Seal up prison ships and toast the inmates

Producer: Destiny
Out of Pocket: £7.99 cass, £12.99 disk
Author: John Bigelow, Patti Rose Casanova

Stand by to be confused! Here comes one of those stones you thought went out of fashion with old Quicksilva and the 'Faluvian Empire'.

Malik and the Wardens patrolled the system of Luma. Their terror ships were sent out to enforce the Doctrine of Zan, but their services were only needed once - to quell an uprising amid the outer planets. In a brief and bloody battle, many were killed but many more were taken prisoner.

The authorities herded the'convicts on to five large ships and set them in orbit around Zia, a dark, uninhabited planet. They remained there for hundreds of years, until one terrible night, five new stars appeared in Zan's sky. By a freak chance the prison ships had returned. Not only were the prisoners alive, they had been mutated by strogenic regeneration (don't ask) and transformed into monstrous shadows of their former selves. Are you still with me? Good, the point is, all of them were eager for revenge.

Only the Supertronic, a craft (here comes the punch-line - ED) as strong as a DIAMOND, is able to seal up the prison ships' exits until other plans can be made. Supertronic can change shape to suit a particular task: four modes - Hibar, Solar, Killer and Rovar - can be chosen at will. Hibar shuts down shipboard systems, leaving the craft drifting inert (this mode is automatically engaged when a Supertronic has zero power), Solar powers up the ship, Killer activates the weapons systems, and Rovar Mode is used to seal exits.

A ship is deemed secure once all exits have been sealed; any escaped prisoners can be disposed of, earning extra points.

A map of the current ship is available. Travel around its hull is achieved by running over a Warp Blaster, which shoots you to a different point in space, settling on a Landing and Take Off Pad, which give access to different parts of the hull, or by passing a Polarity Reverser, which changes the direction of the signs on the pathways. So seal up those exits good and tight or before long huge monsters will have taken over your planet.

It's going to take me a fair while to work my way around all five prison ships, but that's OK because - unlike Nick - I think Diamond is worth the effort. As many of the walkways only allow movement in one direction there's a strong element of strategy is involved; unless you watch out, you may get well and truly stuck. Overall, Diamond is a playable arcade-cum-strategy game-and it's a lot, lot cheaper than the real gem!

MARK [79%]

THE ESSENTIALS
Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: detailed but monochromatic
Sound: squeak, blip, drone
Options: definable keys

Diamonds sparkle, but this game certainly doesn't - it's awful! The sprites are uninteresting, set on a background that is far too detailed. When the gaping holes fire bubbles at you, the whole concoction is just a mess! Here's a game crying out for some decent colours, but no such luck; monochrome is all you get (and that changes into the most garish colours). Remember the old BEEP command? Well, that's the sound. Diamond is just a recipe for disaster, steer clear!
NICK [30%]

One of the strangest aspects is the existence of five player's ships at once, allowing them to help each other by transferring power from a strong to a weak ship. This creates a strategic atmosphere as it's essential to keep the four unused ships on solar power. Even though all levels have an identical prison ship, they're graded, so there's plenty to do. It's an intriguing mix of arcade and strategy, and refreshing to see such a playable and original game... so tough doobries Nick!
PHIL [76%]

Destiny
£7.95
Reviewer: Cliff Joseph

Having looked at the cassette inly I was looking forward to a few hours' worth of Uridium-style shoot 'em up fun from Diamond. no such luck though - it just goes to show that you should never judge a game by its screenshots.

The semi-literate waffle that passes for a plot talks about five prison ships which are approaching your home planet, ready to disgorge their captives, who have mutated into monsters over the years due to something called 'Advanced Strogenic Regeneration'. As planetary head honcho you are in command of the five Supertronic Space Craft sent to intercept the prison ships.

So far so good. After struggling with the fiddly control menu I was all ready for a bit of mindless mayhem - at which point the game developed a conscience and decided to take pity on the poor monsters. So instead of merrily blasting the prison ships, your goal becomes simply that of landing on the outer hull of each one and attempting to prevent the prisoners from escaping.

As you approach each ship you'll see a number of holes blasted in its hull. If you're lucky there may be a few prisoners fleeing into space (shoot 'em down while you can) but your main task is just to approach the damaged hull and seal it by firing upon it. This turns out to be on of those things that has to be done with pixel precision (well, almost) and it took me ages to get the hang of it. Not that I felt much better when I did manage it.

You will come under attack of course, but generally your own ship moves so slowly that you won't be able to dodge. Your only other option is to release some 'Inertia Field Modules' to protect you. These might be effective, but they're no substitute for a bit of high-speed ducking and diving.

To slow things down even more the Supertronic craft operate in four different modes, and as you explore the surface of the prison ships it's frequently necessary to switch between modes in order to recharge/defend yourself/take-off/ and land. If you get hit you'll find that your energy levels drop pretty quickly, and the only way around this is to leave the ship in Solar mode to recharge itself. While this is happening you can take control of another ship and go through the whole thrilling rigamarole with that one.

