REVIEWS COURTESY OF ZXSR

Paratroopers
by John F. Cain, Ade Croft
Rabbit Software Ltd
1983
Crash Issue 2, Mar 1984   page(s) 101,102

Producer: Rabbit
Memory Required: 16K
Retail Price: £5.99
Language: Machine code
Author: J.F. Cain

It gets awfully lonely sitting on your own in a bunker until the enemy decides to drop in! 'Your bunker' is in fact a field gun which you control, sitting in the bottom centre of the screen. Above you, in the sky, helicopters stream by in both directions, spewing paratroopers out on top of you. Their object is to get three men safely on the ground, at which point they stride off and return in a large tank against which you are defenceless (and dead!) and that's that. Your aim is to prevent them from landing any men and you score for paratroopers destroyed and helicopters knocked out.

The game continues on after loss of life, resetting the score to zero, quite automatically.

COMMENTS

Control keys: user-defined for left/right/fire
Joystick: Protek, AGF
Keyboard play: responsive
Colour reasonable average
Graphics: good, well detailed
Sound: below average
Skill levels: it's main drawback - only 1
Lives: 1


Your field gun can be traversed to cover most of the screen, but you must be accurate as firing reduces your score. The graphics are quite good and the game is fun to play.


The animation of the gun is very good. The sense of perspective is a clever cheat since both height and rotation of the gun are only done with a left and right key, but It means the drawing of the gun must go through what looks like seven different 'frames' to create the illusion. The details of paratroopers and helicopters are also good, with some pares opening their chutes immediately, other delaying to the last second, and some poor devils whose chutes fail to open and get splatted on the ground. You're dead if three land successfully, or if one lands right on top of you. Fun, but perhaps not very addictive.


This is quite a neat idea, which scores with its fine graphics, but there wasn't quite enough depth to the idea to keep me enthralled, and I thought the sound could have been better - no gun-shooting noise for instance. The user-defined keys are a good idea!

Use of Computer70%
Graphics68%
Playability66%
Getting Started62%
Addictive Qualities49%
Value For Money55%
Overall62%
Summary: General Rating: good, but not very addictive.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

Crash Issue 3, Apr 1984   page(s) 63

Producer: Rabbit, 16K
£5.99 (2)
Author: J F Cain

In this game you are manning an anti-aircraft gun, while overhead clouds of helicopters are dropping paratroopers on you. The gun only traverses left and fight, but because of the clever cheat on perspective it gives a field of fire across the top two thirds of the screen. You must hit helicopters and paratroopers. These fall from their choppers sometimes with chute opening instantly, others delaying till the last second, and others never opening at all, to die splat on the ground. You will lose a life if a para lands on top of you, or when three have landed successfully and gone off to fetch a giant tank against which there is no defence. The graphics are good, amusing and smooth (gun works very well) and it's all fairly fast, but the general feeling was that there weren't enough objectives in the game to make it totally compelling and addictive. User-defined keys, only 1 skilll level, overall CRASH rating 62% m/c.


Overall62%
Transcript by Chris Bourne

Sinclair User Issue 27, Jun 1984   page(s) 10

Memory: 48K
Price: £5.99
Joystick: Protek

A number of computer games are firmly grounded on the pleasures of zapping anything which moves and as long as the enemy is represented as Martians or monsters, nobody minds too much. Paratroopers, however, makes no attempt to disguise its warlike theme.

The object is to prevent a swarm of paratroopers landing by firing your anti-aircraft gun at the helicopters from which they jump or at the paratroopers.

If you allow three paratroopers to land either side of you, a tank will appear and blow you to smithereens.

The graphics and explosive effects of Paratroopers are extremely effective but so much realism can be regarded as a disadvantage. The storyline also lacks variety, so that however much you like lining up things in your sights and firing - shooting at paratroopers becomes monotonous in the long run. Produced by Rabbit Software, Middlesex.


Gilbert Factor4/10
Transcript by Chris Bourne

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