Producer: Electric Dreams
Retail Price: £9.99
Author: Source, from a Data East coin-op

There's a burning skyscraper down on Arcadeville's main street, and the fire is spreading to the neighbouring blocks.

The player takes control of a firefighter who is sent to put out the blaze. The hero starts at the base of the first tower equipped only with a fire-resistant suit, jetpack and water cannon, and climbs up the vertically scrolling building.

Women and dogs are trapped in the conflagration, and are rescued when touched, the hero supplying them with a parachute so they may float to safety. He also extinguishes fires with his cannon, revealing either a cash bonus or a bonus icon. These endow him with the ability to fire horizontally, giving added protection, or initiate his jet-pack, blasting him up the building and saving precious time.

As he climbs, the fireman avoids a continuous stream of debris that rains down on him, and negotiates impassable areas such as flagpoles and smooth patches that give no grip. Should he be hit by an object or touch any fire, the character falls several stories and loses a life. The game ends when all his five lives are lost.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: great - well drawn and smooth, although some of the characters are occasionally difficult to see
Sound: jolly title screen ditty and jingles, but very limited in-game sound effects
Options: definable keys

I've got to give it to Data East - they've come up with a very novel 3D game. The gameplay isn't the fastest I've ever played, but it provides a challenge and is fairly addictive. The graphics are very well drawn and the characters detailed and clear. But there is one snag - the fire chief and the falling objects tend to blend into the building, which can make things difficult on higher levels. If you're after an unusual and enjoyable game - look up Firetrap.
MIKE [77%]

Firetrap seems simple and boring to begin with, but further investigation proves this wrong. The graphics are adequate, with some cute touches like the little dogs (ah!) that have to be rescued and sent down to the ground on a parachute. The only thing that I didn't like about the game is the lack of variety - to me the only difference between tower blocks was their colour, and that the fire gets more severe on higher levels. Firetrap is a fun change from the usual violence or aliens, but may become a little tedious after a few towers have been extinguished.
NICK [71%]

Electric Dreams have been a bit quiet of late and it's good to see them come back with some new games - Nihilist last issue and now Firetrap. The screen display has been planned just right - there's not too much visible, but just enough to give you a (fire) fighting chance. What impressed me most was the vast about of detailed graphics being moved around the screen very quickly and smoothly. Everything about Firetrap is slick, and to cap it all the gameplay is very addictive.
PAUL [86%]

Electric Dreams
£9.99
Reviewer: Rachael Smith

Come on, baby, light my fire. is that a towering inferno or are you just glad to see me? Flamin' 'eck, no! It's a coin-op conversion, hot foot from Data East, and if you don't grab your hosepipe and start sprinkling, soon the whole city will have gone west!

Seems you're the only volunteer with the sheer muscle, the steely courage and the necessary head for heights so they've strapped the extinguisher to your back and sent you to the top floor of the skyscraper on a major rescue mission. Just one problem - you're expected to scale the outside!

Luckily the window ledges act like steps, allowing you to ascend and sneak sideways, but there's a slight problem of debris dropping from above... and I don't mean pigeon prezzies. Everything from desks to giant apples topple from the top.

Then there's the risk of spontaneous combustion. Goodness gracious, great balls of fire - if you're passing a window when it flashes out, that is. You'll need your water cannon to squirt out the flames and a more conventional shooter to shatter the solid junk as it falls.

On the way up you'll see dames and dogs leaning out of their homes, shouting for help. Reach them and you can push them off the ledge, but not before you've given them parachutes. At the top you pick up the final victim then float to the ground on your jet-pack, squirting the odd bonus flame.

Now I don't want to pour cold water on a potentially hot program but while this is addictive for a while, the fun soon burns out when you realise that the best way to boil up your score is to ignore the victims and just race to the top, blasting everything that falls.

I also got rather queasy about a game which shows arms waving as their owner is engulfed in flames. Perhaps it was because I reviewed it just a week after thirty people died in the Kings Cross tube fire. That sort of thing tends to stifle your sense of humour.

But even ignoring the taste factor, Firetrap is limited in lasting addictiveness - and the high score table doesn't even behave properly. So you won't be burned if you buy it - but it won't set your Spectrum alight either!

Label: Electric Dreams
Author: Source
Price: £9.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

In Firetrap, you must rescue frantic screaming women and crying care bears from their destruction in the engulfing flames. I'd rather leave them there but that's the kind of guy I am.

Every so often a few computers or a bomb or two fall from above. When you are hit by either, you fall a few storeys before regaining your grip on the wall.

Strapped to your back is a trusty water cannon, to be used to extinguish the flames and to destroy the lumps of matter that fall. Controls are sluggish, and one irritating glitch is that you can't move and fire at the same time.

The game is not difficult, but can be highly frustrating as it has an annoying habit of killing you for no apparent reason. One of the turkeys in arcade conversions.

Douse flames with Electric Dreams.

Fire fighting is best left to the experts, especially when there are five tower blocks ablaze. Still, all the experts are exhausted so it's up to you to save the day.

You start the game on the bottom comer of the first tower block and have to reach the top of the building within a time limit. Fires break out from the windows constantly and you have to use your water cannon (strapped to your back) to extinguish them. The trapped people (and dogs) need saving as well and this is achieved by reaching whatever window they happen to be hanging out of. They then parachute to safety and you can go rescue the next victim.

But playing saviour for everyone is a secondary consideration, for at the top of the building is a special lady. Rescue her and you can proceed to the next building irrespective of how many others you've saved on the way. As is usual with burning buildings, the rescue operation is hampered by falling televisions, tables, bottles of poison - the usual sort of thing, and contact with any item (including the fires) results in you losing one of your five lives.

FireTrap suffers in the playability stakes in that once you've fired your cannon your man can't move until the shot has disappeared off screen or has hit something. It's not the most compelling of coin-op conversions and all but the hardened addicts will soon tire of this.

Reviewer: Andy Smith

RELEASE BOX
C64/128, £9.99cs, £12.99dk, Imminent
Spec, £9.99cs, Out Now
Ams, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Imminent

Predicted Interest Curve

1 min: 78/100
1 hour: 72/100
1 day: 72/100
1 week: 50/100
1 month: 30/100
1 year: 10/100