Hellfire

ZX Computing

Instructions 95%

Presentation 100%

Addictability 100%

Value For Money 100%

ZXC Factor 10/10

David Howard 10/10

Melbourne House £7.95 This is the game I have been waiting for. I have not had so much excitement in all my life. A wonderful game. Steady on you might say, have you got shares in Melbourne House? Isn't this going a bit heavy AND before the game has been properly reviewed? Perhaps, yes, but HELLFIRE is a game that requires skill, concentration and nimble fingers and is the same as a 30 year old finding out what it is like to play space invaders for the first time. There are three tasks that have been set upon you by the gods, and you must complete all three to show your worthiness. My first task is the easiest, but requires a lot of initial thought. Once done, it appears to be quite easy. I suggest, switch off the computer, have a five minute break, and try again. It is still frustratingly difficult to... To what? The idea is to climb the ledges and arrive at the cave entrance. You jump from ledge to ledge avoiding the falling boulders, but one slip could quite easily see a life lost. Having completed the first task and given yourself a pat on the back, task two immediately arrives. You are in a sacred temple inside the mountain that you have just entered. Minotaurs are on guard and the idea is to reach the top right pillar to get to the next level. The fun comes when running from pillar to pillar as you are transported to another part of the temple and you have to crack the right combination to reach the exit. An added bonus was the springboard, which you can use to reach different levels. The third and final task is to find your way through the maze and locate the exit. Your mace will kill any attacking monsters and break down the exit. The graphics in this game are faultless and so is the game.

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 7/10

John Gilbert 7/10

HELLFIRE Melbourne House Price: £6.95 Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair It is surprising that nobody thought of producing a game based upon the trials of Ulysses a long time ago. Hellfire takes you from the hills at the entrance of a sacred temple, past the minotaurs which guard its inner sanctum and through a complex adventure maze where you are continually hounded and your only weapon is a mace. The game involves three distinct tasks each of which leads into the next. On the first level you must jump onto hills, avoiding boulders and the stony stare of Medusa. Once inside the temple you must use the trampoline to move nearer the top of the screen and dodge in between the pillars to avoid the minotaurs. Each pillar will transport you to a different level of the screen until you get the sequence correct and enter the door at the top of the temple into the labyrinth where the fireball thrower and the reptilian assassin await your arrival with glee. The small degree of skill needed to complete the first level is sure to turn players off fairly quickly. If the early levels had been more difficult to complete its graphics and plot would have made it a candidate for a number one spot in the charts.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Your Computer

Overall 4/5

Paul Bond 4/5

Spectrum 48K Melbourne House Arcade Adventure. £6.95 Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. Melbourne House's part in this universal scheme of things is to produce "Hellfire", a game which purports to be based on the trials of Ulysses. We start out with hill trials where, stabbing deftly at the Q,S,A etc keys you help the hard-pressed Greek hero negotiate the slopes of Olympus. Falling boulders conspire to reduce him to the consistency of a plate of squashed moussaka - then he has to duck the stony stare of the repulsive Gorgon. After this he finds himself in the temple of Knossos - nowadays beset no doubt by minor tourists, but then plagued by minotaurs - almost as bad, but not nearly as contrived as this last pun. Strong graphics, comparable with those in the definitive Tir Na Nog, but this program is rather more arcade than adventure, if you follow my drift. On the final screen you must locate the exit and use your mace to kill monsters and break exists open. Extra maces can be found in the chests scattered throughout the maze.

