Reviews

I spent many of my early Spectrum gaming days playing Krakatoa, and I still enjoy it now sometimes; there's so much to do in it.

You control a helicopter and have to perform a series of actions. Basically you must protect a tanker from marauding V1s and small submarines and rescue people from a volcanic eruption. Shoot, bomb, throw ropes and pick up, and if you are low on fuel or are hit by volcanic debris go back to your starting point to receive assistance. If you crash, or the tanker sinks, you lose the game.

Your involvement with the game starts quietly and keep growing with all the tasks you must accomplish, which become increasingly more difficult. In the end it will be quite hard to keep up with all the chaos going on. And for some added fun - try flying with a damaged rotor!

I'm a sucker for originality and this game had it for me. So much so that the money i put aside for Jetsetwilly got spent on this after i saw the crash review. I've never regretted that decision as half the school had tired of JSW after a month while i had this to swap! You are a helicopter pilot tasked with rescuing islanders from the imminent eruption of Krakatoa and protecting what looks like an oil tanker. In your way are V1 rockets and subs and you can be clobbered by the volcano. It could possibly be called a more involved scramble/defender but its nearer an earlier 2d version of Vortex's Cyclone. Even now it still looks different and while the graphics aren't top notch they were very good for the time with a nice erupting volcano, helicopter and a tanker, and the programmer was one of those who you could always recognise his games by the design of them. Downsides are the keys - from memory it had no joystick so you had to struggle with various keys for moving the rope up and down, laying mines etc.., which could lead to a bit of panic. But those are minor quibbles. Still a classic and if it had been on a major software house of the time with the advertising money it would be much better known and remembered.

1984 Abbex Electronics (UK)
by Paul Reynolds

One of my all time best loved games and a classic on it's own.
A simple idea nowadays, although original at the time but very engaging. The game features an Heli rescue from the island were volcano Krakatoa as just erupted, mixed with this tragedy where humans need to be rescued, there is also an air strike
and submarine attacks (there is no explication to this attacks whatsoever so just go with game). You as the pilot of a military rescue Helicopter must do your best not only to save people stranded on land or lost at sea, but also destroy enemy fire for damaging the tank-ship. The game happens in intervals of waves of attack, in some of this waves the volcano erupts without warning (or if you drop bombs on it), and people will appears on land needing rescue.
This is were the game gets tricky...
There is also a radar which is not only a very original and ahead of it's time feature but also very useful.
Krakatoa is still an addictive game and I still play it now and then, it's still challenging after all this years, the only quibble is the keys which are not well chosen and need some getting use to.

By the way... here are the keys:

3-down
5-up
7-move
9-fire
0-drop bombs
CS to SP-change direction
W-rope down (you can leave the rope down at all times)
R-rope up
ENTER-Pause