Producer: Mikro-Gen
Retail Price: £8.95
Author: Chris Hinsley

The planet Cosmica is not a good place to be if you're a Kreezer. Monsters are taking over the place, and with you being a little bendy thing about six inches high, coping with huge great monsters is going to be a bit of a handful.

Unfortunately, as well as being bendy, you are also rather tasty, so the hideous monsters who have taken over the place imprisoned you in their underground ice caverns (which look about as bleak as Ludlow on a December morning). In due course the head monster chef is going to take you to the kitchen and turn you into Kreezer-a-la-fricassee.

But, at last the good news, you've managed to pick the lock and you're free! Now the tricky bit. You've got to escape from the depths of the ice caverns and rescue your mates. They're also on the menu, so you'd better let them out before they get popped in the pan.

The game is a flip-screen, two dimensional arcade adventure featuring Hickey the Kreezer. (MIKRO-GEN seem to have a penchant right now for heroes ending in -ickey, look out for Mickey the Molecule and Lickey the Lollipop!) Hickey has to make his way around the caverns avoiding all sorts of meanies. Fortunately most of the meanies seem oblivious to Hickey's presence and follow set patterns. All the same, Hickey has his work cut out to survive...

The controls are left, right, jump and fire. Moving left or right makes Hickey bend over until his head touches the ground, and then his head attaches to the ground while his legs go over his head. Actually, it's very difficult to tell his head from his legs - he moves in a squodgy sort of way, rather like those Slinky springs you used to be able to buy. He can only leap straight up, but he can squodge along when he's on the way down. Apart from the meanies, the cave also contains ledges to help him, spring platforms that allow super jumps and mattresses that cushion very long falls.

The hero can blast the nasties and ammo is left lying around in plentiful supply in case he runs out. To use an item, it must first be picked up (which causes it to appear in a window to the left of the status area) and then used by prodding the USE key. Using an object cancels the effect of the object currently in use, so it might be necessary to pick up an object, but not actually use it until it's needed a little bit later on.

Three varieties of sweetie can be found in the caverns and they form a critical part of the game: sweets are red, green or blue. Red sweets allow you to squodge faster, thus zipping under some rather nasty meanies. Blue sweets allow you to leap higher - vital in order to get on to some screens. Green sweeties allow you to fall further without helping the nasty monster chef by turning Hickey into an oven-ready Kreezer pancake.

Contact with the horrid hungry monsters often spells instant death and the loss of one of the five lives supplied. Death also comes to Hickey if he fails to rescue the Kreezer imprisoned on the current level before the Twang meter at the bottom of the status area reaches zero.

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable: left, right, jump, use, fire
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: responsive and simple
Use of colour colourful and effective
Graphics: some detailed characters, jolly backdrops
Sound: average for this sort of game
Skill levels: one
Screens: 50

Getting into this game wasn't as easy as it should have been - the instructions don't set the scene very well and it is very difficult to get anywhere on your first couple of goes because the nasties are particularly vicious. After that the game becomes a little easier and a lot more playable. Hickey has to be the most endearing computer character since Berk from Trapdoor what style, what animation, what a cute end-over-end walk! The graphics are, on the whole, good and the scenery is quite ODINesque. There are many different types of caverns, and the characters are very well animated. The sound too is good with a nice tune on the title screen and extensive use of spot effects. I really enjoyed playing Frost Byte and recommend it.

I really enjoyed my first few games of Frost Byte but after a few games I soon realised that it was a colourful pattern game - once you've done it, then there is no problem doing it again, which didn't make me want to go to the trouble of loading it up for another session. The graphics are very well drawn and extremely colourful, but are let down by some very bad collision detection. The game features some very smooth animation of the main character, but the other characters move in a very inferior fashion. I'm sure that people who like this type of game might get into it, but I found it very boring after the initial attractions.

I like this game: it has got good graphics, nice sound, and loads of fun elements - everything about it is done to a reasonable standard. Though it's not the sort of game that I could play for the rest of my humble existence, I feel that it has a great deal of appeal. The graphics are aggressive-looking or cute, according to the atmospheric requirement, and the playability, of which it has reams and reams, makes it very addictive. Very good value for money - congrats, MIKRO-GEN.

Micro Value
£2.99 re-release

Cosmia was quite a nice planet to live on once. That was before the Kreezers were forced to share their lands with a group of ghoulish monsters. They've taken over the caverns deep inside the planet and have captured your friends. Your skills are tested to the full as you attempt to rescue your fellow Kreezers in Frost Byte!

So, what's a Kreezer? Well, it's a sort of slinky spring thing that turns over and over on itself as you move along. This thingy can jump and fire and it's powers increased by collecting special diamond-shaped sweets. As well as collecting sweets to increase jump power, spring platforms help you reach dizzy heights and mattresses offer a safe landing back on the ground.

