Producer: Mastertronic
Retail Price: £1.99
Author: Robin Thompson

By a strange twist of fate you have suddenly become Molecule Man - a round ball on legs, trapped within a nightmarish maze contaminated by radiation. All around you, abstract shapes block your every move. A time clock is counting down and the radiation is gradually shortening your life. The only way to escape is via the teleporter. However, there's a problem. You can only use the teleporter when sixteen circuits have been found and installed in it. These circuits am scattered around the huge 3D maze in Molecule Man and are the key to escape - and survival.

Luck is not on your side. A maze contaminated by radiation is not the healthiest place to be stuck in. The only way to stay alive under these conditions is by taking anti-radiation pills. At the start of the game Molecule Man has a supply of twenty of these tablets, but in cider to survive he must eat one every few seconds, so his stock of pills deplenishes rather quickly. Dotted around the maze are anti-radiation tablet vending machines where new supplies of pills can be obtained. Life isn't cheap though, and tablets cost money. Molecule Man came unprepared - his pockets are completely devoid of small change when he enters the maze. Thankfully the inhabitants of the maze are rather untidy fellows, as £1 coins can be found on the floor, and the dispensary is happy to exchange them for pills.

Apart from the money and the circuits, bombs also have to be collected during the game. When Molecule Man has found his money he must decide whether to spend the money on extra life-giving pills or bombs. The bombs come in handy for destroying sections of the maze wails, allowing access to new, unexplored parts of the maze. The status area keeps tabs on the number of bombs, tablets, coins and pieces of transporter circuit MM is carrying.

The screen is made up of a variety of strange shapes that mark out the boundaries of the maze. These vary from traffic cones to magic toadstools - each screen is different. Once you come to the edge of one screen, Molecule Man automatically trundles to the next one in his search for the way out.

The basic maze in the game would put the designers of Hampton Court maze to shame. If you become bored with the layout, an editor is provided so that you can redesign the playing area, altering objects that make up the maze to fit your requirements. The game can be made as easy or as hard as you like, and customised versions can be saved to tape for later sessions at the game of Survival.

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable
Joystick: Kempston, cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: a little strange, but okay
Use of colour monochromatic
Graphics: large and detailed
Sound: adequate
Skill levels: one
Screens: 256

Gosh, what nice graphics! There are lots of good bits that make it both visually attractive and fun to play. I found Molecule Man pretty addictive. The maze designer knocks spots off, say the Caves of Doom editor, being colourful, easy to use, quick and efficient; creating new mazes is almost as good as the game itself, though not quite! The price is one of the game's best features: for £1.99, it's a steal! Just goes to show that when Mastertronic aren't churning out rubbish like 1985, they can produce quite a good low price game.

I'm always a little dubious about the quality of Mastertronic games - they tend to be either good, or downright awful. After loading it up and having a go, I was pleasantly surprised. The graphics are excellent: your character wobbles nicely about the place, and the backgrounds are superb. The sound is not quite up to the same standard as the graphics but it is adequate. The game itself is made a lot more playable by the easy-to-use Editor: if you decide that the maze supplied with the game is too hard you can design your own layout without the usual grief associated with screen Editors. This game would be quite a good deal for seven quid, so it is well worth the Mastertronics two pound price tag. What more can I say other than buy it?.

Mastertronic have yet again come up with a beautifully presented game with all the options you could want, and more. The actual game is a lot of fun to play and a lot of thinking is needed to plan out your strategy and decide whether to buy extra life or a bomb. The graphics are well up to the usual 3D-ish type maze games and everything is big and well distinguished. As you change screens the next location is flicked up immediately which means there's no slacking in your quest for the circuits, or the pills. A very nice addition is the screen designer; this is very easy to use and can give the whole game a completely new look. It's a pity you couldn't change the look of the actual characters and can only affect their positioning. Molecule Man shows that a cheap price doesn't necessarily mean a cheap looking game.

