Computer + Video Games - Commodore Is Awesome

,en
1€
CVG
11 ▪ MACHINE: ChM 64
9. SUPPLIER: ZEPPELIN GAMES
1
8
1. PRICE: E2.99
▪ REVIEWER: EUGENE LACY
Zeppelin Games is one of a
brace of new companies
determined to give Mastertronic
and Code Masters a run for
their money in the fiercely
competitive budget games
business.
Their first offering for the 64
is a tough shoot 'ern up called
Zybex and it has to be judged
as a pretty good game by
anyone's standards.
Owing an obvious debt to
games like Gryzor, here we
have a horizontally scrolling
shoot 'em up — progressively
difficult and with the facility to
build up your jet-pack-man
fighter.
The storyline isn't going to
win any prizes for sci fi
originality. It concerns two
rebels, Rinser and Ceaselana,
who have been sentence to
relentlessly travel the universe
blasting aliens and discovering
new worlds.
To release the unfortunate
space twins from this tedium
you will have to remove the
'death rings' from their necks.
To do this you have to
penetrate the defences of
several planetary systems and
retrieve a Zybex crystal form
each one. At the end the final
level is all the all powerful
Zybex crystal — cop this one
arid Bob's your uncle, Rinser
and Cassalana are off down the
pub without a care in the world.
The best thing about Zybex is
the two player facility. You and
a friend can take on the aliens
together. The possibilities for
strategy here are limitless. It is
reminiscent of Gauntlet in that
you can shout to each other to
take the lead, watch out above,
below or behind. It's team work
against the aliens — which
makes a welcome change from
the solitary business of wasting
A The rampant worm threatens
'em by all by your sell.
Zybex employs the fairly
standard technique of flying
through various icons to pick
the extra weapons, Extra
weapons to be picked
up are
those familiar rotating weapons
— in this case they are called
'Orbiting Defence Pods'. There
are also the '8
-it
sounds like), the Wall and the
Rail Gun. The graphics of the
Way l i t
missiles were not quite as good
as i they s might have been —
w h a
t
y The monsters threaten to mask our dynamic due.
danger.
looking more like out of scale
triangles than anything else.
The aliens compensate for
up this. There is one
excellent
alien near the
beginning of the first
level - a splendidly colourful
rampant worm. As is traditional,
this monster must be destroyed
a segment at a time.
Plumbing the depths of this
game will reward the player
with other weird and wonderful
aliens and monsters. There are
the character-kaleidoscopic
formations of aliens that do a
little dance in front of you and
then zoom of screen in a neat
line hardly giving you a chance
to blast them.
The backgrounds through
which all this blasting takes
place is also of a reasonable
standard. There are pyramids
and rocky craters, diamond
landscapes, and even a city
skyline made up of huge green
phallic-like buildings.
Another bonus mark for
Zybex is the speed at which
you can restart the game after
you have been killed. It really is
instant — a couple of quick
fires on the joystick button and
you are back onto the action.
This is a thumping good start
from Zeppelin. I will be
checking their next couple of
releases to see if they can
maintain the standard,
GRAPHICS
SOUND
VALUE
PLAYABILITY
ifb 000,00 It OREOTT VP' 000.00 io CPREEST
6
7