mechanical life. Only then has Arkos completed his quest. COMMENTS Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair Graphics: reasonable, though there's terrible colour clash Sound: spot FX Options: definable keys; two separately-loading sections

Queen Gremia could well be popping her greedy clogs if Arkos gets through the dense jungle terrain of Hypsis.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Graphics 7/10

Sound 5/10

Value 8/10

Playability 8/10

John Gilbert

MACHINES: Amstrad/CBM/Spectrum SUPPLIER: Imagine PRICE: £7.95 Spectrum, £8.95 Amstrad CPC/CBM, £12.95 Amstrad CPC/CBM Disk VERSION TESTED: Amstrad CPC A principal female character at last, but one, I suspect, launched as a cassette wrapper to appeal to the male eye. But what's this? This woman, named Gremla, is a cruel and powerful galactic ruler, a mega-villain to out-shine Darth Vader. The hero, yes you've guessed it, is a man called Arkos. He was Gremla's faithful Lieutenant but a sudden twinge of conscience has turned him into a super-goodie, determined to defeat the megalomanic obsession of his ex-boss. The final battle is played out on two levels and ladders worlds, the first called Planet Hypsis, the second Schkunn. You must dash across each, destroying Gremla's guardians on the way, and, on the final screen, defeat the Giant Guardian. Hypsis is a horizontally scrolling world of 20 screens, peopled with five types of alien robots and another five types of objects. On the first screen you meet the small, floating laser shooters, robots that'll shoot straight for your head and drain your ever decreasing power unless you put four laser bolts into them. To offset their deadly effects, shoot at the Energy Heart cylinder, grab the heart which floats away from its remains and take on the energy it contains. You'll need all that energy if you're to beat the second level which, when you first see it, you will think is unplayable. There are two level pads which move up and down in the middle of the screen. Jump to the first and then the second, but you must not hit the ground or you're turned into a mass of glittering vapour that floats away -and that's a life lost. If you pass this screen you'll have seen and solved the play format for the rest of the game. The levels change colour - blue to white - later in the game, and take on ladders in the middle of the map, but the method of moving from one end of the screen to the other is always the same. Only the guardian robots change. You soon encounter a massive guardian robot, a Dalek without an eyestick, which lobs huge energy bolts at you. Don't bother to stay around and destroy it. Just run across the screen in the vain hope that you'll retain all of your energy. Next up are the green monsters which you find on the metal platform and stone bridge screens. They represent no threat that I could see, and don't even look pretty. To combat all these forces you can pick up grenades on the ground and a nifty time you'll have to avoid the mines if you're ever to get to the second world. The Planet Sckunn scrolls vertically and horizontally, so the game play's more difficult. That said, your weapon, puny though it is on the first level, is upgraded so that it produces a never-ending stream of laser power and will destroy everything in its path. There are two stages to get through: The Forest and The Palaces. In The Forest there are lakes in which you'll drown as well a less-than-abundance of aliens. Admittedly you do get a creature called a Kaitas which takes two energy points from you when it hits you, but it can be downed with just one laser shot and doesn't represent much of a threat. The Palace screen is an improvement over The Forest, but only marginally. It's crowded with elevators which take you from one floor to the other. Once you're in one you mustn't move or you could die. There are also mines scattered on the floor, and four more types of aliens with which you'll have to deal. The aliens on this level shoot fireballs and you need to hit them four or five times before they're destroyed - not a difficult task with your super laser. The Giant Guardian at the end of the game, however, is another matter. Hit it 30 times and its wings disappear, 15 times and its body disappears, another 30 and its head vanishes. It's a devil to destroy and makes up for all the puny aliens in the other parts of the game.

AMSTRAD SCORES Graphics: 5/10 Sound: 6/10 Value: 7/10 Playability: 7/10