Frost Byte may be years old but it can still give the newer games a run for their money. There's plenty of colour and animation in the game and each screen has something new to be zapped and more platforms to be reached. Lots of arcade action and a totally original main character!

Mikro-Gen
£8.95

Sorry to spring this on you, but the hero of Frost Byte resembles nothing more than one of those Slinky toys that walks down the stairs by constantly coiling and uncoiling itself.

But if a heroic spring's the thing, winter's the setting in this seasonal offering from Mikro- Gen. It's all icicles and igloos as Hickey, the Kreezer, goes walkabout, or whatever it is that Slinkies do, to rescue his race from the monsters that haunt the planet.

Okay, this may sound kinda sweet, and sweets also play their part, because these tempting morsels give Hickey extra powers. They'll make him jump higher, slink faster or fall further, but they don't rot his teeth... probably because he doesn't have any teeth to rot.

I suppose they could make Hickey fat though, in which case he might turn into a ball (there's a point to this rather tenuous link, so hang on in there!) and then the game might resemble Medusa's Action Reflex (got there at last).

Frost Byte has the same, rather two-dimensional cartoon graphic style of that test of skill and strategy, instead of the richness of the Wally games. But that's not a bad thing, as Mikro-Gen's very own Equinox demonstrated. The screens are fairly pleasing, but I would've liked a little more detail.

The gameplay also has a rather flat quality. It's certainly not fast and furious, but rather a test of timing and positioning. You'll spend more time waiting for the right moment to move than blasting the nasties.

Don't think that you've seen it all before though. Action Reflex made control tricky by giving you a hero who bounces Mikro-Gen has gone one better in the difficulty stakes. It's not so easy to time a step when Hickey has to arch up and over. Dodging is damn difficult until you get into the swing (or should that be slink) of the thing.

You'll eventually learn how to judge jumps though, and then it's all a question of finding out what you'll need to get through to the next screen, and to be prepared for the shocks that lie ahead as you search for the five imprisoned Kreezers.

This isn't the sort of game that you're likely to rave about but it does sort of sneak up on you, and it's full of that magical one-more-play factor. Even if many elements are repeated, you'll still be aching to find out what lies ahead on the next screen. Not a blockbuster then, but it should warm you up over the long winter months.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

Torch? Check. Helmet? Check. Ability to write incredibly informative and witty reviews? Check. (Sort of.) Say hello to RICH PELLEY & JON PILLAR.

Micro Value
£2.99
Reviewer: Jon Pillar

Why the cover illustration for Frost Byte's got a dirty great barbarian swinging a sword round his head is anybody's guess. You actually play a rubber tube called Hickey. This tube has the conversation- stopping ability of moving end-over-end like on of those Slinky springs, as well as being able to jump, eat sweets andd fire bullets. And by gumbo you'll need all four because, if the truth be told, you're in a fair bit of a pickle.

On the ice planet of Cosmia, five of your fellow Kreezers have been kidnapped, and you've got to stop their horrible captors from turning them into Slinky Pot Roasts and gobbling them up. You therefore have to 'slink' your way across the platforms of flip-screen level (one level per pal), avoiding (or shooting) the nasties and reaching your chums before you run out of Twang (which isn't a revolutionary new deodorant, just the units of Cosmian time).

Yes you guessed it, Frosty's a platform maze game. And despite its age, it's actually not at all bad. The graphics are colourful and well drawn (if a tad flickery), with varied and increasingly bizarre nasties. The sound's pretty good too with a nifty title tune. Hickey himself is one of the great all-time great cute characters - it's hard to believe a yellow tube could exude such personality, but your heart goes out to him a he plods cheerfully on, no matter what.

On the down side, Frosty's difficulty level has been pitched just the wrong side of annoying which means your timing's got to be absolutely spot-on. And sometimes you can forget which end of Hickey is which. But, all in all, if you're looking for a challenge, with some pretty meaty levels and a fair bit of strategy, then you could do a lot worse than have a nibble at this.

Label: Mikro Gen
Author: In-house
Price: £9.95
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Graham Taylor

Well, I dunno. What has Mikro Gen been doing other than redesigning its logo?

Frostbite is part of the answer but it's hardly a mammoth (snow joke, geddit?) offering.

I don't know how many games this reminds me of, Manic Miner for one, Starstrike for another, Underwurlde (I could go on). It's getting through the caverns time again, judging the timing to get you past endless obstacles that drip, bounce or otherwise travel into you. You can fire at some of them, others need specific weapons scattered around. There is a lot of jumping in this game, both unassisted and with the aid of various bounce platforms strategically placed around the caverns.

You are a curious object that looks and moves just like a slinky (remember them?) - a sort of spring that tumbles over and over and thereby moves. The way you move is unusual and consequently some of the strategies involved in the game are a little different. The combination of jumping and moving, for example, takes a while to work out.

The object is to get out, simple, really. Useful objects include various coloured sweets that control things like jump height and speed and what look like air-to-air missiles. I'm all for high tech violence personally.