Mastertronic
£1.99

He's rough, he's tough and bad guys yell "Enough!" - yes, folks it's Molecule Man. Mastertronic, though, will be hoping that you can't get enough of its latest hero from its mega-cheapo stable. Despite the name, knowledge of nuclear physics is not a pre-requisite of this quasi-3D maze game. But the game will help your architectural skills as there's the built-in bonus of a maze designer program added to the original game. You can use this to edit the existing maze or design yourself a whole new mess for Molecule Man to get himself into.

Essentially Molecule Man is lost in the middle of a 256 location maze, reasonably detailed in 3D style. Radiation is killing him, time running out. To reach freedom he must find 16 circuits in order to activate the tele-porter. However, time is at a premium, so he must also pick up coins along the way and then make life crucial decisions - does he use the money to buy pills or bombs. The pills (presumably iodine tablets) increase his lifespan, while the bombs will blast him through to otherwise inaccessible parts of the maze, where those elusive circuits no doubt lurk.

On screen displays tell you how many bombs you have, radiation pills left, time elapsed and money and circuits collected. Molecule Man himself looks like a 3D Smiley badge and makes a suitably radioactive crackle as he wanders about. You have to be quite zippy to get anywhere and finding the cash is crucial to any success. But then if you find the original set-up too hard there's always the editing program to save your bacon, if not your molecules. Not a game to change the universe, but still a bargain little package.

WHAT CAN I GET FOR £1.99

Rock bottom - £1.99. It seems there is a simple rule governing software pricing policy - if it doesn't cost £9.99 then it must cost £1.99. Now this is jolly simple for software distributors and retailers who find the fact that most software is one of two possible prices easy on their accountant's brains but it means this: software which costs £9.99 is either really fab or involves a licencing deal so expensive that the software firm needs the margins.

Software which costs £1.99 is... well... rapidly becoming almost everything else. From the titles reviewed here it's clear that £1.99 will buy you some of the most awful and some of the most awesome programs ever devised...

MOLECULE MAN
Label: Mastertronic
Authors: Rob Thompson
Price: £1.99
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Graham Taylor

It's a little bit of Cylu, it's a bit Ultimate, it's a little like quite a few other games, but Molecule Man is still wonderful. An example of budget software which leaves much of the full price stuff miles behind. Molecule Man is certainly budget game of the month - maybe of the past few months. The wonderful thing about it being that you can completely redesign it and produce a whole new game layout.

Around six months ago quite a few programmers seemed to discover surrealism as a way of life, programs started to be filled with objects normally not associated with one another - Sweevo with its little girls, odd fowl and tropical fruit is one memorable example.

Molecule Man belongs to the same surrealist school of graphics design. The man himself is an inoffensive looking orange with legs, the world he inhabits looks a bit like some textbook diagram showing the structural implications of quantum theory. But here and there are objects and characters (a dustbin with a hideously grinning smile springs to mind) more like some grotesque children's fantasy story. It looks bizarre anyway, and if the general appearance and inter-screen movement is a little Cyluesque well, who cares?

The games is essentially a maze, except that rather than seeking the exit Molecule Man seeks the 16 parts of a circuit that... oh never mind. The major problem is keeping your energy level from dwindling away. Energy can be by picking up coins end using them to buy power if you should find a power point.

Needless to say the coins are few and far between and usually placed in some completely inaccessible part of the maze. There is a further dilemma, the coins are also the only means of getting circuit parts, which again, have to be bought. Power or parts - that is the question?

The surreal graphics, the time limit, the elements of strategy - it makes for a very entertaining, fairly original and addictive game. But that's not all. You also get...

MAZE DESINGER

THE OTHER SIDE of the tape contains a utility program which lets you construct your own Molecule Man mazes. Working with the original maze layout you can now move objects, remove objects, block openings, unblock openings, change objects and place coins, pills and circuit parts in completely new locations making the game as easy as you like.

The cursor-driven system is easy to use and it's possible to create mazes even more bizarre and fiendish than the original to test yourself or your friends. It adds a major new dimension to the game which extends its possible playing life significantly.

