Impossible Mission

Sinclair User

Overall 92%

Chris Jenkins 92%

Label: Ricochet Author: Epyxin Price: £1.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Chris Jenkins Although Impossible Mission 2 is soon on the streets, it's worth catching up with its illustrious predecessor. IM looks a tiny bit dated now, but it can't be denied that the animation is fine and the background graphics are designed to keep colour clash to a minimum. The plot has been ripped off by dozens of lesser imitators, secret agent penetrates base of mad scientist, and has to fight through hordes of guardian robots, searching for information to destroy the base. In this case you don't so much fight as jump your way out of trouble, the agent's only defence against electricity-spitting droids is to execute a graceful leap over their heads. The display of your pocket computer helps you to assemble puzzle pieces into the pattern which will reveal a letter in the final password. Don't miss this one.

Your Spectrum

Phil South

IMPOSSIBLE DREAM Phil South your mission... should you decide to accept it... is to penetrate US Gold's new blockbuster... discover amazing secrets... complete the Impossible Mission... reveal all... should you fail, you'll never write for YS again... this tape will self-destruct in 5 seconds... 4... 3... 2... 1... US Gold has done the impossible itself by bringing Impossible Mission to the Spectrum. It's been an all-time smash on the wrong sort of computer for ages. Now, at long last, the perils of special agent 4125 have come home to the Speccy including the same triffic animation, gripping graphics and brain blowing puzzles! Impossible Mission reaches a new level in platform games as well as amazing acrobatics on the platforms and lifts, the skill of outwitting the killer robots, you've got to solve some truly challenging puzzles. You play the highly-trained agent 4125 on a mission to penetrate the 32 roomed underground fortress of evil Elvin Atombender and prevent him from turning the Earth into a cloud of expanding gas and those little glittery bits you used to get in Star Wars. Elvin is a mad scientist and like all good mad scientists, he's surrounded himself with death-dealing robots and concealed the passwords to the door of his lab in the machinery scattered around the different levels. You must search every nook and cranny, juggle the pieces you find and make up the punchcards that will allow you to make your unwelcome entrance into Elvin's laboratory. Agent 4125 is a highly-trained agent of the calibre of Bond or Rambo. So confident, fit and generally hunky that he can take on Atombender's robot hoards empty-handed - just using his daring and acrobatic skill to keep out of reach of their probing plasma beams. In fact, the only piece of equipment he actually remembered to bring with him is his trusty wrist-mounted MIA9366B microcomputer. This souped-up digital watch has a radio telephone so that you can call up the mainframe computer back at base and get it to help solve the puzzles for you. But it's not the story line that's brilliant (although it's better than most and there's nothing I like better than a good story line). It's the way the game looks and plays. A lead I picked up suggests that the special agent's movements (running, somersaulting and landing) were 'rotoscoped' - a real person was filmed doing the actions and the sprites drawn from the frames of the film. I don't care how it was done - the results are incredible. Because the animation is so realistic, the game is simply absorbing. You really do feel for poor ol' 4125 - his fear, his thrills, his daring. Just like a movie! Impossible Mission is going to be a firm favourite - my Speccy for one is going to get used to loading it up. Your mission, Agent Reader, is to go out and buy yourself a copy. Believe me, it s one of the easiest and most rewarding assignments you'll ever get...

FORT FOR THE DAY Here's just four of the 32 rooms you'll have to explore before you can construct the punchcards needed to penetrate Atombender's lair. Searching any room properly takes precious time and dying at the hands of a robot will cost you ten minutes. Search Me! In fact, search anything and everything! All you do is stand in front of an object and push forward. A searching window pops up with a moving line that indicates how long the search will take. Keep an eye on the 'bots and be ready to leggit... You can walk on air... if you take a run at it and the gap is no wider than a lift platform. This can be very handy when the floor is full of holes. But be careful, it only works sometimes... arrrgh! Yuk... It's a leechbot! These copy your every move no matter which platform you're on. Avoid a toasting by jumping over them but watch out - they move fast! Energy build-up is a rare but deadly hazard. Sometimes you'll frazzle up for no apparent reason. What happens is that a timer starts when you enter a room. When it hits zero.... bzzzzt! One way to beat this booby-trap is to use a snooze. But hurry - they don't last long! Is this robot asleep? No way - it's playing dead until you reach its platform at which point it'll go for you. The way to beat it is rush straight at it (honest) and at the last moment jump over it and dash for the lift before it's got time to turn around. This type also senses your presence but fires the moment it spots you. This is a bug in the robot's software - it has to standstill to fire so if you keep out of range, you can rifle the furniture in peace. Here's a boring sentry type robot who just trogs up and down a platform - fires a bit, moves a bit, fires a bit... What an awful job! They don't sense you and so are easy to avoid especially if you jump them as they turn at the end of their platform. There are two Security Terminals in most of the rooms. You can log on by pushing forward and then use any lift resets or snoozes you've acquired to reset the lifts or temporarily paralyse the robots in that room... Forget trainspotting - you're gonna need to be an ace robot spotter. There's eight different types and contact with any will frazz you. Unless you learn to judge which kind you're dealing with and act accordingly, you don't stand a chance. Juggling the lifts can be an interesting puzzle in itself. Pressing Fire activates your only weapon - a dazzling somersault taking you high above deadly robots and yawning chasms. The chasms are the only things with any time to yawn in this game! For long jumps like this one, you'll need split-second timing and a long run up. Often you'll only make it by a toe-nail. And sometimes you'll need to tread air a bit before you actually do the jump! One of the best ways to get past a firing robot is to jump over it as it turns at the end of a platform. Then scarper before he can draw a bead on you... Every time the game is reset, the arrangement of the rooms is scrambled. The furniture and platforms stay the same but the types of robot in the rooms are jumbled as are the positions of the puzzle pieces. It gets worse... this type follows your every move and fires at the end of their travel. They never give up so your only hope is to snooze them... There's all sorts of furniture in Atombender's palace, from computer gear to a candy dispenser. There's even a toilet and - yes - you've got to search that too! Willy where are you when we need you?

