Players Premier
£2.99 cass

Well, Players have come up with a few strange storylines in their time, but I think Mutant Fortress must take the crown. Catch a load of this...

You are Brad, a post-apocalyptic truck driver who likes nothing more than trundling down the motorway with a Yorkie in one hand and a machine gun in the other! The only thing you cared about in the world was your 18 wheel truck, and now the naughty mutants have gone and stolen it for no apparent reason (ooo, how naughty!). Of course your mission is to now reclaim your 40 foot property and get home before tea time. To get the truck back you must battle your way through zombie infested forests, parched wasteland and Tescos on a Friday night, collecting weapons, ammo, first aid kits and the odd tin of baked beans.

All the Players Premier games have a high quality of graphics and sound, and Mutant Fortress is of course no exception. There is a brill 128K tune, and all the backgrounds, mutants and especially the big truck itself have been excellently drawn. Only one thing lets the game down: it's far too difficult. I like to think that I'm pretty good at this sort of shooty shooty game but I can't even get onto the second section.

Mutant Fortress will provide a challenge to even the best players out there, and at this sort of price you can't go wrong, can you? Players Premier have got themselves another winner.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

Never a man to miss out on a spicy low-pricey, Jonathan Davies sifts through this month's batch of good, bad and downright ugly budget games.

Players Premier
£2.99
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies

Otherwise known, we're informed, as The Muties Stole My Truck, Mutant Fortress is a sort of mishmash of Ghosts And Goblins, Green Beret and Cobra.

In fact, the first level is almost a straight G&G rip-off, with zombies emerging from the ground, gravestones and swooping birds. The other two lean a bit more towards Green Beret - soldiers, that kind of thing. Add-on weapons abound, and that big-game feel is simulated by the use of a multi-load system.

With a pedigree as safe as that, Mutant Fortress couldn't really go wrong, and luckily it hasn't. Although the graphics are merely passable, those muties keep on coming and even your joystick will be perspiring before long. A nice touch is the mantraps which immobilize you for a while - best to jump over them. It's a shame they couldn't have come up with a few more bits and pieces like that, and maybe a couple are levels to pad it out a bit. Still, mustn't grumble.

Label: Players Premier
Author: In-house
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

Now this is a bit unusual. Unusual title, unusual plot. You are Brad, known to his friend as Brad, track driver extraordinaire who, when he isn't working at his truck driving firm, can find no better way to relax than driving a truck. When the muties invaded, somehow they managed to latch onto his only weak spot. They took the only thing that really matters to a man. They stole his truck. Now he's mad.

So, in his anger, he does what any other red blooded trackless track driver would do. He sets off to take it back, and what a journey he has to take. Three whole stages of sadistical mayhem. First, our gallant hero has to battle through a haunted forest followed by a graveyard. Then a quick ramble through a nearby desert and finally to the mutie's base, where his track is held captive. Now forgive me if I'm wrong, but that isn't an awful lot of levels. Still, maybe they're so full of action and adventure that it seems like you're getting a huge game.

Maybe not. TMSMT is a pretty dull game inter-spiced with some rather dreadful still pictures, laughably so. This is how the game works. You have to scroll from left to right, shooting all the bad guys with your little gun. At various points, you can collect extra weapons, such as flame throwers and laser rifles. At the end of the level, you fights a large bad guy who takes a lot of hits to destroy. See, brimming with originality.

Graphically, it's not too bad. The sprites are large, and recongnisable, though I'm not too sure about the animation. The backdrops are dull and repetitive, for each level and a hole here and there. The graphical low point of the entire game, and one of the funniest things I have ever seen are the stills that appear between the levels. The first one has the main character stood in a forest, and judging by the rather stumpy legs he has, it looks like he's kneeling down on a pair of shoes.

I don't want to say it's crap, because that would be unfair. It just isn't any good. A dip in standard from Players.

This is all a bit of a shame, but I get the feeling that there just wasn't a great deal of imagination in the mixture for this little concoction.

Players
Spectrumm £2.99

As hard mercenary types go Brad is somewhere in the top league. So you can guess bow hard he feels when a gang of mutants make off with his adored eighteen wheeler juggernaut. Beginning in a dark forest (as does a lot of games of late) it's hardness-a-plenty in a horizontally scrolling shootout to retrieve your beloved vehicle.

Zombies must be re-killed, buzzards must be plucked with your limited supply of bullets and dinosaurs need returning to the lakes which they emerge from. With only one life, keep a dose eye on your energy level, picking up the first aid kits along the way, as well as extra weapons and body armour.

Mutant Fortress pales in comparison with the horde of re-re-leases currently flooding the market, especially Ghosts 'n Goblins which it looks to be derived from .Control of Brad is annoying, being unable to turn in the air when a baddie is on your back, and presentation is sparse. If you're after a game like this, try the more enjoyable and less expensive Ghosts 'n' Goblins instead.