Producer: Mastertronic
Retail Price: £2.99
Author: Derek Brewster

Oscar has trouble with squatters. There he is, just about to move into his spacious gothic castle, only to find that someone has got there first. The evil Demon Grell and his merry band of sprites have set up residence already and are none too keen to vacate the property. But if Oscar doesn't persuade his unwanted visitors to find somewhere else to live, his soul will be condemned to eternal hell. The game follows Oscar's efforts to rid his castle of ghoulies.

Various objects lying around the rooms of the castle can be used to destroy the spectral nasties. At the bottom of the screen is a row of Icons that must be used in conjunction with the action pointer. When Oscar sees an object which he thinks might help him, moving the pointer to the picking-up hand and pressing the action key collects the item and stores it in one of his spacious pockets. This icon select systems allows objects to be examined, used or dropped.

The Demon's apprentices are a vindictive lot and try anything to steal Oscar's soul. Contact with them drains Oscar's life energy which is shown on an hour glass at the bottom of the screen. If Oscar finds his life-energy being used up too quickly, he must find the Globe of Invulnerability. Once inside, he can travel around the castle, impervious to the attacks of the beasties.

It isn't very nice having a supernatural presence in your house, especially when it's trying to kill you. Will Oscar manage to rid his Real Estate of the multi-coloured nestles, or will he be forced to flat share for ever after? As usual, it's up to you to sort things out.

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: very poor, slow response
Use of colour: lots of colour which sometimes results in colour clashes
Graphics: fine detail but occasionally too small
Sound: slightly above average
Skill levels: one
Screens: about 300

Oh dear. Why have MAD gone and ruined their reputation by putting out such a bad game? The biggest pity though is the game itself. It's acutely unprofessional in that it's boring, both graphically and playability-wise. For three quid, it's not good value, and I don't think I would play it for pleasure.

I was really disappointed with Conquest mainly because of the poor graphics and slow playing. The screen is very poorly presented, with some very average looking characters which are all very colourful but result in lots of terrible clashes. I thought that the screen had a good 3D perspective but that didn't always act true. The game couldn't really make its mind up between an being arcade game or an adventure, and as a mixture it's terrible. There are much better budget games on the market.

I've seen so many games like this before that even if a really compelling one came along I don't think I could get enthusiastic about it. The graphics are about average for this sort of game: lots of flicker, colour clash and poorly detailed characters. A nice touch is the way in which your character looks at you every now and then as if to say: 'what's going on?' The sound is slightly above average with lots of well placed spot effects and even an awful little tunette when the game finishes. Generally, as with countless other trite offerings from MASTERTRONIC, I wouldn't really recommend this as there are many budget games around from the same company which are a lot better.

Mastertronic MAD
£2.99

Magic Knight fans had better be pretty good with a joystick before they plough into this little beggar. It's easy to make comparisons between this and David Jones' Finders Keepers/Spellbound/Knight Tyme trilogy, but although it's from the same stable (whinny) and takes place in a spooky castle, it's a different Morphy Richards of sardines altogether.

Fast is not the word for it. You don't so much control your character as allow yourself to be dragged around by him. He can traverse three rooms in about two and a half seconds, so there's no room for pootling.

I particularly liked the magic axe - you flying it at all the slimy miscreants you meet and it bounces off the wall and comes back to your hand. (Cor! Jus' like Thor's hammer in ver comix!) There's also the Sphere of Invulnerability - a little jet-powered bubble car you can nip around into save your strength and pack full with all your objects.

The sprites are a bit iffy but pleasant enough, as long as they keep away from each other to avoid the dreaded attribute probs. The rest of the graphics and sound are reet gradely, giving the game real atmosphere. Addictive? Yup, it's one of those games that really gets under your skin, the kind that beckon you over when you really ought to be doing something else.

