Reviews

Taking cues from Ultimate's classic Atic Atac, but with a futuristic theme, Nonterraqueous is a massive 1000 room arcade adventure. This might seem overly large, however it avoids the pitfalls that plague the likes of Psytraxx and Xavior; you aren't in constant peril of an unpredictable death, or getting worn down by constant attacks. As you move around the giant maze, you'll also come across areas that take on different character with some varied puzzles to solve in order to progress.

There are a few things that will blight your progress, however. One of these is the dreaded photon thruster, which is instant death; with a little practice you avoid them though, as they work to a set pattern. Another is bad psyche, which also you instantly; however it's always in the same place so at least you can learn from your experience with it. Despite its huge size, the game is relatively easy to finish, with an ending that'll bring a smile to the face of users of old Sinclair computers.

This was a nice game that marked a major improvement in standards from Mastertronic who'd developed something of a reputation for putting out any old tat at a budget.

Probably the quintessential 8-bit maze-game, and that's not really a recommendation. 'Noterraqueous' is absolutely huge but the rooms are samey, difficult to map manually (as is required with most maze-games of the era) and the instant deaths from the "mouldy psyche" or whatever it was are daft.

Despite all that, there's still some limited fun to be had, just not all that much.

This game leaves nothing to be desired execpt for the fact that you only have one chance to complete it !!! 5 / 5 .

I really like the look and idea of this but it just doesn't quite work for me. I found proton thrusters tricky to avoid and decayed psyche is nuisance. It looks cool but it's very tough, especially with just one life.

It's a maze-game with mild shoot'em up and adventure elements, and with a huge map of one thousand locations. Feels a bit different than your usual game of this kind because the action is less frantic, the enemies are not so lethal or disturbing as in, for example Underwurlde or Sabre Wulf, there's a certain brooding atmosphere, if I may say so, and the plot, by the way, reflects the warning about the danger of an excessive development of artificial intelligence that has been voiced just in these days by Stephen Hawkin and other personalities. The world has been in fact taken over by robots controlled by a central computer hidden in the core of the maze. As a good robot secretly built by the enslaved humans, you can guess what your mission is. You can assume, by the way, two different shapes, the one of a shooting ball, or that of a faster vehicle, a sort of helicopter, unable to shoot. The shift is possible only in screens with a "swop" machine, anyway. And there seems to be some other nice features. I like the [sparse] sound effects too.
Nearer to 4/5 than to 3/5.

1985 Mastertronic (UK)
by Stephen Curtis and Mark Jacobs

I have this game in my collection since it was released, but never played it much. I had other favorites, I guess, and never dug into it much.
After reading a couple of reviews from my fellow Spectrum chums, I decided to dig a little further into the game.
First of all, I couldn't remember anything about the game (or it's sequel), which goes to show how much I played it, and secondly I felt very relaxed playing it. The sparse sound effects as reviewer 'When I was Cruel' says makes the game either boring or relaxing and mysterious.
Graphically it doesn't appeal to me, but on the other hand I like it's cold metal feel.

After playing the game for about ten minutes and having had no progression at all, besides swapping robots and placing a bomb, I decided to browse the available game map on WOS. 1000 screens to explore? Oh my, oh my! This isn't the right game for me, I guess. However a lot of the screens are totally useless and unneeded to complete the game. So I played it a few more times, expecting any interesting rewards from the game.
After another 10 minutes I was capable to set off the rocket against the upper section and destroy it (Tipshop: thank you). It's one of the best sequences in the game, but it could have been done better, supposedly you board the rocket and after the explosion you get out (ouch!) but you don't see any boarding happening, and the first time that happened left me wandering what the heck was going on. Another 10 minutes into the game and I started yawning, the same routines of firing, picking up bombs and filling the Psyche level, was starting to affect me, so I call it a day.
Well, not exactly, Tipshop came in handy again and I watched the video of the game being finished.

I must say, the whole game didn't impressed me, but the end sequence left me cold as an ice cube. So the infamous computer was an evil ZX81? That's it? And in the end you only get a phrase in white letters against a black background, congratulating you for your achievement while marketing the next sequel (which come to be 'Soul of a Robot' and not 'Terraincognita').
That's it? No fireworks? No fanfare? Not even a simple animated sequence?
I suppose I would have loved it better in the 80's and judging from the ratings, this is a well appreciate game, but to me the game plot is mediocre and boring, although well written and fully playable.

Exactly what I needed right now, another Stephen Curtis game. Yes the author of crap games like Arena, Jackle and Wide and Tiler, gives us Nonterraqueous which is a bloody nightmare to type up so thanks for that. Already there are notable similarities between this and Accelerator, another Stephen Curtis game, but the game is irritatingly difficult as you only have one life and one touch with photon thruster ends your game immediately. You can only change forms in the SWOP but you change into something that can't shoot, then you also collect bombs and what happened when I use a bomb? Death. Enough. I should've known from the author that this was going to be crap, and so it strikes again.