Producer: Atlantis
Retail Price: £1.99
Author: Grant Jaquest

In the remote galaxy of Quanton, all the dreaded moon citadels, each of which contains an arsenal of deadly weapons, are to be destroyed.

Unfortunately, the Galileo moon citadel has activated its automatic defence system. You must penetrate its defences and destroy the ten nuclear towers at its core. The citadel contains five levels, the alien inhabitants of each reduce your energy on contact.

You control the velocity of the main character and can manoeuvre him on to trampolines to make him jump. Other levels are accessed by colliding with the teleport bubble.

The nuclear towers are located on Level Five. Each consists of nine blocks which are destroyed by anti-radiation orbs collected from a dimension room. Collecting time cubes increases the amount of time you can spend in this room. Orbs are collected by moving across a three-by-three grid.

When time runs out in the dimension room, the player returns to Level One and must progress to Level Five, where the towers can be destroyed on touch, block by block.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: colourful but lacking in detail
Sound: burbly spot effects

The most unusual thing about Overkill is that the main character is unarmed - there's no killing at all! Gameplay is therefore limited to avoiding the nasties while collecting time cubes. Progress is initially very difficult as control is awkward when jumping and enemies are pretty hard to avoid. Backdrops are colourful but largely irrelevant and the main character isn't animated at all when he is floating through the air. Collecting orbs in the dimension room is extremely simple, as is the destruction of the towers. Once you've mastered the controls, the game becomes easy - I managed to complete it after about a dozen attempts.
PHIL [54%]

Overkill is the latest offering from Grant Jaquest, author of Disposable Heroes (reviewed back in Issue 52), and I must admit that there's more than a passing resemblance. The graphics are bright, but simplistic, with blobby-looking sprites wobbling around very samey looking backdrops. The lack of a weapon, even to stun the meanies is an annoying omission, especially later on in the game when collision forfeits the precious orbs used to destroy the nuclear towers. A mildly addictive game, but not one of long term interest.
MARK [35%]

BARGAIN BASEMENT

Come on down! The Pryce is right! (Groan - Ed) Once again Nat Pryce single-handedly guides us through the treacherous world of the budget game.

Atlantis
£1.99
Reviewer: Nat Pryce

Two days ago the Treaty of Quanton was signed (not really, this is the plot, numbskull) and all land based nukes were dismantled. Now the dreaded moon citadels are being shut down; but, and there's always a but in these games, the most powerful citadel, Galileo, decided that it didn't want to be shut down. Instead it activated its auto-defence system. Only you can shut down Galileo and save the galaxy, intelligent life, civilisation as we know it and Wimpy restaurants. It's all in your hands...

As usual the game is as naff as the plot: you control a little spaceman with a big helmet and must bounce him around five flick-screen levels, bumping into teleport bubbles (!) and destroying Nuclear Towers, while avoiding the deadly UDG aliens and collecting the flashing-square-thingies. There just isn't enough action to make the game in any way gripping, and interest wanes after about five minutes play.