MUSICAL DIVERSION Unlike some recent games, the music room isn't a just red herring to make you lose time. Once you turn to search the device, a pattern of notes is played on the chessboard. Repeat the pattern in order from the lowest note to the highest and you'll win lift and snooze tokens...

OUT OF CONTROL Here's your handle on the game - the control panel can be called up whenever you're in the central liftshaft. It provides map and puzzle-solving facilities as well as convenience controls like a pause button... These two buttons let you scan the puzzle pieces you've collected so far so that you can choose which ones you want to fiddle with on the workspace. It's tiddly 'cos you can only see two at a time but what do you expect from a wrist-watch? Toggle between the map and workspace by switching the wrist terminal on and off. Fllppin' heck - pushing here will flip pieces top to bottom or side to side so that you can get them to fit together. Push here to bin the current piece - watch it if you've got an autofire joystick as you might accidentally junk puzzles you've completed! Chucked the wrong piece away? Hit here to rescue it! More convenient bits - this freezes the game so you can eat a KitKat in safety. This fickle finger is your means of pressing the buttons on the control panel and shuffling pieces around the workspace. Use these three buttons to change the colour of the current piece - for two pieces to overlap, they must be the same colour. Use the workspace to shuttle, invert and overlap puzzle pieces until they match. The finished punchcards allow you into Atomblender's lab to foil his dastardly plan. When you're not putting the pieces together, this space becomes the map window, showing the relative positions of the rooms you've visited so far. Here's the two pieces you're working on at the moment. 4125 phone home - press here to auto-dial the ZX81 back at HQ. It's superior processing power will help you organise the puzzle pieces and tell you if you've got enough to get a punchcard together...

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)C+VG Blitz Game

Graphics 9/10

Sound 7/10

Value 10/10

Playability 10/10

MACHINE: Spectrum SUPPLIER: US Gold PRICE: £7.95 They said it couldn't be done - But U.S. Gold have achieved the impossible and converted the Game of the Year onto the Spectrum. Ok, so the amazing speech synthesis on the 64 version of Impossible Mission is missing - but everything else is there. Including the awesome addictiveness of the original. In case you've been hiding under a stone for the last 12 months, we'll tell you just what you've got in store once you lay hands on a copy of this game. The evil Elvin Atombender has been tampering with the world's computers and is threatening to launch a deadly nuke-missile shower that will destroy the Earth. Your job is to penetrate Elvin's underground HQ, break his security code - and get into the control centre before he launches the missiles. You have just six hours to finish. Being a mad prof type, Elvin has left bits of the control room password scattered about the 32 rooms of his stronghold - hidden in his furniture. You must search the rooms to find the bits and then use your pocket computer to piece them together in the correct order. Sounds easy - but not when you've to deal with Elvin's unfriendly droids who inhabit each room. And find your way around the baffling maze of rooms and lifts. The rooms are constructed to foil even the best secret agent - packed with catwalks and platforms connected by lifts. In each room there is a computer terminal which you can use to disable the robots or reset the lifts - but only if you have discovered the right passwords during your search for the key to Elvin's control room. Elvin's robots behave in different fashions. Some are sluggish and don't seem too worried when you enter a room. But others will rush to zap you with a high voltage charge as soon as you set foot on their territory. You have to deal with these using a snooze password which puts them temporarily to sleep. You can either pick up these passwords during a search of Elvin's furniture in the rooms or by playing a sort of "Name That Tune" game in the Code Rooms you will find during exploration. By playing you earn extra snooze and lift reset passwords. The screen displays shows your agent in his current location and in the main window, with a plan view of the underground base - which unfolds as you explore - in the window below. Impossible Mission is a game any self respecting Spectrum owner should have in their collection. We defy you not to be hooked from the moment you load it. A mission not to be missed...