Your Spectrum

Dave Nicholls 2/5 MISS

Roger Willis 1/5 MISS

Ross Holman 3/5 HIT

JOYSTICK JURY From their bench on high, our regular panel of jurors - Ross Holman, Roger Willis and Dave Nicholls - pass judgement on the latest and greatest games software! Here they are again - that motley bunch of joystick jockeys, ready and waiting to sift through the plethora of software to help you make that important decision! WARNING! Just in case you find our scoring system too confusing, here's what it's all about. The score out of five at the end of each person's review is based on their own experience of the game. But that's pretty subjective... so they also use the HIT and MISS system to indicate its potential as a commercial success. HELLFIRE Melbourne House £6.95 Roger: "Re-enacting the trials of Ulysses" through the good offices of arcadia should be cerebral and poetic, 'cos when Ancient Greeks did their derring-do, even a punch-up outside the boozer was worth about 48K of epic verse. But somewhere in this knockabout translation of stupendous and stirring stanzas into mundane machine code, excitement is lost and cultural dilution occurs on the same scale as the day you discover that doner kebabs contain nothing more than reconstituted donkey lung! On-screen odysseys involve hopping up hummocks and dodging dangerous debris, to enter a sacred temple lurking inside the mountain. Erratic keyboard control suggests that our hero has already been at the Retsina. Once indoors, sneaking past terminal minotaurs by nipping from pillar to pillar is the business, followed by a maze in which monsters can be bonked on the bonce. It took the 'real' Ulysses a fair few years of frenzied and fantastic fisticuffs to fight his way home to mum. Try to be a bit quicker, or you'll end up pulling the plug with boredom, as I did. There again, I'm only a legend in my own lunchtime...

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Graphics 7/10

Sound 7/10

Value 7/10

Playability 7/10

MACHINE: Spectrum/keyboard or joystick SUPPLIER: Melbourne House PRICE: £6.95 Hot on the heels of Gift from the Gods comes another game with its theme set firmly in the heart of Greek mythology. You must re-enact the trials of Ulysses as he seeks to prove his worth to the Gods - who are a tough bunch if this game is anything to go by! The game features three levels or "tasks". The first task involves climbing the slopes Mount Olympus, home of the Gods, while avoiding tumbling boulders and the gaze of the Gorgon, which can prove quite deadly. Ulysses must use his shield to protect himself from the Gorgon's glare. Once through the cave entrance at the top of the slopes you'll find yourself in the temple of Knossos, packed full of minotaurs and an evil reptile creature called the Assassin - who attempts to practise his art on you! If you manage to negotiate the minotaurs, the fireballs and reach the maze - which features Ant Attack style graphics - you are well on your way to reaching th Elysium Fields where you'll be able to rest for a while! However the maze is packed full nasties and Ulysses must fight them off using his mace. No easy task. Hellfire is an interesting development of the platform game. It features nice graphics and a pretty good line in playability. However, I found the game difficult to get into. Climbing up the Olympian slopes is no easy task, but if you are a platform fan and like a challenge, take a look at Hellfire.

Sinclair Programs

Rating 70%

Colette McDermott 70%

PRICE: £6.95 GAME TYPE: Arcade The incongruity of the combination of literary epic and computer game appears to appeal to software houses. Melbourne House have taken up this genre once again with the release of Hellfire, a computerised version of the trials of Ulysses. The first screen sees you, as Ulysses, jumping from slope to slope up to the top of Mount Olympus, avoiding the bouncing boulders which fall from time to time. If you delay your ascent for too long, the Gorgon will appear at the top of the screen and start giving you dirty looks, so it is best to move quickly. Classical Donkey Kong, whatever next? Next is an extremely original screen, you move into a maze-like sacred temple. It looks simple to negotiate, but running behind the first pillar brings you out on the fourth floor, and trying to run back again transports you to the third floor. To make matters worse, a minotaur, apparently oblivious to the maze-like qualities of the place, is charging around the first floor, and another one is likely to appear if you hang around for too long. Your route is likely to tend toward the circular unless you bear in mind that the temple door mat can be used as a springboard. Having passed through the Temple of Knossos you then pass onto another maze which, this time, is inhibited by the reptilian Assasin and the Fireball Thrower. Solve this maze and you can join your friends in the Elysium Fields and make it into the ranks of the superhero gods. Great fun, although probably slightly too easy for experienced arcade game players, Hellfire is produced for the 48K Spectrum by Melbourne House, [redacted].

