3D Slime

Sinclair User

Overall 4/5

John Gilbert 4/5

Publisher: Datalink Systems, [redacted] Price: £12.95 Joystick They said it couldn't be done. A 3D game for the QL? Datalink Systems has proved them wrong with 3D Slime, a cross between the arcade classics Marble Madness and Q*Bert. You get to play a green slime from the planet Vega, which, I suppose, makes you a vegetable. The aliens from Vaska IV have captured you and, in true sadistic fashion, have forced you into the Robocity where you must steal the Mysterious Purple Pyramids. These pyramids are scattered around the walkways and quadrants of the 3D city and guarded by robot marbles, rings and suchlike which squash anything which gets in their way. It's possible to jump over them but preferable to keep out of their way. You have three lives but it's not worth risking them on futile attempts at heroism when the only ones to benefit are the Vaskans. As you clear each level - sucking up all the pyramids - you move on to the more complex, and differently coloured areas of the city. The number of balls increases and so do your chances of being squashed. Control is by cursor keys or joystick but, because movement is always along diagonals, you will initially find great difficulty in getting your green blob to go where it should. Moving the joystick forward, for instance, moves to the right in some cases and forwards in others. Similar peculiarities occur with the other directional keys but, when you've been on a level once or twice you will get an intuitive feel for the direction in which you should point the joystick. If you manage to score over 100 points, which is not difficult, you will be asked to put your name in the hall of 3D Slime. This high score table can be saved when you have finished play and loaded back in when you want to restart the game. For those of you w h o have QLs at work and want to play this deliciously slurpy 3D game Datalink has included a fake spreadsheet package with in the game. When the boss enters the room just press F5 and the game is replaced by several columns of figures which are updated without you having to touch the keyboard. The figures are, according to my calculations, all wrong, as is the continually adjusted total at the bottom of the screen. But it's okay now the boss has gone. You can use F5 again to toggle back to the game. Datalink systems is a delightful new company with plenty to say regarding the QL. It has a humorous approach to programming and is not bound by the conventions of what the machine is or isn't supposed to be able to do.

ZX Computing

QL SOFTWARE Not much has been released for the QL of late, but what there is seems to be getting better... One or two new names have appeared on the QL scene lately, and it looks as it the software these companies are producing is at last making good use of the machine rather than simply churning out conversions of old arcade games. At the last Microfair a company called Datalink (Wales) had a stand where they were selling copies of a game called 3D Slime. You could describe this as a version of Pacman, but with a difference. As the title implies, it's all in 3D. You control a vicious lump of slime that makes its way through a number of screens situated inside a pyramid. Each of these locations is represented in excellent 3D graphics looking a bit like the arcade game Crystal Castle, with doorways, ramps and pillars to manoeuvre across, and the movement of your little slime creature is very well animated as he shlurps his way around the rooms. Because of its similarity to Pacman this can't really be called an original game but the implementation is very novel and at long last gives the QL an arcade game that doesn't look like a ZX81 left-over. At £12.95 this is possibly the best arcade game currently available. On a recent visit to the ZX offices Hamish from Datalink atso showed us a not quite finished copy of QL Pencil, their next QL program, a graphics utility based on the Macintosh's system of graphics. For some reason the only software that the QL isn't short of is graphics packages, but this looked like it would be a welcome addition to what is already available. Icon driven, it looks like it could compete with Sinclair's own QL Paint but will probably be a bit easier to use and cheaper too Hopefully we'll be able to give it a full review next month.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Graphics 8/10

Sound 6/10

Value 7/10

Playability 7/10

MACHINE: QL SUPPLIER: Datalink Systems Price: £12.95 From Vega 3 via deepest, darkest Wales comes a particularly nasty corrosive green slime ready to splat your QL. You control a spectral looking character strangely reminiscent of the ghostly creatures in Pacman around more than 60 screens, charging after pyramids while being chased by the slime. Steps, stairs and twisting paths must all be negotiated. If you've been trying to think up things to do with your dusty QL of late, then this is quite a nice way to pass a few hours.