Producer: Software Projects
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £5.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Ian Beynon

After an attack by the Dark Horde, 100 of your Beta Class androids were kidnapped. Your mission is to rescue the androids from the underground maze beneath the palace of Nedab, the leader of the Horde. Twenty-five caverns are laid out on a 5 x 5 grid. Starting from the central cavern, you must journey through all of them collecting your androids. There are four imprisoned androids per cavern.

Green Zygon guards are on patrol in the mazes. Although these only wander around aimlessly, they kill on contact. Your Orion buggy is equipped with WX110 force screens (the ones with the whiter-than-white green specs) which, when activated, enable you to destroy Zygons. There are also white coloured Renlim (for faster acting relief) and these can be run over for extra points, but your scanners will become deactivated until you collect another android.

This puts it fairly simply, but should you run over a second Renlim before collecting an android, you will be destroyed, and your force field needs replenishing after use. This happens automatically but it does take time, so repeated contact with Zygons will result in death.

The screen is split into a large playing square to the left and a taller status panel on the right which shows score, hi-score, time and shield power. Each of the mazes is relatively simple in layout and there are four Zygons and four Renlims to cope with. When you run over a Renlim, only the small squares at each intersection remain (your scanners are deactivated), so it becomes hard to make your way round the maze to collect the next android. When you leave a maze the screen flashes, closes down. then opens up to reveal the new maze into which you have moved, re-establishing the scanners if they were still out.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q/A up/down, O/P left/right, B-force field
Joystick: Kempston, Hardware Projects Soundstik
Keyboard play: very responsive
Use of colour: very good
Graphics: smooth, fast and detailed
Sound: very good
Skill levels: 1 but 4 speeds
Lives: 3
Screens: 25

Fortunately your force field is ever recharging, so it pays to keep an eye on the status board, because it is drained very quickly too. There are four movement speeds which can be altered actually during play to give you bursts of speed, but, of course, everything else speeds up too. A good addictive game with plenty going on. The aliens are very nicely drawn and colours have been used well. The sound has also been well used to give maximum enjoyment without the expense of a headache!

Maze games seem to remain popular with programmers, and it is becoming harder to find something new to do with them. Orion actually resembles a 'Berserk' game in some respects, but the graphics lift it far above those humble beginnings. This is a very simple idea - go in and rescue your androids, but it manages to be playable and quite addictive. The graphics are detailed and reasonably smooth and I enjoyed playing it.

After an attack by the Dark Horde, 100 of your Beta Class androids were kidnapped. Your mission is to rescue them from the maze of underground passages beneath the palace of Nedab, leader of the Horde.

Ian: This uses well-defined sprites which move just a fraction jerkily on the lefthand side of the screen — and shows such information as score, high score and time left on the other. 7/10

Jon: This game has a well laid out screen display, and the sound output is of a reasonable quality. However, the speed is a bit slow, which is a let-down. 6/10

Simon: A rather uninteresting game, with poorly defined graphics and below average choice of colours, which fails to keep your attention. Rather a poor effort from the people who put out Manic Miner. 5/10

Memory: 48K
Price: £6
Joystick: Kempston or Soundstik

Your first encounter with Orion, from Software Projects for the 48K Spectrum, will be crucial in deciding whether you want to continue with the game. The laser rifle sound which presumably is meant to encourage you to enter play is excruciating, as is much of the noise during the action. Warning - switch out any amplifier you may be using.

The setting, at least as described on the insert, is vaguely galactic, your mission being to rescue 100 of your Beta androids from the clutches of Nedab, a space fiend, and his green Zygon guards who are also aided and abetted by purple power guzzlers. There are 25 grid-shaped caverns through which you must drive your Orion buggy, collecting four frog-like androids from each. You will be destroyed if you come into contact with the Zygons, though the buggy has force shields for protection. Movement is by the keyboard or Kempston or Soundstik joysticks.

The program is, in fact, a Pac-man variant, not offering much of any real originality, though the game is well-made and colourful. The graphics can be confusing at times, especially if you have to use the family's back-up monochrome set, and it is all too easy to mix up who you are, who they are and where you are. Despite the professional production, the concept is well-worn and will appeal mainly to inveterate maze-runners hopelessly addicted to guzzling ghosts.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
CONTROL: Keys, Kemp
FROM: Software Projects, £5.95

Simple maze game in which you rescue androids while avoiding various nasties. You have to go through 25 different mazes in a 5 x 5 grid, but they're all much the same. The characters are small and don't move smoothly. Why waste money on what's basically another Pac-Man variant?