Crash

Use of Computer 71%

Graphics 85%

Playability 73%

Getting Started 69%

Addictive Qualities 66%

Value For Money 68%

Overall 72%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Melbourne House Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £6.95 Language: Machine code Author: Greek mythology seems to have become a computer game vogue just recently, what with Ocean's Gift from the Gods and now this new game from Melbourne House in which the player re-enacts the trials of Ulysses. This three-stage game has the player guiding the ancient Greek hero up the slopes of Mount Olympus, whilst avoiding falling boulders and the stony stare of the Gorgon. Then he has to outwit the minotaurs in the Temple of Knossos and finally avoid being trapped in a maze with a Reptilian Assassin and a Fireball Thrower. The ancient Greeks were a fun-loving lot and would probably have approved of the violence in computer games. In Hellfire you effectively have three very different one-screen games. They have different graphics and require a different sort of thinking and arcade skill. On the first screen the hills are described rather as a child might draw them and Ulysses can run and jump to get from hill top for ledge) to hill top. He can only stand on the darker bits. Meanwhile boulders bound down the hills threatening to knock him off. Occasionally a Gorgon, possessed of the power to turn men to stone with a single stare, will appear and Ulysses must raise his shield to reflect her gaze. Getting safely to the top sends you into the second screen, a temple made of three tall columns and three levels plus the floor. The exit is at the top but the way is blocked by dashing minotaurs. Running behind a pillar transports you to another floor and another pillar. The trick is to discover the correct route without getting speared by a nasty. Fortunately there is an ancient Greek trampoline which enables you to jump to any level. The third screen is a scrolling 3D maze from which you must find the exit. You can use a mace to kill your opponents and more maces can be found in chests scattered through the maze. The maces can also be used to smash open exits. Incidentally, the cover of this game has been designed by Steinar Lund, on whom we carry an article in this issue. COMMENTS Control keys Q/S,A up/ down, I,O,K,L/P,ENTER left/right, Z-V raise shield, B-SPACE jump Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair 2 Keyboard play: responsive, although a bit of a handful in tight spots on screen 1 Use of colour: very simple Graphics: excellently drawn and animated Sound: none Skill levels: progressive Lives: 5 Screens: 3

Screen one with a striding Gorgon at the top, a boulder half way down and a stationary Ulysses looking puzzled at the bottom.

The second screen from HELLFIRE. Ulysses is the one flying in the air after being hit by a rampaging minotaur.

Personal Computer News

Overall 6/10

Mike Gerrard 6/10

PRICE: £6.95 PUBLISHER: Melbourne House [redacted] Return to the days of brave Ulysses and do battle with the Gorgon and the Minotaur in this three-in-one arcade game from Melbourne House, which should know all about the classics, after publishing some of them. This isn't quite in that league, and has good points and glaring faults - for instance, you're not told it's compatible with Kempston and Interface II till it's loaded, which makes for some confusion. There's also no pause facility or wait between games, and as you're required to do different things with different controls on each of the three screens you find yourself initially losing lives while scrabbling to find the cassette cover for instructions. Screen one is a Greek Donkey Kong - bound up the slopes of Mount Olympus and avoid falling boulders. You leap from ledge to ledge heading for a cave at top right, and once you've worked out the route it's none too difficult, provided you judge just where to take off from before you leap. It's eerily silent, too, like all three screens, the second of which counts as a pretty silly game. You make your way from bottom left to top right by running behind pillars. Go behind one from the left and you emerge on the right-hand side of a different pillar, so your aim is to discover which left-hand pillar brings you out from behind the pillar next to the exit. You can bounce between floors thanks to an ancient Greek trampoline at one side of the screen, and must also avoid the Minotaur on the bottom level. Take too long and another appears. Naturally each screen is harder as you go round and round through the game. The third screen is toughest, an Ant Attack style maze where you mash monsters with your mace and search for the exit. I soon found the first two screens tedious, and wished I could start on this one each time. Good graphics on all three, but this one's definitely not a Melbourne House classic.