Hercules: Slayer of the Damned

ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)

Ace Rating 339/1000

Andy Smith 339/1000

Gremlin's mythical game. Subtitled "Slayer of the Damned'. You play the muscle-bound hero of Greek mythology and you've got 12 labours to complete. Well, you've actually got to hit (with your club) 12 icons that appear sequentially on-screen, whilst trying to survive being attacked by a skeleton. The graphics and animation are poor, the gameplay's just as bad and to cap it all it's boring. Hercules is not one of Gremlins better games Reviewer: Andy Smith RELEASE BOX Spec, £7.99cs, £12.99dk, Out Now Ams, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Out Now MAX, £7.99cs, Out Now Predicted Interest Curve 1 min: 55/100 1 hour: 45/100 1 day: 40/100 1 week: 20/100 1 month: 10/100 1 year: 0/100

Your Sinclair

Graphics 6/10

Playability 3/10

Value For Money 3/10

Addictiveness 5/10

Overall 4/10

Jonathan Davies 4/10

Gremlin Graphics £7.99 Reviewer: Jonathan Davies Being a YS reader, and therefore a classicist at heart, I'm sure you'll be well aquainted with the legend of Hercules. No? Well I won't bore you with all the details. But in short, hercules (muscles, head-band and all the rest) was an ancient Greek who had to complete twelve labours, set as punishment by the King of Argos. And they weren't that easy, either. However, none of this seems to have any relevance to the actual game, Hercules, as Gremlin seems to have abandoned what could have been quite an interesting plot and presented us with something which, apart from the beefy bloke and the number twelve, has little to do with any legend I've ever heard of! As you'll probably have gathered from the screenshot, assuming it's in the right place this time (very droll, Ed), Hercules bares a startling semblance to a well-known martial arts game from a few years back, and about 59236911045 other games since. And what's more, rather than having to tackle a wide range of weird and wonderful mythical creatures, you get a skeleton with a big chopper (fnar), plonked in front of you. Hit it with your weapon (double fnar), a few times ( well, about 298235567 times actually), and it'll die, just as another one appears. The rest you can probably guess. I'll just say that it happens twelve times (one for each labour, you see), and it's extremely boring. To make things a bit more interesting, no, bad word, different, a snake wriggles along the bottom of the screen and your blows are only effective while the skeleton's above it. Also there's a giant spider that drops down from above and tries to steal the skeletons. Add a minotaur at the end, and what've you got? Bizarre stuff! Worse still, if that's at all possible, is that what little game content there is here, plays like a comatose underwater footballer with both his legs in plaster. The controls are awkward and not particularly responsive, the animation is jerky, the sound stinks and the whole thing probably wouldn't keep a sloth amused for more than a couple of minutes. A bit of a 'nana, this one. At budget level it would have been pretty grotty, but at full price it doesn't have a hope. And from Gremlin, too! Shocking, I call it.

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

The Games Machine

Overall 44%

Spectrum Cassette: £8.99, Diskette: £12.99 Commodore 64/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99 IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME The Spectrum version of Hercules is credited to two people: Des O'Toole for coding and Cheryl handling graphics. The Commodore version, by contrast, enjoys a veritable horde: John Tometzki (programming) Andy Morton (music), Norman Illings and Bob Hawker (graphics), while design needed Nicholas Mills, John Tometzki and Des O'Toole. Collectively all these people help make up Cynus Software. Hercules, son of Zeus the Olympian king of gods, and the man famous for his 12 impossible tasks, joined Jason for many adventures in search of the Golden Fleece. As one of Jason's Argonauts he fought against a horde of skeletons, and it is this battle which the game celebrates. You (Hercules) fight one skeleton after another - while simultaneously attempting to collect all 12 Herculean Tasks, represented by glowing icons falling from the top of the screen. To collect the Tasks, Hercules hits them with his club. When he has them all he can then go on to his final confrontation with Nessus, a massive centaur. The weapons are club, fists and feet. In true Barbarian fashion eight combat moves are accessed with fire pressed, all given names such as Mountain Shaker and Pluto's Messenger. There's even an overhead blow much like the decapitation move in the Palace game, but it can be a source of irritation since pushing up without fire pressed turns Hercules to face the other way. A more original touch is the magical ability of the creatures which can only be harmed when standing over a writhing snake depicted at the bottom of the screen. When Hercules is doing well the snake shortens, if he's losing, it helpfully lengthens. To further complicate matters a spider descends from the screen's top to steal already collected Labours. Hercules must hit the spider to stop this happening. All the Aegean mythological fun fails to stimulate; the games based on a tired formula and fails to bring anything new or excitingly different to the genre.

Hercules trying to find the key to defeating the skeleton - Spectrum screen.

Thank the Gods the enemy is not a Majortaur - Commodore screen.

"...based on a tired formula, the Aegean mythological fun fails to stimulate..."

COMMDORE 64/128 Overall: 47% Hercules has three lives and his 12 Labours are helpfully shown on screen, winking out when they're completed. In addition each combatant has his own energy bar. All these factors help make this version easier and a touch more enjoyable than the Spectrum game.