Where does that title come from? Not a clue. Although clearly the caverns are supposed to look icy there is no other arctic, polar, or otherwise nippy feature in the game. Oh well.

The sprites are big. That's good but, though some care has been taken with attributes, Mikro-Gen remains true to its Wally traditions and objects change colour with gleeful abandon.

As a game it looks OK. There are some impressive monsters in some of the caves (although mostly the big ones don't do anything at all) and the problems (timing the jumps) are difficult but not quite impossible which I guess is about right.

Nothing special. There isn't any astounding programming or stunningly original ideas to be found - but fun to play anyway.

Label: Micro Value
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £2.99 Tape, £n/a Disk
Reviewer: Steve Keen

Remember Silly Putty, Mud, Slime, Rubic's Cube and one of the first hand held games of its kind, Merlin. All kept me and my fellow school chums skipping lessons and sneaking off to the cloakrooms to compare slimeyness, slinkiness and sillyness. And many's the day I spent sprawled across the stairs with a Slinky endangering the lives of the household so that I could send an over sized spring tumbling down the steps.

Those were the days... I doubt if any of you would give them a second glance now, but to a whole generation then, they were the Game Boy's of the School yard.

Frost Byte takes the unusual character of a Slinky as it's main sprite, although he's unashamedly called Hickey here. Hickey has to tumble through the deep frozen ice caverns of the planet Cosmia which is in danger of being over run by terrible ghoulish monsters.

Collecting different coloured sweats along the way not only gives you a big turn, but increases your ability to jump, move and fall. Simple stuff, just slink and jump your way through the multi coloured caves and avoid the Ghouls.

The arcade platform benefits greatly from excellent sound and some very appealing graphics. Sprite detection lets you down some times, but you have five lives and there's more to be had so don't worry. It's quite perplexing what exactly you're supposed to do some times, but it's a fair bet that if it moves and you can shoot it don dare touch it!

However it's the frustratingly addictive game play that impressed me. It doesn't matter how many times you scream as you die and promise that that's the last attempt for you, 10 to one you'll be back for more in a second. How I ever got this written, Hickey only knows.

ANDREA:
An unusually plain but strangely cute sprite makes this very nearly a classic budget game. I could play all day, but someone's got to do some work around here!

MACHINE: Spectrum/Amstrad/Commodore
SUPPLIER: Mikro-Gen
PRICE: £8.95 (£13.95 Amstrad disc)

I'm suffering from Frost-Byte. It's a chiller thriller for cool dudes.

Don't be put off by the awful advertisement or the cassette cover, this is a great game.

I have never been a great fan of Mikro-Gem's seemingly never-ending series of Wally games so I wasn't particularly overjoyed at the prospect of Frost-Byte. Wrong. There's nothing Wallyish about this.

This is an extremely enjoyable and addictive game. Not devastatingly original but nevertheless well put together, graphically tasty and well worth the time of day on a winter's night.

The game stars a slinky spring-like creature called Hickey, who is apparently a Kreezer, whose fellow creatures are held captive deep within the planet Cosima.

Hickey has escaped and must free five other Kreezers. He must work his way through the perilous caverns, avoiding the numerous monsters.

I found the game fiendishly difficult to get into. Completing the first screen is fairly straightforward but I became stuck on the second for ages.

Hickey enters this screen from the bottom left hand corner. A fearsome snowman stands guard, protected by a lethal drip which drops from the cavern roof. It took literally ages for me to beat this drip. From then on's it's into a winter wonderland of delights. Great fun.

Mikrogen
£8.95

Mikrogen's latest is a little disappointing I'm afraid. At first it looks like a colourful arcade adventure in the style of Nodes of Yesod, Starquake and so on, in which you have to trek through underground caverns searching for various objects.

Graphically it's nice enough, bright colours and smooth animation, but after playing the game for a short while you realise that it's one of those games that allows you very little margin for error and can be enormously irritating.

There's an element of novelty in the fact that you control a worm-like creature called a Kreezer, and instead of the usual left/right and flying movements that are standard in these sort of games, the Kreezer moves along with a sideways end-over-end movement... He can also jump, but this action is limited to jumping straight up with only a very limited ability to move left or right as he comes back down again. This means that getting past most of the traps and monsters requires enormous accuracy in positioning and timing and at times the whole thing becomes an annoyingly frustrating matter of trial and error as you attempt to work out the correct manoeuvre.

The Kreezer's task is to rescue five other Kreezers who are locked up in different levels of the caves. But whereas in other games of this type the caves are often interconnected in a complex pattern which allows many different routes through them, in Frost Byte the caves of each level seem to be connected in a fixed sequence so that in order to master the later obstacles you have to go through the earlier stages over and over again, and this soon becomes a bit of a chore.

It's a shame because there's an enjoyable game in here but it's been spoiled by not being very well thought out.