Producer: Gremlin Graphics
Retail Price: £7.95
Author: Shaun Hollingworth, Greg Holmes, Chris Kerry, Peter Harrap

Although our story is set many years in the future, the noble art of chivalry is not dead. This is just as well as the ship in which Amelia is travelling has crashlanded on planet 2749/2 of the Zrag9 system, and worse still, the fair Amelia has been abducted by the dastardly Spegbott. Guarded by the grotesque Henchdroid in Spegbott's castle, Amelia's life is in mortal peril.

Randol, a professional hero and Future Knight, receives a distress call from the wrecked S.S Rustbucket requesting his help immediately. But when Randolf reaches the crashed ship he finds that he has quite a mission on his armour-plate. Of course, for the love of Amelia he is willing to risk life and limb - cor, they don’t make them like that anymore!

There are twenty levels to Randolph’s mission. Firstly, the Future Knight has to hack his way through the ruined space ship out on to the planet surface. Once there he must make his way to Spegbott's castle and locate the alluring Amelia. However, in each main level there are multiple sub-levels. Each of these sub-levels has two doors, and Randolf must fight his way from one door to the other greeting each foe in his path with zeal.

Randolf starts out each life with 999 units of energy. Each time he's caught by one of Spegbott's henchmen, this level goes down by a certain amount. When this level reaches zero, then Randall loses one of his three lives. A bomb, if picked up, will not only rid the screen of all aliens, but will also boost your Knight's energy. When all three lives have been used up the game is over, and Amelia will be left to the dastardly devices of the evil Spegbott.

However, the baddies don't get it all their own way. Randolf has a very nifty gun built into his space suit which is very handy for blasting the baddies. This gun can be changed for another by visiting the ship's armoury. These guns have infinite blasting power, so Randolf can go forth and be very destructive if he likes.

Randolf is a bit of an exhibitionist. If you ignore him for a period of time, then the little Knight starts waving at you to attract your attention. If you refuse to continue the game he starts doing a little dance to amuse himself. If you still take no notice then he starts going totally berserk and spinning around on the spot.

There are other useful objects which Randoif can collect to help him with his mission. These range from confusers, which do exactly what their name suggests, to various spells which will build bridges and extra exits.

COMMENTS

Control keys: left Q; right W;up; P;down L; Fire SPACE; use, U; abort, BREAK
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: pretty slick
Use of colour: effective
Graphics: detailed with good shading
Sound: nice tune if you play it on the 128, a bit beepy on the 48K
Skill levels: one
Screens: 160

I'm not very sure about this game. It was actually great fun for a while as I leapt around the platforms fighting nestles. However, there are some niggly problems. For a start off climbing up certain ladders just lead off onto the screen above - fine, except when you don't want to go to the screen above. Generally, I can't really put my finger, there's something about it that I'm not too keen on and I would recommend that you have a look at this before investing the old crinkly stuff.

This isn't perhaps the most original of games but it is good fun all the same. Legging it around the largish playing area trying to get out does get extremely frustrating after a couple of goes as it is very difficult to actually die, but you can get trapped in small spaces, so you have to about the game. The graphics are very good, each of the characters is very well drawn and animated and the backgrounds are colourful. The sound is also good, there area few effects during the game and a lovely tune on the title screen. Future Knight isn't the best game around at the moment but it is certainly well worth a look.

I tried to look at this with as open a mind as possible, bearing in mind GREMLIN'S past record, but unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed. The graphics are very good, and well up to the usual high standard of GREMLIN, but unfortunately, the game struck me as being a very run of the mill one. The most enjoyable thing that I found about it was the way in which you characters stops, knocks on the screen, and starts dancing if you leave him alone for too long g a period of time. Of course, you like this sort of game, then I think you'll be OK.

Gremlin
£7.95

Mayday, mayday, mayday! Never mind that it's still only January, you have a job to do. The space ship carrying the love of your life has crash-landed and Amelia's been taken hostage by Spegbott the Terrible. (His friends all call him Botty 'cos he's such a bum!) Slipping into your space suit, you teleport to the beleaguered ship. Now the search through screen after screen is on - can you find your love before Spegbott makes Amelia of her? Prepare to make a knight of it...

Once again, Gremlin has come up with a cute little character in a cartoony setting. Leave him too long on his tod and he starts waving to you - longer still and he goes straight into a suicide spin that only when his energy runs out or you take control again.

This time, though, the programmers have plumped for the platforms and ladders format. We're back in left, right, jump, fire territory with a bit of pick up and use for good measure. Fortunately, if you're as fed up as me with games that require perfect pixel positioning, Future Knight is much more forgiving of your mistakes. If you touch one of the nasties, your energy depletes to different degrees depending on who, or rather what, you've just bumped into. And as you start with a thousand energy points and four lives, you should be able to get a fair way into the game on your first play. It's even possible to push your energy right back to the top again.