OTHER FORMATS Conversions are planned for Amstrad: cassette £9.99, disk £14.99, MSX: cassette £7.99 and Atari ST: disk £19.99.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Graphics 7/10

Sound 6/10

Value 7/10

Playability 7/10

Overall 7/10

Paul Boughton 7/10

MACHINES: CBM 64/Spectrum/Amstrad SUPPLIER: Gremlin Graphics PRICE: £9.99 CBM 64, £7.99 Spec VERSION TESTED: CBM 64, Spectrum Ye gods! Let's shake, rattle and roll dem dry bones and make it a slay day. Gremlin tries its luck with Hercules - Slayer of the Damned at a Barbarian-ish clone. But Hercules is a hit and myth affair which lacks the glamour, sound effects, graphical superiority and brilliant playability of Barbarian. However it's not a bad little bash, thrash, drub and club game. Here's the bare bones of the plot. Hercules, son of Zeus, has to complete 12 tasks. Yes, you guessed it, the twelve Labours of Hercules, Now this is not as complicated as it seems. Playing the part of Hercules. armed with a club as well as a fists and feet, you battle away at sabre waving skeletons. Above and below the action are symbols representing the labours. Every so often a small puff of smoke appears on the screen and, if you manage to hit it with your club, you gain one of the labours. Collect all twelve and you move into the ultimate confrontation battle with the minotaur. But several things stand in the way of collecting the labours besides the skeleton fighters. I found it very difficult to collect them. There I was thrashing away at the little puffs of smoke with little or no effect. And then when I did manage to collect a few this spider keeps popping down and whipping them back. The fight action itself is fairly fast and the moves fairly limited. Some are given silly names such as Mountain Shaker, Titan's Gift and Pluto's messenger. The most deadly appears to be Mountain Shaker which allows you to knock off the skeleton's head. The sound is awful, making the blows have the all the impact power of a ping pong ball on water. Personally, I never did make it to the final confrontation with the Minotaur. However you can see a demo of the battle so you know what's in store. Whether you decide it's worth going for is up to you. The trouble with these combat games nowadays is that the standards are now very high. Just think of The Way of The Exploding Fist, International Karate and Barbarian. Things just keep getting better. And if you can't top those for quality, then price has to be a big factor. Hercules doesn't have any rear new dimension to it in the quality stakes and it isn't cheap enough to make it a real star buy. Still, beat 'em ups are always popular, and Herky-boy is such a great character that he sort of deserves a good game based around him, even it this ain't it. It will be interesting to see how it does in the charts.

Hercules - the beast must die.

Conversions of Hercules are coming for the Atari ST (£19.99), Amstrad (£9.99) and MSX (£7.99).

Crash

Presentation 60%

Graphics 75%

Playability 50%

Addictive Qualities 52%

Overall 54%

Kati Hamza 48%

Nick Roberts 60%

Phil King 54%

Producer: Gremlin Graphics Retail Price: £7.99 cassette, £12.99 disk Author: Des O'Toole As all mythology buffs know, Hercules was the illegitimate son of Zeus by the mortal woman, Alcmene. Zeus' wife, Hera thus hated Hercules and forced him to kill his own children while bewitched. When he recovered, he felt so much remorse that he vowed to do anything to make amends for his sin. The Gods sent him to the King of Argos who gave him 12 difficult tasks to complete: the Labours of Hercules. The object of the game is to collect these Labours while fighting off a sword-carrying skeleton. When a Labour appears, Hercules hits it to send it flying into his urn. Occasionally a spider descends in an attempt to steal one of his Labours, and is despatched by a successful blow. Several moves are available to Hercules and these are accessed in the usual manner using combinations of joystick directions with and without fire. If Hercules collects all 12 Labours he then faces the mighty Minotaur (loaded separately on the 48K).This overgrown moo-cow is armed with a trident and deadly horns with which he tries to gore Hercules. If this final opponent is overcome the game is won and a Greek victory message appears. COMMENTS Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair Graphics: large and detailed, with a colourful background. Terribly slow animation Sound: white noise spot effects only Options: minotaur demonstration

Sinclair User

Graphics 79%

Sound 64%

Playability 35%

Lastability 20%

Overall 73%

Tony Dillon 73%

Label: Gremlin Author: Cygnus Software Price: £7.99/£12.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: Various Reviewer: Tony Dillon For all you out there who don't actually know, Hercules is a Greek mythological character who was the son of Zeus, big man up Mt Olympus. Gremlin have decided to make a game about the Labours of Hercules, and to be honest, the idea is a very good one indeed. Frenzied joystick waggling when fighting the Erymanthean boar, precision control in deciding just how much poop to scoop whilst cleaning the stables. Gremlin, given this rich plot, so full of life and vitality, have sensibly based the game around Hercules fight... with a skeleton. The 12 Labours are still there, it's just that you don't have to do them. I'll explain. The labours are represented visually by icons that appear in puffs of smoke and bounce around for a bit, then vanish. All you have to do is guide Hercules over to the icon and hit it. Simple, if it weren't for the skeletons, along with a spider, guard the labours. Set in some Greek ruins, you and your enemy do battle in a very big and very well-animated way. To look at the game reminds me of nothing so much as Barbarian. The graphics are huge and of a very high standard, easily matching those of, say, Streetfighter. The animation matches the graphics in style and standard. The skeleton dying and then reforming itself is brilliant. Sound is good too. In 128K versions, a tune plays throughout, though as seems to be the case all the time with 128K music, it does tend to be jingly and almost entirely without power. 48K owners can expect the usual 'Chhhk', 'bnk' and 'shhb' noises they're used to. Unfortunately, Hercules - Slayer of the Damned falls down a bit on gameplay, and this is what makes Barbarian the superior beat 'em up. The game is sluggish, and most of the time you just can't get your figure to react in time to executive a defensive move, or kill the spider. All the labours you can collect go into a pot, and the spider's job is to climb into the pot and steal them. You have to hit him before he get in. I found this proves to be impossible. Another niggle is the snake. You can keep on hitting the skeleton, but your blows only take effect if the skeleton is standing on the snake, which starts off quite long and get longer or shorter, depending on how well you're doing.