Rick Dangerous 2

ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)

Overall 850/1000

Microstyle £9.95; Atari ST version reviewed Issue 38; ACE Rating 870 The difficulty with platform games on the Spectrum is that if you use too much colour, attribute clashes make it difficult to judge your position. Rick Dangerous 2 manages to make good use of colour in the backgrounds, but keeps the main character monochrome to minimise these problems. The screens on the Spectrum version are flip-scrolling, but the action is very much the same as other versions, with all the platforms, ladders, lightning bolts, roving aliens, deathtraps, obstacles and pitfalls you could expect. Sound is fair, and overall, though Rick 2 doesn't set any new standards, it's a well above average Spectrum title.

Rick Dangerous 2 on the Spectrum.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Overall 90%

Microstyle Spectrum/C64/Amstrad £9.99, Amiga £24.99 He's back in a flash! Rick Dangerous, square-jawed hunk and all-round hero is back after a little holiday to foil yet more evil plans courtesy of the Fat Man. This time he's got together with some xenomorph marauders and is threatening to take over the world! Rick has five levels of platform frolics to negotiate, that take him from Hyde Park in London to the Fat Man's lair in deepest Barf (that's where all the aliens have come from, by the way). When Rob first caught sight of the ST version he was mightiliy impressed, dishing out a colossal 90%. Now, all of the other versions have arrived and they're just as good. Featuring brilliant visuals, decent sound and extremely addictive gameplay, Rick Dangerous 2 is something of an essential purchase.

AMIGA SCORES Overall: 90% A classic sequel that more than improves on the original. Rick Dangerous 2 is £24.99 well spent.

AMSTRAD SCORES Overall: 90% Just as good as the 16- bit game, with a near-decent soundtrack thrown in for good measure.

C64 SCORES Overall: 90% Graphics are a bit blocky, but all the gameplay remains intact. Put this on your shopping list or feel very stupid indeed.

CrashCrash Smash

Presentation 85%

Graphics 87%

Sound 82%

Playability 88%

Addictivity 86%

Overall 90%

Mark Caswell 90%

Nick Roberts 90%

Micro Style £9.99/£14.99 In this sequel to the well received original, Rick's back in action to thwart an alien fleet from the planet Barf, landed on Earth. The game starts in Hyde Park where he hijacks one of the Barfian ships. To defeat the guards and robots swarming around the platforms he's armed with a ray gun and grenades: both are limited but supplies can be found scattered around. And again, as in the original Rick Dangerous, many devious traps and pitfalls face our intrepid explorer. Once aboard the ship Rick heads for the control room through screens packed with platforms, puzzles, traps and Barfian guards! Some traps can be deactivated by triggering switches, whilst others need careful timing to pass. Level two takes you to the Ice Caverns of Freezia. Rick battles with the unpleasant inhabitants of this frozen realm and ducks the myriad laser bolts, snowballs and falling stalactites that come his way. Again switches deactivate traps, but watch out for red herrings as death is only just around the comer! Having escaped from the Ice Caverns the third level is set in the Forests Of Vegetabilia: man-eating plants, rolling boulders, guards, sharpened sticks are just some of the problems. Level four takes him to the Atomic Mud Mines and then it's onto level five set in Barfalatropolis, the alien's HQ. It's great to see Rick back again. I really enjoyed the first game with its vicious inhabitants and devious traps, and part two is just as tough. One neat feature is the ability to practise the first four levels, but to complete you have to play through the whole game to reach the final showdown. Graphically Rick Dangerous II is very impressive, even though some of the hazards are difficult to see. It's really very similar to the original - but that's no bad thing, as it's one of the most playable platform games around! MARK 90%