And your energy can drain faster than water down the plughole. The space ship, the SS Rustbucket, is chock full of horrors. There are ghosts and greeblies, disembodied skulls plus the brains that plopped out of them. Worst of all, though, are the different sized droids, monster machines that patrol the platforms - one touch and your energy will go through the floor. And they take some killing too. You can spend a couple of minutes with the joystick on auto-fire before they disappear in a puff up their own exhaust pipes.

So, what's the knight life like in space? Well, there's knight clubbing, of course, but you expend a lot of energy on that, so it's better to lance-a-lot, using the weapons you pick up as you go. Most of your time's spent looking for the exits on the next level and clocking up the high score. Not that original, okay, but the gameplay's good and the graphics are a lot of fun - just wait till you make it outside onto the planet surface and get a good look at the giant caterpillars!

The game's big enough to keep you going for weeks, and that's before you start making a map. You'll soon find yourself hook, line and sinkered. As they said round the table in Camelot, once a knight may not be enough...

Label: Gremlin
Price: £7.95
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

Future Knight has all the ingredients of a truly masterful arcade adventure.

It looks neat, complex and addictive.

And the storyline is intentionally simple so you can get straight on with the business in hand - playing the game.

Randolph (he's a hero), while having a quiet sit-down and a pint of best, is jarred back into consciousness by a message interstellar teletype. His heart-throb, Princess Amelia has been captured by aliens after her ship, the SS Rustbucket, crashed on a planet in the Zragg system. Seems like a tough break for her.

Every space-hero knows quite how impressive you can be while rescueing maidens from the clutches of evil slime-monsters and Randolph is no exception.

It's essentially a ladders-and-platforms-with-a- few-other-sorts-of-things thrown-in type of game.

The graphics are very clean. While not boasting a whole lot of detail, they are nicely animated if a bit 'cutesty'.

You spend your time being bombarded by horribly unpleasant beasties of wide variety. Ghosts team up with flying saucers, and a whole host of other anti-social characters to give you a tough time.

Along the way, you'll discover numerous items which will help you on your mission. For example, the bomb will destroy every alien on the screen, and restores your constitution to maximum strength.

There is also a 'confuser', a handy little piece of equipment. Once you have one in your pudgy little suit-clad mitts, you can frazzle the aliens' intelligence - preventing them from posing all but the most abstract of threats.

Other items you can use are a 'bridge'spell, with which you can bridge gaps, an 'exit' pass, allowing you to use exits which may be locked and the 'platform' key which builds a platform.

At some points in the game, you'll find yourself confronted with a huge alien which wanders around in what looks like a 21st century walking frame, squishing anything in sight.

Obviously you're going to have to defend yourself and there's a selection of weapons - some prove more effective at certain times than others.

If you leave Randolph standing still for too long a period, he'll wave at you as incentive to get a move on. Leave him in the same spot for much longer and things start to get really desperate: Randolph will go completely berzerk, spinning round and round, flailing his arms and panicking in an astoundingly convincing manner.

Ignore him then and the chances are his constitution (shown at the bottom of the screen - maximum 999) will plummet at a tremendous rate.

The graphics are very smoothly animated, and Randolph waddles about the screen with a degree of fluidity equal to Gremlin's recent chart hit Jack the Nipper. Jumping around the playing area is easy to get the hang of, as you can generally reach just about any part of the screen with a good jump. All this, and you can fire in mid-air too.

MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Gremlin Graphics
PRICE: £7.95

Oh dear, I thought, as I sat down to play Future Knight. This looks like a glossy platforms and ladders game to me. Stifling a yawn. I got stuck in and suddenly found myself quite enjoying the game - despite the fact that I'd seen/played squillions of similar offerings in the past.

But this one is well presented, has got some interesting puzzles, nice graphics, an opening tune which is pretty amazing for the Spectrum, and it's playable as well. A quality productas you'd expect from Gremlin.

You take on the role of Randolf, the hero, who is on a rescue mission to save his sweetheart Princess Amelia captured by aliens on a planet in the Zragg system.

There are 20 different levels connected by doors which require a pass to get through. Each level is packed with nasties which reappear even if you kill them off. There are also giant droid thingies which need mucho blasting to get rid of.

You'll discover lots of other useful items, like "smart bombs" which wipe out everything in sight, confusers which, when activated, confuse aliens for a short time allowing you to do whatever you want unhindered. Randolf also comes across spells which allow him to build useful bridges, unlock exits and finally free the princess. There are all sorts of keys to be collected too and a sceptre which kills off a very large semi-indestructible droid.

Our hero can pick up a selection of ammo for his all-purpose alien-blaster fireball ammo is the best for all eventualities - the other stuff being a bit puny.

The bomb is a useful gizmo - not only does it kill all aliens on screen instantly in a blaze of flashing pixels but it also restores your energy to 999. Energy is the thing you're going to need most of in this game.

