a E i - Commodore Is Awesome

more of a nuisance than a challenge.
Altogether this game is an interesting
attempt at trying to create something
a little out of the ordinary. The
basic story line is good, with reasonable
graphics - which may be switched
off to speed the game up - and the
game could well be recommended to
beginners but might prove too slow
and predictable for the more
experienced adventurer.
Red What?
Melbourne House's latest adventure,
Redhawk, is a game with a difference.
The graphics are in the form of a scrolling
comic strip, which makes sense, as
the game is about Redhawk, a comic
type super-hero.
At the start of the game, Kevin
Oliver, the normal human side of
Redhawk, fi nds himself in hospital
suffering from amnesia, Whether or
not he had some previous existence we
are not to know but now he is search-
ing for a job as a crime photographer.
Having got him settled in his new job
you may aim him into whatever adventures
come along.
Having lost any previous
memories, you bye the choice of
making him act as either super-hero or
super-villain. Redhawk's popularity
rating, shown graphically beneath
the comic strip, will affect the interaction
of the other characters. To find
out what the heck is going on, it seems
best to choose here rather than villain.
SAY (or SHOUT)"KWAH" (with
quotes), and our Key will change into
the fearless Redhawk. He is able to fly
and has most of the powers claimed for
super-heroes. The main snag is that as
Redhawk, his energy output is high
and his reservoirs of power fairly low!
So a return to being plain Kevin is very
necessary after only a few minutes.
Location descriptions are almost
non-existent as they are all included
within the 'comic strip' shown at the
top of the screen. This strip has three
frames that scroll across the screen
from right to left at each command.
You would think that this would show
the present and two previous scenes
but this is not so.
Each command, if understood, is
repeated by the Kevin in the strip and
only then actioned - two frames for
one command. This would not be so
bad if the frames were drawn quickily
but they are not. this is quite painful if
all you want to do is go from location
A to location B, it is even worse having
ADVENTURES
to wait for the frame to be drawn to be
told: "Kevin looks for a way north but
can't find one!"
The game is played in real time
with a digital clock ticking away the
seconds as you wonder what to do
next. Fortunately the clock is stopped
if Kevin does not understand what you
are trying to get him to do. Unfortunately
this seems to happen all too
often, his knowledge of normal
'adventure talk' is sadly lacking.
His inability to understand the
command OPEN DOOR brought up
the response: "open" confuses Kevin.
He does seem to be a very confused
young man. Another change from
normal practice is the use of
EXAMINE. Here it literally means a
body search, perhaps it was not surprising
that a young lady I met early in
the game, objected quite strongly
when I told Kevin to examine her!
For all its differences to normal
'adventure speak', Kevin will understand
fairly complex sentences with
multiple commands separated by
commas also accepted. A number of
common commands are shown at the
bottom of the screen and are accessed
by CTRL and one of the number keys.
The game has a STORE facility (a
version of RAMSAVF,) with a normal
tape save/load to cassette for saving
your position between games.
Overall 'Redhawk' was rather
disappointing and boringly slow when
you consider the lack of text and rather
repetitive graphics. The game puzzles
are good with the feeling that something
startling is just around the corner
but the lack of any real atmosphere
destroys what could have been a really
novel adventure.
YOUR COMMODORE january 1987
23
The French connection
Infrogames is a new name in this
country, and it looks as though it may
be heard of a great deal more in the
future. The first offering is an adventure,
Mandragore. This is best compared
with Exodus Uhima III, with a
band of intrepid adventurers exploring
a strange land and the castles and villages
they find in their travels.
This French variant comes with a
fairly long background story to set the
scene for the adventure. The good and
just King Jorian has been killed in
suspicious circumstances and his lands
taken over by the evil Yarod-Nor. It is
the task of would-be adventurers to
search out and fi nd the means by
which to overthrow this reign of evil.
Mandragore is on two cassettes or
one disk and is pretty large, with only
37 blocks unused on the disk. A
further formatted disk or blank tape is
required if you wish to save your
party's progress for use on your next
visit.
On loading the game you are given
the choice of starting from scratch and
forming a party of your own choice,
continuing with a previous adventure
Or using a ready formed party under
the leadership of a female Paladin,
Syrella.
If you are new to the game it is
probably wise to use the ready formed
party. This will enable you to get some
idea of what the game is about, how it
works and also which characters are
best at what! Initially death comes
quickly and your first explorations will
be over quite rapidly, but hopefully
you will have learnt something useful
before all four characters have keeled
over.
If you choose to start with your
own party, you must first create the
four characters who will make up the
group. For each member you have to
apportion 80 points (minimum five,
maximum 20) to six attributes - Constitution,Strength,
Knowledge,
Wisdom, Dexterity and Appearance.
For Knowledge read Intelligence, for
Appearance, Charm or Charisma.
You must give the characters a
name (up to six letters) and define their
sex. Five different races are possible -
Human, Dwarf, Hobbit, Elf or Mi-Ore
(Mighty Ore?) but there is no information
as to the effect of this choice.
There are six different character types
- Warrior, Ranger, Wizard, Cleric,
Thief and Minstrel. This choice is not
entirely open as each of the last five