Computer + Video Games - Commodore Is Awesome

FERNANDEZ
MUST DIE
MACHINES: CM,
SPECTRUM, AMSTRAD CPC
464.
••• SUPPLIER: MIRRORSOFT.
PRICE: AMIGA AND ST
C24.991064 CASS E9.99 DISK
E12.99/SPECTRUM AND
AMSTRAD CASS £9.99 DISK
514.99.
Im• VERSIONS TESTED: C64/ST.
ID- REVIEWER: TONY DILLON.
Fernandez Must Die is,
apart from being a very
bad title for a game, a mix
of Ikari Warriors and Into
The Eagles Nest. It's also
brilliant. It boots &ail in the
goolies and turns the Eagle
into a budgie, so to speak,
leaving you with a
two-player trek through lots
of scrolling screens of
action-packed
battleground, with a bit of
building exploration
thrown In.
The Fernandez in
questions is in fact an evil
dictator who has set up
eight bases, the purpose of
each to defend one of the 8
strips of land he has taken
over. He has captured all
of the allied soldiers and
the gold and hidden them
inside the buildings that
join the eight strips. Your
mission is to seek and
destroy these bases, whilst
recovering the 202 caches
of gold and the 182 POW's.
Sounds like quite a job.
Luckily you don't have to
do it alone.
The game is arranged as
a huge map, broken up
into eight vertical strips,
each several screens long
and joined by rooms with
closed doors that you have
to blast your way into. You
and a friend race
headlong up and down
the vertically scrolling
areas, searching for the
huge L-shaped buildings,
the bases, and avoiding
everything the enemy can
throw at you, and believe
me, that's quite a lot.
Firstly, you've got your
definative enemy soldiers.
These run on from the top or
the bottom of the screen
and to chase you in and
around the buildings, firing
• r " r t e
,401Thlit I/ j ,
1
over.
Graphics are great, with
a very simple but effective
colour system. Some very
nice backdrops and
extensive amounts of detail
(such as the way when you
grenade something, you
make a nice hole in the
floor, which stays there for
41111111E111.11111111111.ty
- ####
A Looks like you didn't rnoke it.
all the while.
The enemy plane either
drops more soldiers,
medical supplies with
which you can boost your
flagging energy or bombs,
which churn up the
ground, killing anything
they touch, including you.
Then you've got the tanks,
Three times your sprite.
these hunter-killers mill
about, firing huge shells in
your direction.
Doing the same job as
the tank in Ikon, the jeep
lets you get around at
around three times the
normal speed.
Unfortunately, only one
hit from a cannon, or two
mines is all that's needed
to turn your nimble little
land rover into a heap of
twisted metal. One nice
point here is that, rather
than have two jeeps
running around at once,
both people con get in the
same jeep, with the person
who entered first doing the
driving. What a cute idea.
When you enter one of
the side rooms, by way of
blasting a hole in the door,
the game goes into mode
Eagles Nest. Using a plan
view of the area you ore in,
you can see the POW's,
shacked up in little cages
embedded in the walls,
and the caches of gold
laying around on the floor,
just waiting to be walked
Mee
t
.
)
t
,
•
•
• •
. . • . • . . . •
a- a a . a a a a
, ..; a r
'
•
a
l
-
'z•
•-
••••• -•;
•
; •
•
.
,
4
;
, 7
4.
•4
•";
•
•
••
•
‘
•*
•.t,
•'
4
.
.
X
.
.
;
,
.
.
;
•
•
er 4 1 1 P .N
a a_ • _ •
a
% • •
i
Mr..3 f
,
„
l
a
1
effect,
FMD isn't a game that
you can just pick up a
joystick and play but it's
not an impossible task,
either. In the two days I hod
it, I played it a lot, and
came very close to
completing it (6 bases to
be exact), so I can't see it
lasting very long, though
there is the added
challenge of rescuing all
the POW's. A great game
and well worth spending
your money on.
;-'•;. 4-
.
4 a'
w
C
. .
.
1
7
4
• •
• •
• •
4
•
a
a
a
'
.
4
:
4
.
4
:
4
.
4
.
4
,
.
•
•
a
• •
i.
• • e• • • • a - • • - • • • • • - •.;.•
A The boats bombing you, the soldiers are shooting at you, get in that
jeep and get the hell outto there!
the rest of the game) show
that the programmers 1 low GRAPHICS 8
(Tony Crowther and David 10- SOUND 7
Bishop, no less) have really
taken there time over this. I 11
especially like the little , low PLAYABILITY 7
ceremony at the end. It
where you are shown your - OVERALL 8
CO placing medals on
your coffin. You earn VUPDATE
different medals for AST
and Amiga versions will
different things like the be launched in
Purple Heart for wounds in LSeptember
followed by
battle or the Distinguished
Service Cross for Uthe
CM version in early
October. Bad news for
destroying vehicles. E Speccy and Amstrad
Sound is simple but owners though - their
effective, with some great 7versions
are not expected
tunes and a particularly to be ready until the end
nice explosion sound of October.
El •