Livingstone Supongo

Sinclair User

Overall 8/10

Tamara Howard 8/10

Label: Alligata Price: £8.95 Joystick: various Memory: 48K/128K Reviewer: Tamara Howard June 12th, sometime in the Nineteenth Century. The search for Dr Livingstone has gone on for many months now, and I'm beginning to feel the effects somewhat. I became separated from the rest of my party, and am suffering as a consequence. Believe I am experiencing hallucinations of some sort. I am feeling rather strange at the moment. I appear to have turned completely blue. All around me are strange animals and vicious natives, I am constantly bombarded with coconuts and other missiles. Am forced to shoot at anything in sight to stay alive. Every now and then I find myself stopping and going back to the beginning of my adventures. Strange forces are evidently at work here... Alligata has bought the licence to Supongo Livingstone! from the Spanish and given us Livingstone, I Presume! You are the pith-helmeted (that's pith), back-packed, be-shorted Stanley, and it's up to you to wander around the island, avoiding the psychotic animals and natives who are out to kill you, collect the jewels and brave the underground caverns to find the good Doctor. To make life a little easier, you are equipped with explorer-type things. A boomerang, a knife, a grenade (rather revolutionary for this period in time, but there you are and, most useful of all, a pole-vaulting pole. So you can walk, jump, pole-vault and kill and maim things a bit. One might think, mightn't one, that turning the epic adventure of Stanley's search for Livingstone into a 'puter game would be a dead loss. Well, it's not. Supongo Livingstone! did great business over in its native Spain, where it was described as, 'Fantastico, sensationale!' And there's no arguing with that. Because actually it is a nice game. It's not terribly fast, there aren't an awful lot of things to kill on the way, but there's a lot of tricky thinking to be done. In fact, Alligata thinks that you'll find Livingstone, I Presume! so difficult that it's included a Poke in the instructions. So if you want to practise a bit, or if you're just a bit of a cheat on the quiet, you can just tap in that Poke, and get away with infinite lives. Apart from the odd attribute problem, the slight unpleasantness involved in your feet turning green as you walk halfway into a bush, the graphics are nice, large and cartoony. My particular favourite is the man-eating plant, and it's probably worth wasting the odd life just to watch yourself being swallowed by the critter. Livingstone, I Presume! could prove very popular. An original twist to the seek and find game, it's been put together with a lot of thought, and it's going to take you some time to complete all seven levels.

Your Sinclair

Graphics 7/10

Playability 7/10

Value For Money 7/10

Addictiveness 8/10

Overall 7/10

Tony Lee 7/10

Alligata £8.95 Reviewer: Tony Lee Aaaaaaeeeeeaaaaaiiiii! Ungawa, my friends. Tarzan here, telling you all about the new game from Alligata. Urgh! Gerrof! This is my bit. Go back to your own game. That's better. Now, if you stayed awake during history, you'd know about the epic trek that a journalist by the name of Stanley went on, looking for Dr Livingstone in the darkest reaches of the African jungle (um bongo!) A trek which ended with a bedraggled Stanley wandering up to a total stranger and saying "Dr Livingstone, I presume?" (To which the stranger probably replied, "No I'm Reg Jones, and this is my wife, Edith...") However, according to Alligata, Stanley had a bit of trouble getting to Livingstone, and this is the true story of what happened... You, being Stanley, have to travel through sixty-three extremely hard screens to find Livingstone, dodging Pygmies, alligators, man eating plants, monkeys, snakes and piranha bats (yes, it's true). Also there are some dotty old white settlers who'll shoot at you on sight, and some very nasty quicksand, plus this pain-in-the-neck bird who, if he catches you, kidnaps you and dumps you into his nest. And once you walk out of his nest, you're back at the beginning of the game again, so avoid him like the plague. However, you are not unarmed. You have a boomerang which, if you use it correctly, will curve upwards and bop any annoying creature on the upper level, and comes in useful when you fall into underground caves, 'cos a quick flick will free the doors. Then there's a dagger to throw and a grenade to lob, plus a terribly useful pole. Why a pole? Well, when you get into places you can't get out of, you pole vault your way free! Simple, innit? The game reminded me very much of Sir Fred, one that I was addicted to last year. It's fairly hard to play, but Alligata has given you an infinite lives cheat and a map of the first four levels, so you can't go far wrong. It's worth a look.

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

Crash

Presentation 71%

Graphics 70%

Playability 80%

Addictive Qualities 74%

Value For Money 77%

Overall 77%

Ben Stone

Paul Sumner

Richard Eddy

Producer: Alligata Retail Price: £8.95 Author: Operasoft Back to Victorian days when the Queen never smiled and Stanley had lost Livingstone. In an attempt to discover him Stanley sets out into 63 flick screens of the African jungle after the good doctor. Moving left, right, ducking and jumping from platform to platform, Stanley's task is to solve problems, for instance, switches open barriers, but cannot obviously be reached. Hidden exits once discovered allow him to move on to the next level. Diminishing energy can be replenished in time-honoured tradition by picking up the food and drink he finds on his travels. Zero energy causes the unsung explorer to lose one of his lives. On his quest our hero must battle past, or avoid a crop of man-eating plants, slithering snakes, dart-puffing pygmies, watching eyes, coconut-chucking monkies, quicksands, bullets, canibals, alligators, scorpions and tumbles into deep mine workings. Should he fall foul of any of these a life is lost. As an added problem Stanley finds that a flapping sea eagle is out to get him. For protection and help the intrepid Victorian carries a boomerang, daggers, and grenades, which must be used with care if he is not to self-destruct. Additionally he owns a vaulting pole to help him reach higher platforms. The strength with which weapons can be hurled or vaults made is regulated using Space, and an illuminated icon at the base of the screen informs of the object currently held. Points are awarded for despatched attackers, but jungle life can be tedious, so watch out for five gems which may lie in strange places such as birds' nests; only when all of these have been collected is there any chance of passing the secret temple. COMMENTS Control keys: Q/A up/down, O/P left/right, Space to fire Joystick: Kempston Use of colour: no clashes, lots used to make colourful and varied screens Graphics: neatly described characters, good animation Sound: no tune on 48K and few FX, title tune and better FX on 128 Skill levels: one Screens: 63

One of the 63 flick screens of Livingstone, with heroic Stanley in search of the good Doctor.