Read it at Crash - The Online Edition

Your SinclairYour Sinclair Megagame

Life Expectancy 93%

Instant Appeal 89%

Graphics 84%

Addictiveness 92%

Overall 90%

Jonathan Davies 90%

Micro Style £9.99 cass/£14.99 disk Reviewer: Jonathan Davies Right, let's see who can find the YS back issue with Rick Dangerous I in it first, shall we? Ha. Beat the lot of you - issue 43, page 61. It appears that Jackie gave it a big thumbs up and 78 (but she was slightly alarmed by how hard it was). And now here's Rick II. So what's it like? Easier? Harder?(!) Better looking? Bigger? Spankier? Well, you can cross out all those question marks because just about all of the adjectives apply. But first, the plot. Er, there isn't one. At least, if there is I haven't seen it. I'd offer to make one up for you, but it'd be extraordinarily awkward. There are four 'preliminary' levels, you see, and they all take place in completely different settings. There's Hyde Park in London, the Ice Caverns of Freezia, the Forests of Vegatablia and the Atomic Mud Mines of, erm, it doesn't say. And there's another level as well, which can only be played once you've completed the first four (in any order you fancy). Anyone who can come up with a plot to link that lot deserves a prize, in my opinion. (Tell you what - write a plot and send it into Rick Dangerous II Plot Compo at the usual address and we'll come up with a prize for the best one.) (We will? Ed) So, no plot then. But a heck of a lot of explanation to get through. For a start you can tackle the levels in whichever order you like by selecting them from a menu at the beginning. A wise move, that, as you're unlikely to get terribly far with any of them. Not at first, anyway. As with its predecessor, this one's Hard. On top of the huge array of cunning booby-traps and the continuous onslaught of baddies you've also got some pretty dodgy collision detection to cope with. It's a vast improvement on the original's, I'll agree, but I still get a bit teed off with being wiped out by a boulder that seems to be about 3,000 miles away. As for Rick, well, he's still the highly-talented little chap he always was. He can run, jump, duck, crawl, punch, shoot and lob grenades, and still manage to look cute 'n' cuddly at the same time. What a guy. Mind you, he needs to be pretty versatile with the odds he's up against. Right from the word go he frequently finds a boulder heading towards him, looking alarmingly hefty. Later on there are icy floors, lifts (some of which need to be switched on before they'll do anything), lightning bolts, missile launchers and, ooh, all sorts of things to cope with. They're never terribly obvious either, so he's almost always wiped out by them on the first couple of tries. After that it's a case of remembering where they are and avoiding them next time round. The general 'look' of things seems to have been spruced up since the first game. Rick I had a very monochromey appearance, even though it wasn't short of colour (if you see what I mean), but the sequel's got the rainbow stuff oozing out all over the place. There are plenty of sound effects too, beep-fans will be pleased to hear. (Oh - bit of a pun there!) So, just what is it about these Rick games that makes them so devastatingly addictive? Erm, well... Actually I've got a bit of a confession to make. I hated the first one. Loathed it. It was just too flipping difficult for me. However (and that's a heavily-emphasised 'however'). Rick II had me absolutely hooked - I couldn't tear myself away. And what brought about this astounding turnaround? Well, it's still hard, but I reckon just a teeny bit easier than the first game. Not much, but just enough to keep you coming back for more rather tahn switching it off in frustration. So I liked it then? Yes, I certainly did. Although in theory it ought to get roughly the same score as the first Rick, for some spooky reason I'm going to give it a whopping great Megagame. Weird, eh?

About now I'd start quaking with fear, but not our Rick. Just look at that grin - he's loving it!

At a guess I'd say it's some spooky underground alien planet type place! (Colourful, isn't it?)

Oh no! A giant Rick Dangerous sign seems to have rolled over this bit!

Score, lives etc. A rather nasty spark thingy. Best to crawl under this. The man himself. This switch deactivates... ...this. It's a missile launcher. A handy resting place, free of nasties. A couple of lasers which were causing problems earlier.

