Reviews

At first, this looks like another isometric shooter, but you rapidly discover it's got a significant number of tactical elements: should you grapple an enemy for their kit, or blow them up? If you take the powerful weapon, will your drive system support it? Disruptor shield, or save your power? The combination of the action and tactical elements work together really well, making this an almost unique game.

Rather than port the excellent Paradroid straight from the C64, and risk an inferior game due to the lack of sprite and scrolling capabilities on the Spectrum, Steve Turner chose instead to re-interpret Andrew Braybrook's classic game. Gone is the scrolling shoot 'em up, in favour of a Knight Lore style isometric game, but the excellent circuit sub-game remains.

The result was nothing less than superb; the game works just as well, if not better, with added subtleties such as the ability to pick and choose equipment rather than take over a droid completely. When I play, I usually stick to relatively modest weapons like the disintegrator, scavenge power units as often as possible, and try to get disruptor shields as soon as I can. You can have a go with the better kit, but expect to burn out quicker as a result.

If there's a gripe, it's that the game has some rather grotty scrolling when you get to the edge of the screen, but that's really just a cosmetic flaw and doesn't harm the gameplay at all.

Overall, it's a game not to be missed. Ranarama and Magnetron are also recommended for their similar gameplay.

Quazatron is the spectrums version of the classic c64 game " paradroid " , its been updated and instead of a flat view , we get the game in full isometric glory !

Starring Klepto the parts pinching robot , you must liberate each level by either a) shooting and killing each robot or b) challenging each one to a game of grapple.

Grappling with a robot takes you onto a seperate section , a mini game were you get to battle for control of the enemy robots circuits , its fun and never seems to get boring , even after hundreds of grapples !

The graphics are very detailed and the scrolling (though its very jerky) , does work well , considering the amount of code the speccys moving round.

Its addictive , fun , has a slight comedic element through kleptos face , it's a picture when hes happy or sad , the facial expressions are great.

The only slight annoyance is the circuit overload / damage than can occur at almost anytime and can result in an extremely quick death / game over , but other than that its pretty much faultless.

For me its a game that has really stood the test of time and i'd recommend it to anyone.