My only negative criticisms of this quest are the slightly poor quality of the sprites, and the slightly mindless scenario. One of the main reasons you can't compare this to the Magic Knight trio is that under closer scrutiny it turns out not to be an arcade adventure at all, but a straight shoot'em up. Okay, so if you like shoot 'em ups all well and good. But if you're a strategy/adventure fan leave your brain in the drawer and get blasting.

Label: Mastertronic
Author: Derek Brewster
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: Various
Reviewer: Graham Taylor

Whilst Mastertronic is clearly blazing some sort of budget path through the software industry, forcing everybody to reconsider just what to expect at what price, not all of its programs are of equal standard.

The problem with attempting to seriously criticise Mastertronic's stuff is that unless the program in question is actually appalling it seems churlish to winge too much about something that costs £1.99 or £2.99.

Con-Quest is a £2.99 Mad title. Presumably therefore it is supposed to be a little above the norm. It's not exactly a rip off but I doubt that you'll get all that much from it even at £2.99.

The astounding thing about Con-Quest is its programmer - Derek Brewster - one of the more respected names in the industry for titles like 3D Death Chase and Full Throttle. This game looks like it was knocked up in a couple of days by someone with little imagination and not all that much skill.

"Save Oscar's soul from the torment of walking through the eternal fires of Hell", is what it says on the box. It seems a reasonable request but I found myself leaving Oscar to fry at ever earlier intervals. Oscar is... well, I don't know what, but it's got two legs and a big head, and there are a large number of flickery sprites. The box says they are animated, but I'd say they zoom around the screen as though shot from a cannon. Some of them are sort of snakes, some of them are sort of dragons, all are certainly very wh***y.

The chameleon-like sprites (they change their colour to match the background) whizz around the standard Ultimate-style medieval castle with the usual Ultimate stairs up which you slide (?) and with accepted Ultimate fitments like caskets, books, axes and fountains. Oscar finds objects, picks them up, drops them and uses them - some open things, some are weapons one is a sort of protective globe.

In its defence, Con-Quest is big and some people don't seem to ever get tired of this sort of game. A few brownie points too for an icon system which is at least faintly original.

At £2.99 you won't find Con-Quest a hair-pulling waste of money but unless you are an absolute addict of this genre I think you'll probably wish you hadn't bothered.

MAD Games
£2.99

You discover that your newly bought castle is teeming with Demon Grell and his terrible minions. As Oscar, you must evict them all in this arcade-adventure hybrid.

The screen presentation is a curious mixture of 3D for the rooms but 2D for the moving characters. Both the creatures and Oscar are adequately drawn and animated, but dull by today's standards, and a bit flickery too. When simply moving around avoiding the minions (which is a little too difficult), the game strongly resembles Atic Atac. The new twist is the addition of oh-so-trendy icons. By swinging a pointer you can select TAKE, DROP, EXAMINE or USE; then using another pointer you can select which object carried you want to act on. Appropriate, short text messages appear on examination and sometimes after other actions.

The trouble with this system is that you have to move the pointers whilst in the midst of the action and often under attack, so things become very frantic. Spellbound had a much more effective system.

The problems you face seem fairly simple: find the right coloured key for the correct door or chest (sorry - black and white TV owners cannot plays this one), read a book then use a wand to shoot the nasties (when the fun starts) and so on. Mapping is vital and initially confusing as Oscar starts in a number of different locations.

This is a passable game, but better suited to Mastertronic's two pound range, and a disappointment from programmer Derek Brewster who's written better.

Mastertronic
Arcade Adventure
£2.99

To say that Mastertronics budget games often look like full-price games is to state the obvious. While the latest offering, Conquest, may lack originality, it is an Atic Atac clone and it is a perfectly presentable game.

Our hero rushes round his castle zapping meanies and picking up objects. Once he has cleared a room, he can find time to look at the various objects he has collected. First on the list is some kind of weapon, followed by some method of curing any snakebites he might have acquired. Simple, no-nonsense stuff from the company which knows how to sell 'em.