Producer: Calisto
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £5.95
Author: Andrew Taylor
Language: Machine code

Cybo-Run is a 'Berserk' game in traditional style, that is, a series of rooms with randomly generated walls to make them into very simple mazes. The rooms are infested with robots which shoot at you, and your job is to rove around, clearing all the rooms of the robots.

One alteration on the theme, is the time bomb which flies into the room and chases you all over the place. The only way to avoid the bomb is to leave the room and enter another. Here, you appear in the centre of the room, not in the doorway, and of course it is full of a fresh complement of robots.

COMMENTS

Control keys: cursors and 0 to fire
Joystick: Kempston, Protek, AGF
Keyboard play: quite responsive (more difficult with joystick), although the cursors are a bad choice
Use of colour: uninteresting
Graphics: small, block movement, uninteresting
Sound: above average
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 3

Cybo-Run is quite primitive looking as Spectrum games go today, and the 'Berserk' type game was played out some time ago. The robots are very thick, moving blindly about despite the head scanners they have. Their shooting, too, is blind, although they have the advantage of eight-directional firing, where you can only move and fire in tour. Moving from screen to screen, the robots change colour but their intelligence doesn't seem to improve. All in all a clean cut version of an out-of-date game, which has the inherent addictivness of the type but adds nothing new.

This is about the best 'Berserk' type game I've seen for the Spectrum. The robots are quite unintelligent and haven't a clue where you are - they just move and shoot. Because of the block movement, l found my man difficult to move about the screen. The time bomb is a very good idea - it speeds you up! Colour and sound have been well used and the game is fairly good if you like this type. Pity about the cursor key controls.

This was a fairly typical 'Berserk' game with small and simple graphics and on the whole, not very memorable. The character block movement is not very smooth, and it's irritating that you can't move and fire at the same time. The walls, of course, are electrified.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
JOYSTICK: Optional
CATEGORY: Arcade
SUPPLIER: Calisto
PRICE: £5.95

Cybo Run is is yet another Robotron variant for the Spectrum. Your time is spent blasting robots with your laser before they either blast or bump into you. Their touch is as lethal as their lasers, and costs you one of your three lives.

You enter the game in a room with a few randomly placed walls. These can be used to shield you from your friendly Cybo-neighbours, but just happen to have a few thousand volts running through them, so don't touch them either.

Once you've succeeded in blasting everything in sight, it's on to the next room, and a nastier species of robot. You have to be quick, though, as there's a time limit on your stay in each room, and if you don't get a move-on an invincible someone appears out of nowhere and kills you.

This version is not as fast as some, and would score highly were it not for some very annoying features. First, it uses the cursor keys for movement, so you really need a joystick for satisfying control. Second, it doesn't tell you how much time you have left in each room. Third, and most annoying of all, the program occasionally starts the game by positioning you right next to a robot, costing you a life before you've even begun.

Cybo Run scores well on playability, but Spectrum owners are spoilt for choice when it comes to games like this. Probably better to give it a miss.