Sinclair User

Overall 4/5

Chris Bourne 4/5

Publisher: US Gold Price: £7.95 Memory: 48K Joystick: Sinclair, Cursor, Kempston Commode lovers thought it was great, apparently, but we weren't so sure - on the lovable old C64 you get brilliant music. That's not possible with the Spectrum. Nevertheless, Impossible Mission holds up as a good game even without the frills. You play a secret agent sent to investigate the plots of mad scientist Elvin, who is holding the world to nuclear ransom. You must somersault through the levels of his hideaway, collecting pieces of the secret code. Strategy is important. Codes are gained by searching the various objects - bookcases, terminals, safes and the like - in the complex, but getting at those objects is more difficult. It's easy enough to get most of them, but you'll have to organise your use of the lifts to dodge the robots which patrol the complex. There are also rooms with puzzles in them. You'll have to work out what the puzzle is before you solve it. What makes Impossible Mission particularly addictive is that it produces a completely new map each time you play, the rooms linked to central lift shafts are assembled in a different order for the new game. That means you can't use the same techniques over and over again to win. Add to that the slick graphics of the sort you expect from US Gold, nice animation with the somersaulting agent, and good use of what little sound is available, and you have a fine entertainment.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Crash

Use of Computer 78%

Graphics 75%

Playability 67%

Getting Started 73%

Addictive Qualities 71%

Value For Money 74%

Overall 76%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: US Gold Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £7.95 Language: Machine code Author: Softstone First produced for the Commodore 64 by Epyx, Impossible Mission was a game which some C64 owners used to advantage in the arguments about whether their computer or the Spectrum was the better games machine. Now there's a Spectrum version of the game, published by US Gold, which follows the action of the original very closely - although the sound effects have suffered in translation. You play the role of a crack secret agent on a mission to save the world from the evil doings of the ultimate hacker. A mad professor type, Elvin Atom-bender, has accessed all the defence computers maintained by the superpowers, and is currently trying to puzzle out the codes which will set off a missile attack so huge that the whole globe will be destroyed. Elvin has amassed a fortune from hacks into computers run by banks and financial institutions and has constructed a massive underground complex patrolled by a variety of robot guards. The game is played against the clock - starting at noon, you have a mere six hours of game time in which to penetrate the madman's underground lair, discover his security code and penetrate his control centre. Each room within the complex has several levels, or platforms, on which items of furniture and computer equipment are to be found. Small one-person lifting platforms may be used to access the different levels within each chamber, and the thirty two rooms in the complex are linked by a network of tunnels and lift shafts. Elvin has a computer system which monitors the entire complex - at least one terminal on this system is found in every room. If you have the appropriate password, it is possible to temporarily deactivate the robots in that room so that passage through it is much simpler. Alternatively, you may wish to use a terminal to reset the lifting platforms to their starting position in the room. Accessing a terminal is simple - just approach it and push forward on the joystick which causes it to display a menu screen. Without the appropriate password, however a terminal will not accept input... The platform reset and robot 'snooze' passwords can be found by searching the pieces of furniture and equipment scattered around the rooms. The password to the control room is only revealed once thirty six pieces which make up nine puzzles have been collected and assembled - puzzle pieces are also concealed in the objects. Searching a piece of equipment is easy: you just approach it and push forward on the joystick whereupon a window appears on the screen with a bar graph display which diminishes as you search. Some objects can be searched very quickly, others take some while. If you break off a search, perhaps because a robot is approaching, it can be resumed where you left off so long as you don't leave the room. Once the search is complete the window reveals what has (or hasn't) been found. The defence robots all look the same, but behave according to different programmed patterns. Some of them can fire a deadly electrical charge, others can home in on your agent; most of them patrol a section of catwalk, moving up and down its length. Contact with a robot loses you ten minutes of game time, as does a fall through the bottom of a chamber. Certain items can only be searched when the robots have been disabled, and a strategic approach is necessary if you are to complete the mission - a finite number of 'snooze' and platform reset passwords is available. The mission would be truly impossible were it not for your portable computer. This machine keeps track of the rooms you have passed through, giving you a constantly updated map of the complex which includes a marker for your current position. Your computer can also be used to help assemble puzzle pieces - pressing the fire button while you are in the lift causes the map display to be replaced with an icon-driven menu screen. Whenever you find a piece of the main puzzle, it is committed to your computer's memory. You can manipulate these puzzle components through the icon driven display, moving them from memory into a work area and flipping them over horizontally and vertically and changing their colour. It is also possible to dial up the computer at your base to ask for on-line assistance in solving the puzzles - but this costs you two minutes of game time per call. Each completed puzzle consists of four elements and there are nine puzzles in all. Each time you solve a puzzle you are rewarded with one of the letters in the evil Elvin's master password. Once you are in possession of all nine letters of the control room access code, you may enter, thwart the madman's plan and save the world from destruction. Saving the world brings a bonus of 1000 points, with one point added to your score for every second remaining on the game clock when you enter the control room. If you don't actually save the world, you still get points for finding puzzle pieces and passwords as well as for solving each of the nine puzzles. COMMENTS Control keys: CAPS left, Z right, P up, L down, B-SPACE fire Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2 Keyboard play: average Use of colour: not inspired, problems with the animated figures Graphics: straightforward. Can be confusing when the agent is searching Sound: footsteps and effects for robots and lifts, but no speech synthesis Skill levels: one Screens: thirty two rooms, plus corridors and portable computer display