The princess can always be found in the second dungeon area - but it's no good finding your way there and finding you've left the all important release spell behind.

You begin the game with three lives and a weedy weapon. So it's best to explore until you find an ammo dispenser which gives you a better one. But don't move back in front of it after you've claimed some decent firepower otherwise you'll lose it again. And don't move out of a level until you've explored it thoroughly. You might just miss something important.

Future Knight isn't terribly original - but it is very well put together. Like Jack the Nipper, it's a map makers delight and pretty good value.

FUTURE KNIGHT PROVES HARD TO DEFINE BUT EASY TO ENJOY.

Gremlin
£7.95

Spectrum gamers that enjoy categorising games will have fun with this latest offering from Gremlin.

Is it a shoot em up, or a platform game or perhaps an arcade adventure? Or is it a completely new style of game combining the action of all three? Either way it's going to be big.

The plot revolves around our attempts as Randolph the hero to rescue your beloved maiden from the evil clutches of the evil Spegbott the Terrible.

Wearing your Omnibot Mark IV all purpose attack suit, complete with laser assisted rifle you rush to answer an inter-dimensional distress signal and arrive in the S.S. Rustbucket. However, instead of finding your Princess Amelia you're greeted by berserk defence droids that swamp you and drain your life energy.

Luckily, you've brought a couple of spare lives with you in case you lose all 999 of your energy points.

These defence droids come in many shapes and sizes and range from high flying ghosts to slithering blobs of goo.

BUBBLING LAVA

To add to your problems there's also deadly pools of bubbling lava and platform traps that you can leap into but can't jump walk or blast your way out.

The game begins inside the crashed Rustbucket and your first job is to find the way out onto the planet then search a jungle until you find Spegbott's castle and eventually your Princess. Ahead of you lies 20 levels of vertically scrolling screens that form the maze of ladders, platforms and hazards of the Rustbucket and the planet outside.

All is not lost as help is at hand in the objects that you can find around the ship, although you will have to fight for them.

Safe passes and securo keys open and unlock the exit doors that lead from one level to another until eventually you find the exit pass to let you out of the ship. You may also find bombs that destroy a screenful of critters while replenishing your energy as well as Confusers to stun them and the mysterious Shorteners and Flash Bangers.

HENCHODROID

Once you reach the castle and find the dungeon you will have to defeat the almost indestructable Henchodroid. You'll probably achieve this through objects that you've found but first you will have to perform a cosmic juggling act as you can only carry one object at a time!

Despite this restriction you'll soon be bounding through the levels.

Unfortunately, you'll have to do the full 20 levels in one sitting as there isn't a save option or even a pause button. Leave the game for a few minutes and Randolph will wave to attract your attention and then spin around losing energy at an alarming rate.

A superb mixture of all that's best in arcade adventures, platform games and shoot em ups combined to signal monster hit.

CBM64/Plus 4/C16/Amstrad CPC/MSx/Spectrum
Publisher: Gremlin Graphics

l always worry when I open up a game and the bulkiest thing about it is the instruction sheet, but this one's not as bad as it first seems as it covers several machines and every language from ancient Greek to Serbo-Croat. Roughly translating all of them, they boil down to this: if it moves, shoot it, and if it doesn't, pick it up. If you can't shoot it, get out of the way.

Though played on the CBM64, the graphics have a chunky BBC look to them, which is about the only machine it isn't available for. As for the storyline, any game that has a villain called Spegbott the Terrible can't be all bad. Spegbott, it seems, has stolen your loved one, the fair Amelia, and acting upon a signal received from the SS Rustbucket you troll off without further ado to Spegbott's planet where you must make your way up through 20 levels to the planet's surface (how did you get down beneath the surface in the first place?), then to Spegbott's castle and the rescue of Amelia. Hopefully she'll display her gratitude, as being in the clutches of Spegbott the Terrible can hardly be the pinnacle of a young girl's dreams.

To earn her gratitude, though, you have to trek your way through a kind of shooting platforms and ladders game that's entertaining enough without ever really becoming exciting. The sound effects are disappointing, and though there's a lot of detailed graphics and amusing-looking creatures around, the whole game plays rather slowly and doesn't really provide any incentive to get up to the more advanced levels.

You need a joystick to move the hero, Sir Randolph, around the screen, with each level being fairly small in total area and made up of interconnecting ladders and platforms, and a few million beasties for good measure. These float around and crawl about, and most can be blasted with your gun, while almost all can be killed if you are prepared for a head-on collision. This doesn't do much for your strength that's counting down from 999 at the foot of the screen, however.

Other objects can be picked up on your travels, such as bombs, bridges, sceptres and exits, and pressing the space bar puts any of your objects to use - you don't have to specify which one, the program knows which is usable in which situation.

If you find the likes ofU(iridium and Sanxion too fast for you, and prefer a more sedate pace, then this might appeal, but as for me I was content after a while to wish Amelia and Spegbott a happy future together.