Major Istar: Under the Doomed Sea

Sinclair User

Overall 2/5

John Gilbert 2/5

Publisher: Microdeal Price: £14.95 The undersea cities of the 21 st century form the waterscape against which Aquanaut 471 - Under the Doomed Sea is set. You play the Aquanaut, a high ranking member of the Oceanic Federation - dedicated to keeping the peace - and spending all your time patrolling the city domes. You start the game in a submarine bound for a research station. A mysterious call for help, from Service Droid Huey-14, draws you there but the transmission was terminated before he got any further than " Agggh!" - probably a bad or changed medium. Something mysterious and deadly is happening at the dome - probably a terminal attack of bad programming. Your job is to find the problem and eliminate it. The screen comprises three parts. The top line tells you where you are and directions in which you can go, the middle part of the screen shows you where you are (in slowly drawn and barely recognisable graphics) and the bottom half is the command window. Commands are typed in using one-character keys such as D for dive and L for look. The cursor keys or joystick can also be used to move the sub in the cardinal compass points. You can also type in (very) simple sentences. The game, according to Microdeal, contains many baffling mazes in which directions are 'not as they seem.' What this seems to mean is there's no logic to the game. The author of the manual, who is to literature what a donkey is to steeplechasing, gives some clues on how to map out a maze. "Drop one of your objects and then move away from it. Then when you find it again you should be able to draw the path that got you there". Wise, if bungled, prose but it's advice which works well on paper but not in practice. Greater witless gems follow when the author discusses the Save option. "You will probably find yourself being killed often. Happily this is not permanent. You are just sent back to the beginning of the story." You can, however, save your position on cartridge at any point by typing Save and the drive number. Shame if you have a disc system. If you've still got the strength you can pick up objects, such as a blaster, which will be of use in your conquest of the dome. A simple sentence, beginning with Get is all that's required. The game will accept an 'and' conjunction but ignore everything after it. Microdeal has done its best to make you leave its package on the shelf. The packaging is unexciting, the instruction booklet is photocopied and the adventure is boring. If it's the best Microdeal can do then I don't feel particularly optimistic about its continued survival.

Your Sinclair

Max Phillips

Max Phillips tangles with TechniQL from Talent, takes on two new games and puts in for a transfer with Archive... FAX BOX Title: Aquanaut 471 Publisher: Microdeal Phone: [redacted] Price: £19.95 Reviewer: Max Phillips Man, I've been to some dives in my time but this one is dangerous! Microdeal's long-awaited arcade/adventure has finally surfaced and although it's a bit different from what we expected. It's still quite a game. 471 is principally a rather basic adventure game with TV mode graphics in its '100+' locations. The differences are that, unlike many graphic adventures. some of the pictures are animated and occasionally you turn a comer only to be plunged into some simplistic but tricky arcade game. The other really nice trick is that boring commands like GO NORTH and so on are replaced with the cursor keys. So once you've got a map, you can quickly bash out a string of cursor movements to get to some particular room. Neat. But it's the game itself that counts and while 471 isn't wholly original, it has some atmosphere and it's easy to get into. As a licensed ocean-going hero, you respond to an SOS from the Trident Dome, a scientific lab buried deep in the ocean. The SOS comes from service droid Huey-14 but the signal is cutoff before the droid can explain the problem. As you approach the dome, an explosion shakes the seabed. Your job; diagnose and cure the troubles. Huey-14, you rapidly learn (though not from the poxy manual), is going to be a lot of help to you. Trouble is, I've yet to find the little bleeper. Floyd, I miss you too! Your first problem is simply finding Trident. For a super-hero, your sub is a pretty basic model. So it's out with the pen and paper because 471 starts you off in a maze... If you've got display troubles on your TV watch it! I wandered in vain for hours until I figured that I couldn't see Down exits indicated on my telly (fiddling with the tuning can be a useful dodge, you know). Cheatskates among you might like to try going D,E,N,E,S,E,N,N,D,E,D,D from the first screen. A quick fight with a bunch of killer bubbles and you'll then arrive at the start of the adventure! 471 is a nice balance between being hard enough to be worth playing but easy enough to be interesting. just beware of its instant death syndrome. Hint: don't open the Shutter. "A Mean Octopus floats in..." I ask you, have you ever met a friendly Octopus?

Brakes! Hang around here for a split second to get the next doorway free. If you're well-timed, you can dash straight out the top and get back to the adventure.

From the starting postion, dash right and up.

Once you're up here, run towards the right hand droid until he turns and then turn left and legit. If you get it right, the droid on the left will disappear down the hatch only pixels ahead of you.

Wait on the ledge for a gap in the traffic. Every two cycles, there's a big enough space to make the next level.

SECUTIRY AREA GAME Looks a bit familiar? Yeah, so it's a slightly old arcade game. But it isn't easy, especially when you just get dropped into it...

ZX Computing

David Nowotnik

QL SOFTWARE David Nowotnik takes a look at what's new on the QL software scene including two new graphic packages. MONKEY BUSINESS Despite all the uncertainty over the future of the QL, it is reassuring to see new good quality software still appearing for this micro. The Cornwall firm of Microdeal have recently launched two new titles, 'The King' and 'Aquanaut 471' for the QL. Both are priced £19.95, and both will appeal to quite different sections of the games market. The King is simply another version (although the first for the QL) of the game otherwise known as Donkey Kong. This good reproduction of the arcade classic has the player trying to rescue the fair maiden from that evil giant gorilla, King Kong. On screen one, the King is rolling barrels from the top of the screen, down ramps at our hero, who has to avoid these hazards (and fire) in making his way to the top to release the damsel in distress. For extra points, the hero can smash the barrels as they fall with hammers, but must otherwise avoid death by dodging or jumping over the barrels as they tumble to the ground. The reward for success is a further three screens, with variations on the same theme, and other deadly hazards to be overcome by our hero. As always, the object is to score as much-as possible within three lives. There is a 12 life option to practice the game, and a 1/2 player option if two heroes are competing to save the girl. At any other time, one might question why a past favourite should be resurrected for a quality micro like the QL. The quality of graphics are well below the QL's capabilities. But arcade game enthusiasts, starved of material for the QL and, no doubt, worried about the future, will certainly welcome the arrival of 'The King'. UNDERWATER ADVENTURE Adventurers, also short of QL material, will be warmed by the arrival of Aquanaut 471. This offering is a mixture of fairly standard text adventure injected with a little arcade action. Based in the 21st century, the object is to guide Aquanaut 471 of the Oceanic Federation to the undersea research station of Trident Dome, which is in trouble. Why this senior officer hasn't got a map explaining how to get there, goodness only knows, but you have to guide him by trial and error with the usual north, south, east and west directions. The journey can take place on the surface of the sea, or underwater. Despite being the 21st century, the submarine appears incapable of detecting anything under the surface while travelling on the surface. So, underwater travel is essential to find where you are going, but beware of getting trapped, and running out of air! For light relief, the game incorporates three arcade action situations. Sound and graphics quality are reasonably good in these sections, and the games are fun to play. The manual recommends that you make a map to help you as you go along, as some mazes are rather complex. For those who get really stuck (like the reviewer!) Microdeal offer two help sheets for an extra £1 each.