Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

EREVIEWSIE
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T ' I T
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R played on an international e scale
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four teams from Britain, Hol-
N land, Australasia and the - USA, all
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racing against one another 1 in every
type of motorised vehicle known to
hmankind.
A
e The action starts by allowing 1 you
and a friend to choose one of the four
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Henley, here we come
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24 AM I GA COM PUTING Au g u st 1089
Lose control of yourself
countries to represent. The game will
then select, apparently at random, a
set of three special events for you to
compete in. These are mostly three.
lap races around a four-way scrolling
landscape.
In the corner of the screen a small
map is supplied to confuse and
annoy you — it rather cunningly bears
little or no resemblance to the actual
playing area.
The computer controls the two
other competitors in the race. You
cannot play directly against your
friend, and all events are scored by
the time you took to finish. During
the race the other computer players.
whether boats. hovercrafts or cars.
simply refuse to let you pass.
If you should bump into them, you
will automatically go into a timewasting
spin. The computercontrolled
boat will carry on as if
nothing has happened.
Exactly the same thing occurs if
they crash into you, which is not
what you'd really go so far as to call
fair. To make things even worse,
some psycho is shooting at you.
Trying to steer your player around
the screen is so difficult as to make
play impossible. Just when you think
you have got the hang of it. some prat
will shoot you and stop you taking
first place. Why? I don't know. I'm
sure I would have remembered it if it
had been in the TV show.
If you win, or least not come last.
you will take part in the next event. If
you are really unlucky you will win
all three and take part in another
series.
Graphically Run the Gauntlet is
quite good. With digitised static displays
plus passable landscapes and
sprites. good use has been made of
the Amiga hardware. Your little boat
will even leave a shimmering wake
as it vainly attempts to take part in
the race.
However, the music must be the
worst I have heard. A tedious little
sampled ditty plays over and over
and over again. Even the point when
the tune starts and stops hasn't been
blended together, so it sounds exactly
like a record playing with a stuck
stylus.
The only saving grace is 10
seconds of Martin Shaw sampled
from the TV saying what a fun time
you are going to have. Martin Shaw,
if you remember, was the one with
the curly hair from the The Professionals,
a TV series banned because
of excessive violence. His idea of fun
is, therefore, to be treated with
suspicion.
Run the Gauntlet must rate as the
least enjoyable game I have ever had
the misfortune to play. How Ocean
managed to fill not one, but two discs
with such tedium is a miracle of
modern 16 bit technology.
John Kennedy
Run the Gauntlet
L'24.99
Ocean
Sound
Graphics
Gameplav
Value
This must be one of these new toll roads we've read about
If you've got three eves, perhaps you will be able to read the map
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