The game is marginally less boring than the two songs that come on the second cassette in the box, but if you don't buy the game then you won't have to listen to those either.

Label: Destiny
Author: J. Bigelow and P.R. Casanova
Price: £7.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

They say that diamonds are forever. I can't seen this Diamond lasting very long, as far as staying on your computer is concerned that is. It's not that it's particularly bad, it's just that the programmers have put so much effort into game content that they seem to have completely forgotten the most important thing about any computer game. It should be fun.

Diamond puts you in control of Malik and his band of Wardens as they patrol the Luma space station. Apparently, they have to make sure that some prison ships stay shut, as some prisoners have a nasty habit of being freed. By whom? By the Zia of course. Who are the Zia? Stop asking me questions whilst I'm trying to review and I might just be persuaded to tell you. The Wardens are from the planet Zen, so they are called the Zen. There has been a huge war, and a lot of Zians have been arrested and slung on to 5 prison ships, and the Zia have come to try and free them. They do so by blasting big holes into the surface of the ship, and you have to seal these holes while stopping prisoners from escaping and flying off into space.

You have at your command 5 little robotic balls that go by the strange name of Supertronics. Each of these is independent and can be used as a team or individually. When used as a team, they help each other to seal holes, as well as getting each other out of tight spots such as dead ends. Each has 4 modes in which they can work.

They are:

1 Hibar Mode. Involves the closing of outside plates, thereby creating a shield to protect against enemy bullets or kamikaze prisoners. (Grrr! - KB).

2 Solar Mode. Opens a few of the plates to reveal solar panels, used to replenish energy. Handy when the Supertronic isn't in use.

3 Killar Mode. (Yes, that is how you spell it). This is the mode in which you do all the destruction. Armed to the teeth with bullets and, er some more bullets, you can release a Dan-Dan) Inertia Field Module which makes you invulnerable for a short while.

4 Rovar Mode. This is the one that does all the work. In this mode you can land on the prison ships, seal holes and capture prisoners, as well as being able to squeeze off a shot or two.

The game is displayed in semi-3-D-ness, with the current activated Supertronic central on screen and the ships displayed in glorious 8-way-o-scroll. The entire game is monochrome and, unfortunately, the graphics aren't the best I've seen. They tend to be a little unclear in places and it's quite hard to differentiate between some objects. Sound is confined to blips and blops, no tunes sad to say. It's also very difficult to get your pod to go the way you want it to.

After Yeti, it is more than a let-down from Destiny.

MACHINES: Spectrum 48/128/CM 64/128
SUPPLIER: Destiny
PRICE: £7.99 Spectrum 48/128, £8.99 CBM 64/128 cass, £12.99 disk
VERSION TESTED: Spectrum 48/128

Activision's first release on its new sub-label, Destiny, sees you in command of a strange robot-like being by the name of Supertronic, whose job it is to secure a huge prison spaceship which has recently malfunctioned, thus letting all the prisoners escape. The Supertronic is a weird shaped device, resembling a flying metallic Melon. The Supertronic glides around the scrolling prison ship landscape with the intent of sealing all the the exit hatches to stop as many prisoners as possible from escaping.

In order to do this, the Supertronic is equipped with a nifty little device which allows it to transmutate into any of four different control modes:

Hillbar Mode: In this mode, the Supertronic retracts all its outboard systems in order to protect itself from attack and collision. The problem with Hibar Mode is that as this mode uses up zero power, you have no control over the Supertronic at all, so you are forced to drift around helplessly until you choose another mode.

Solar Mode : By hitting the S key you are transformed into Solar Mode, allowing you to replenish your ships energy supplies by sucking in the energy from the solar panels that are scattered around the ship. As Solar energy replenishment is a time consuming process, it's possible to get another one of your five Supertronics into action while the other one re-energises.

Killar Mode As the name would sugest, this one is the most fun! Killar Mode activates the Supertronic's onboard weapons system, thereby allowing you to eliminate anything that stands between you and mission completion.

Rovar Mode: No, you don't turn into a dog, although you do work like one. In this mode you glide about the ship looking for unsealed exits, from where the prisoners escape. To seal it you simple stop over it. Although you do have access to use your weapons systems in this mode, unlike Killar Mode, you cannot use your inertia-field modules, which is just a fancy word for limited invincibility. By sealing all the exits on a prison ship, the ship is pronounced secure once more and you pass onto the next level.

Other Supertronic modes available allow you to transfer power from one Supertronic to another, and use two Supertronics together to help each other out of tight corners and traps.

Diamond sounds from this review like a pretty deep and absorbing game, but it isn't. It doesn't really break any barriers as far as Speccy games are concerned, and the gameplay is too diluted to offer any long term challenge, which is a shame as the game's graphics and sound aren't half bad, with some nifty scrolling routines and excellent use of colour. There's also a free cassette single featuring up-and-coming band The Company She Keeps but I can't comment on this as I haven't been able to listen to it (Julian won't let me borrow his Walkman).

So there we have it. Not too bad as Spectrum games go, quite involving the first couple of goes, but not enough action to hold you for long, especially not for the price.