Producer: Starlight
Retail Price: £8.99
Author: John Bigelow

Far in the future, Earth fell into chaos after the death of its ruler Jaled IV. Anarchy was the only ruling force, and during these dark ages much scientific knowledge of the golden age was lost.

Only a few things have survived this terrible time of desolation, among them the intergalactic jail in which invaders were imprisoned and their psychological powers subdued.

The most dangerous of these invaders were a mean set of aliens who had landed from an unknown planet. Their powers were beyond belief: mental abilities that defied analysis and more physical strength than our world had seen before. In Jaled's time the creatures were held in a suspended state in the jail - but now, with advanced technology, they can be terminated for ever.

But the jail is so nearly impregnable that only The Hybrid can penetrate it. The Hybrid is a strange group of three half-droid, half-organic intelligence units, each possessing their own individual characteristics. And what makes these fighting machines invincible is their ability to merge and create a single entity, The Hybrid, with all the powers of the three units in one destructive force.

You control each of these intelligence units. The brain has with weak armour, moderate movement and poor shooting characteristics but can use the teleport to transfer itself and other units through the prison complex, closer to the aliens. The robot is the largest and strongest part of The Hybrid and best used to clear the way for the other units. And the xylon can switch on bridges in the jail, helping you cross streams.

Each unit has its own power rating, fuelled by energy blocks, and once a unit s out of power it's immobilised. In an emergency, energy can be siphoned from one unit to another.

Extra fire power and armour are also necessary to combat the strategically-placed guns, cannons, beacons, mines and obnoxious aliens.

To complete your task you must join the three units to form The Hybrid, which is then automatically transported to the cell of the first alien. By completing this process four times you eradicate the race of aliens and yet again save the earth.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: neat, with well-used colour
Sound: average
Options: definable keys

Hybrid is another trashy scrolling spaceship-on-pretty-backgrounds game. But the graphics are very similar to Shadow Skimmers, and colour is good and widely used. And there's an average title tune, though not many FX. The best idea is the way you can change from one Hybrid to another; but that doesn't save the uninteresting gameplay.
NICK [40%]

It's all well and good making a game that's graphically pretty and nicely documented, but if it's unoriginal and unplayable no-one will want to know. Hybrid left me cold. The screens offer virtually no challenge and the aliens that inhabit them aren't particularly bloodthirsty, so death is just an annoying thing that happens if you're unlucky. And once a Hybrid dies, the other two have to be sacrificed as they can't progress far on their own. Insipid...
BEN [29%]

DIY robot-building is the name of this very playable shoot-'em-up game. Graphically it's good, with the parts of the dismembered Hybrid zipping round the screen. And though it's all viewed from above, control is easy to master. The inevitable blasting sound effects are all too evident, but a harmless tune plays on the intro screen. Hybrid is well worth anyone's time.
MARK [80%]

There are quite a lot of games quite a bit like Hybrid. I s'pose that's why Starlight decided to call it what they did...

Here's the plot: mankind's big hope of saving itself from eternal tyranny and misery is not, in fact, Col Oliver North - but you. Yep, you get to control the three robots that will save the world.

Inside a high security gaol live four horribly dangerous aliens. You need to kill them. In order to do this you need to move your three specialised robots to one of four special locations within the gaol where they can unite to do battle.

Getting the three robots through to the 'join-up' cells is no easy matter since the gaol area is simply teeming with laser defences, assorted aliens, cannons, impassable energy fields and lots of other things that make bleeping noises.

In some places the way is blocked to all but the smallest robot, in other areas only the biggest robot can deal with the more fiendish defensive systems.

Playing the game is therefore partly a matter of judging which robot to use when and then working your way through the gaol blasting and dodging. Each robot has separate levels of energy and fire power which may be augmented by passing through special squares in the gaol. Should one robot run out of steam it is possible to transfer energy between robots and revitalise it.

It's not a bad mixture of arcade and strategy but it doesn't look very spectacular - there's a squarish look to the playing screens, relatively unexciting designs for the robots (which do however move quite smoothly) and the various sections of the gaol all look pretty much the same. True there isn't much attribute clash but then you'd hardly expect it on a game with shapes as essentially basic as this.

If every there was a case for a mid-price game this is it. It isn't very original, it doesn't look spectacular, but it has quite a large playing area and could be fun for those who get pleasure out of lengthy mapping exercises.

They have more patience than I, though!

Label: Ariolasoft
Author: Starlight
Price: £8.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tamara Howard

MACHINES: Spectrum/Amstrad/C64
SUPPLIER: Ariolasoft
PRICE: £7.95
VERSION TESTED: Spectrum/Amstrad

Three creatures - Brain, Robot and Xylon - must find each other and unite to destroy an alien in a deep space complex.

You initially have control of the Xylon, a beast with light armour and slight fire power. Such a large task for such a small hero. He's not only got to help destroy the alien but he's got to take out the station's dangerous defences. There are gun emplacements, enemy space ships and power points to knock out, plus electrified fences to avoid. You can also try the teleports which'll take you deeper into the complex.

When you find the Robot, the next piece of the hybrid creature, link up with it and move on to find the last component brain. The Xylon and Robot must work in tandem to defeat yet more complex defences - this time streams of electric current and more powerful laser posts. No one character can complete the game because each has different characteristics and powers. When, for instance, you meet up with Brain you have the intelligence to solve the complex's puzzles, the armoured protection of The Robot, and the speed and agility of The Xylon. That's all you'll need to confront the alien.

The game's not over once you've found and blasted it. The members of the team are scattered throughout the complex. You've got to find them again and go after another alien.

Repeat the process another two times and you've completed the game. Sounds so simple but most of the complex screens are lethal.

Combine that with a frustrating search and you've got an inventive if graphically mediocre game.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £8.99
Commodore 64/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £12.99
Amstrad CPC Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99

ROBOTIC THREESOME

Ariolasoft have recently changed direction, moving towards being a publishing house rather than a software label. They are setting up teams of programmers which work fairly independently, writing games for labels which Ariolasoft then publishes. Reaktor and Viz Design are Starlight's stablemates.

The inhabitants of an inter-galactic jail have freed themselves from suspended animation and now intend to destroy Earth. Taking control of the three half-sentient, half-droid units which form the fighting machine Hybrid - the Brain, the Xylon and the Robot - the objective is to eradicate the alien life forms once and for all. Each unit has its own characteristics. For example the Robot is the toughest and is best used to clear a path for the other two, while Xylon can activate switches to create bridges between sections of the jail, and the physically weaker Brain, being that bit smarter, is able to use the transport system to reach otherwise inaccessible areas of the complex.

The jail is well-defended, containing automatic gun emplacements, mines, beacons and aggressive guardians. Apart from avoiding enemy gunfire and aliens, the overall aim is to find a point where all three units can join up to form one superior entity which may be transported to an alien cell to carry out a termination. Perform this exercise four times and the game is complete.

Extra power units and ammunition can be picked up along the way, and the Hybrid's component parts each have separate energy reserves. Should power run out, a droid is immobilised, although such emergencies can be dealt with by syphoning power from one unit to another. One annoying aspect to the gameplay is that there's no point in continuing if one of your units expires - all three components have to be merged before dealing death to one of the four target aliens.