THE LEVELS And how far I've got with each of them (ie 'not very' in most cases). LEVEL ONE Three seconds into his adventure, a huge salvo of laser bolts narrowly misses our hero, having recovered from that shock he spots a robot heading towards him. Yikes! Opting to jump over it (only girls use weapons), and climbing a ladder to the top of the screen, Rick is alarmed to find the robot coming up after him. Luckily a rogue laser bolt takes it out. Upstairs, Rick crawls under a nasty-looking spark thing, flips a switch at the side of the screen (disabling a missile launcher blocking the exit) and heads off to the right. A few more dead robots later, Rick flips another switch, activates a lift, jumps on, ducks to avoid another missile and picks up some extra ammo. He then dispatches a few more robots and scales a pipe, only to have his clogs popped by a missile he hadn't spotted. LEVEL TWO It's a bit chilly in here, but Rick doesn't notice the cold as he zaps a guard, dodges a falling icicle and chucks a grenade at a couple more soldiers. he then weaves his way round a few more guards, past a clockwork bird and slides uncontrollably along an icy platform. he switches on a lift, jumps onto it, leaps off at the top and... oh dear, gets impaled on a pointy thing. LEVEL THREE Rick finds himself in a jungley bit, with a gorilla heading straight for him. He shoots it. Deftly leaping over a rolling boulder, he finds himself with a choice - off to the right, or up? He goes up. No real problems here as Rick takes out a couple more gorillas and shins up a 'column'. He spots a launcher on the right of the screen and ducks in the nick of time as a poison arrow whizzes over his head. Laughing quietly to himself he climbs up a bit further and... oops, treads on a sharp stake. LEVEL FOUR Rick jumps over a couple of runaway barrels, clears away a few guards with some carefully-aimed grenades, jumps down to the bottom of the screen (avoiding the missile-launcher, of course) and flicks a switch. Nothing happens. He jumps blindly onto the screen below, landing on a moving railway truck. (Phew.) He rides to the end of the line on it, jumps off and climbs further downward. Then, just as things are looking up, he walks straight into a jet of flame. And dies, Again. Then there's always the fifth level if you get through that lot intact.

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

Sinclair User

Graphics 93%

Sound 88%

Playability 90%

Lastability 93%

Overall 92%

Gary Liddon 92%

Dangerous? I should cocoa! Drinking pints of lard, stuffing your gob full of cake, smoking 2000 Rothmans an hour. I tell you, when it comes to high blood pressure inducement all these activities seem positively healthy compared to vein throbbing frustration half an hour of Rick Dangerous II is liable to spark off. It's a non stop tirade of full-on bad luck for Rick. Without even a chance for a cup of tea and a bit of a snack after his previous adventures, he's sent off to rid Hyde Park of a churlishly parked space ship. The idea's to get em off the planet and send them back to where they belong. Standing in your way is a whole lot of trouble from the aliens who much rather stay put. The control is much the same as it's predecessor though the space bombs supplied instead of dynamite can be slid along the floor delivering gelignite death to any bad guy stumbling onto one. At first the joystick control is a little tricky to get the hang of, especially if you're trying to launch off any bombs or laser zaps. Don't worry, it all makes sense after a bit of practice. There's four levels for Rick to cope with, each of them chocked to the gills with all manner of devilish puzzles. Unlike a lot of games with such a huge content, Core have managed to keep up the very high standard throughout. The same goes for the consistently excellent graphics. They're nice and colourful and very well thought out. All in all very nice stuff, obviously designed by people haters. It's as dangerous a playing a couple of rounds of Pop!* Spend you money today! *Pop!: An unpleasant game involving two dice, a vice and an area of the body usually referred to as "the nether regions".

Ah ha! A quick crawl through a secret passage and a load of bonus stuff! just what the doctor ordered!

At the beginning of level one, in the tropice wilds of Hyde Park about the enter alien space ship that's causing so much trub.

Having just hit the blue footswitch to his left, Rick twiddles his thumbs waiting for the lift to come through the gap above!

Here we are in the Mines of Vegetabalia faced with a tricky problem involving an umpty looking fellow and a great big ball.

7 VERY DANGEROUS THINGS 1. Jumping off high walls. 2. Drinka-pinta-larda-day. 3. Tying tin cans to a tiger's tail. 4. Putting on eyeliner with a mallet. 5. Eating styrofoam. 6. Laughing at disturbed people. 7. Sitting under a cow.