C64, £1.99cs
Spectrum, £1.99cs
Amstrad, £1.99cs

Probably the first £1.99 game with isometric 3D graphics, this simple exploration and collection effort has since been over-shadowed by earlier full-price efforts subsequently re-released on budget. You'll find it now as a freebie on the flip-side of the more recent Energy Warrior, complete with a Molecule Man construction set for anyone who's really keen. Not the greatest gameplay or graphics you've ever seen, but as far as value for money goes it still takes some beating.

Spectrum
Mastertronics
3D Maze
£1.99

Once again the topical theme of defusing radioactive places rears its ugly head. In this 3D isometric maze you have to guide your hero around various non-fatal obstacles. You must pick up 16 circuits and thus save the planet. To get the circuits you have to pick up coins to buy bombs from the handy bomb-vending machines. That allows you to clear the way to the circuits.

You can also use coins to buy iodine pills to stave off the affects of radiation. On the flip side of the tape is a maze designer if you become bored with the one supplied. Pleasant graphics and touches of humour make it challenging.

CUSTOMISE YOUR OWN MAZE GAME FOR A BUDGET PRICE.

Mastertronic
£1.99

Not another 3D maze game! 'Fraid so. This does have two saving graces, though: it's cheap and it has a built in maze designer.

Molecule man is trapped in a maze containing 256 screens of deadly radiation with only his wits separating life from death. Time can be bought but the price is high and the Banks are closed.

Our globular hero soon find: that the pathways may not be paved with gold but they are sprinkled sparingly with small change. As you guide Molecule Man through the lethal landscape he finds the occasional discarded pound coin which can be used to buy anti-radiation pills or bombs.

The pills are essential to Molecule Man's life support system because they dispel the effects of the radiation which is gradually sapping his strength. His energy level falls at such an alarming rate that the search for coins is a constant concern. The pills are dispensed by cuboid machines which are not always positioned at convenient places. Like the pills, bombs are dispensed from special cubes and also cost a pound each.

Now the Damoclean nature of the becomes apparent, you must decide whether to buy a pill or risk buying a bomb. Make the wrong decision and you will die from radiation sickness and have to start again.

Why has Molecule Man chosen to come to such an inhospitable land? He's no fool, he didn't choose his fate and is looking for the way out. He knows that this is done by using the teleporter but first he must find the 16 circuit boards which will make it work. This he must do against all odds and with time ticking away speed is essential.

In this maze you must plot your way on paper. All you know is that the maze is designed on a grid which is 16 screens wide by 16 screens deep. After collecting all of the circuit boards Molecule Man must find his way to the teleport pad to make his escape.

When you decide you've had enough or eventually complete the maze, you can move on to designer program.

The designer is a separate program on the tape but mazes created here can be loaded into the main game at the beginning of the session to replace the original puzzle.

Each screen is created individually on a composing grid but, by moving the cursor off the edge of the displayed screen, you can scroll to any of the other screens around its borders to see how one pathway relates to the next screen. In this way continuous paths or deliberate barriers can be created.

A menu is displayed on the left side of the screen to allow you to choose the type of obstructions required. Initially this shows 14 different objects but there are two further menus giving a total choice of 42 characters. The only two factors to be taken into consideration are the number of circuits and the starting position of Molecule Man.

If 16 circuit boards have not been collected, the teleporter will not work in the real game. So planning is essential. This is helped by the ability to print out an overview of the maze. This is a horrifying prospect because it makes you realise the complexity of Molecule Man's task but it does solve the problem of mapping it all out yourself.

There ts only one Molecule Man and he can be placed anywhere on the grid as a starting position. All that remains is to save the map to tape and reload the main game.

The Designer only shows the game in a 2D representation, Only when your own game is fully loaded can you appreciate your creation to the full. If there are any points which need to be changed, then the whole map can be reloaded into the Designer and changed until you create your own ultimate challenge.

At the end of Mastertronic's tape is a map which can be used as a starting point for your own design projects. If you've played the set version it may look familiar. By chipping away here and there you can alter a stage or two to customise the game to suit your own needs if a full blown remodeling session does not appeal.

In Molecule Man you have a very difficult challenge combined with a game creator at a price which makes unbelievable value.