Producer: M.A.D.
Retail Price: £2.99
Author: Paul Hargreaves

Long before a Reliant Robin had ever broken down on the M25, the Miracle Engineers had planned and built the crystal roads that led across the planet Plexar.

Now the Miracle Engineers are long dead and the primitive Plexarians have taken their place. Unlike their sophisticated predecessors, they are a superstitious race who send victims along the crystal roads to appease mysterious deities. Few return from this voyage - but as a chosen 'volunteer', can you survive it?

Your journey is made up of two stages: the crystal roads themselves, and the diamond twoers where the roads meet and interconnect, joining continent with continent.

Each road consists of a series of interconnected squares, some of which contain lethal things that can end your life on the spot. Others merely offer the unusual, useful or hindering, sending you shooting sideways, taking you on a helicopter ride, propelling you forward across dangerous squares, or making you skitter randomly between squares.

If you've successfully navigated this roadway without too much mishap, you enter one of the diamond towers. These are weird places, full of complicated, vertically scrolling mazeworks of unidirectional conveyor belts, areas which simply vanish now and again, shivering colonies of pulsing jellies and obstructive walls.

And in the towers are found the patrolling servicebots that drain your energy at their every touch. To protect your meagre reserves, leap away from the approaching mechanical embraces.

A peril port at the top left of the screen changes colour and signifies when danger is imminent. Heed its warning well if you want a chance of survival - and never forget that against all this is the relentless countdown of the clock

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: excellent; mainly monochromatic, decorative surroundings in colour
Sound: nothing inspiring

'Wow, what pretty graphics,' I thought as the intro screen zinged onto the monitor, 'is the gameplay as good as the cosmetics?' Yes, Plexar is very playable, and despite the obvious similarities to Trailblazer it kept me glued to the screen for a good while. Control is easy, and the gameplay is just frustrating enough to make you want to complete just one more level…
MARK [82%]

Bearing some similarities - well, quite a lot, really - to Trailblazer, Plexar is playable but frustrating. And it goes beyond Trailblazer with some features to vary the predicatability of your journey (transporters, for instance). Plexar can become quite tricky when the track is upside down, but it all adds to the excitement!
RICKY [80%]

On reading the instructions of Plexar I was expecting a run-of-the-mill maze variant. I couldn't have been more wrong! The graphics are excellent, and though most of the moving characters are monochromatic the colourful backgrounds disguise this. Plexar is very simple and instantly playable, and it's surprising such a simple game can be so addictive. One of my favourite features appears on the later levels, where a new dimension is added to the game - not only is there a tricky maze on the ground, but there's also one above you which has to be navigated upside down! Yet again M.A.D. has come up with an outstanding game - get it as soon as you can.
ROBIN [90%]

Mastertronic
£2.99

A long, long time ago a race of clever dick beings known as the Miracle Engireers decided to build a fantastic new artwork of roadways on the planet of Plexar. This system of pathways was constructed entirely out of crystal, and supported at the ends by massive diamond towers. It was the most advanced, beautiful and (if used in the wrong way) deadly construction in the universe.

Unfortunately the Engineers were not as smart as they thought. A passing plague wiped them out, and no one was left who understood how to operate the roads.

Years later a new race of beings inhabit the planet, but the workings of the crystal roads are beyond their primitive minds. Every so often a candidate is chosen to journey through the maze in order to placate (they think) the gods. Guess who it is this time!

Yes, this is Plexar, a Trailblazer-like race down a series of vertically scrolling roadways. Avoid the gaps, use the special features, all in true Trailblazer style. Survive the first two sections and it's into the Tower, which is seen from above a la Shadow Skimmer. Move down the roads, follow the arrows and avoid the traps. And that's about all there is to it.

The 3-D moving pathway section, although drawn well, is far too easy to complete, and the overhead section is a little on the simple side too, as long as you watch the energy levels. Complete a section, then it's on to another part of the planet for another bash (and new backgrounds). As I said, the graphics are great, just what you'd expect from Paul (Terminus/Glass) Hargreaves - highly detailed and well used throughout. If you take away the graphics, though, there ain't much of a game left. Still, at budget price it's worth a go just to see the marvellous detail Paul has managed to cram into the program. If you enjoyed Trailblazer this is definitely for you.

Label: Mastertronic
Author: Paul Hargreaves
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there lived a thriving young planet called Plexar. On this planet an earlier civilisation had constructed a series of crystal roads between the 16 continents. The highways were long, beautiful and probably very useful but the Plexarions wouldn't use them because they thought they were magical.

Once a year, though, they would send a candidate to travel the roads in homage to their god and this year it's you. (Really? What a surprise.)

So what's the game about? That's easy - it's just like Gremlin's earlier Trailblazer only cheaper and with more features.

One way or another you are moving a ball along a pathway which scrolls out from the horizon. The exact gameplay varies over the levels but, like Trailblazer, the pathway is divided into a quilt of rectangles distinguished by shading. Some of these squares may be harmless bounced over. Diagonally striped ones transport you along the path - others even give you a little helicopter with which to zoom over obstacles. Other squares send you hurtling in the wrong direction, black squares with small white dots bounce you an extra square in the direction you're moving and then there are enormous black gaps in the track... Also robots roam the paths and have to be avoided, or they sap your energy.

In each continent you have three types of road to traverse. In the first you can only control left/right movement as you continuously move forward along the 3D paths. The third, however, is a vertically scrolling 2D landscape.

In all three levels, different squares have different effects.

Terrific stuff. I'm off now to get a T-shirt with 'I love Plexar' written on it. So will you, it'll keep you returning for more for weeks to come.

Mastertronic (Added Dimension) bounce you down the road to oblivion.

Plexar is the name of the planet on which this game is set. and the natives are round, bouncy, and extremely vulnerable.

As a perky young Plexarian you have been elected by your fellows to venture forth along the planet's crystal roads. These consist of a network of highways, connecting the various continents (which, incidentally, do not appear in the game) constructed by an ancient and now-defunct race of Miracle Engineers. The primitive Plexarians regard these highways with religious awe and annually elect one of their number to follow the yellow brick road to oblivion. This year it's your turn.

The object of the game is to travel all 16 connecting roads that span the planet, each of which is connected to the next by a 'warp-bridge' - effectively a stretch of landscape viewed from above. The gameplay on the roads themselves can be divided into two parts, the first of which has you bouncing along a continually scrolling highway in Trailblazer style. Initially you're given a choice of three roadways and you can choose which one you'd like to start on. You have a limited amount of energy and must travel the length of the road losing as little of this as possible.

The crystal roads in this phase are made up of different rectangles that affect you in various ways. Black squares suck energy whereas others will knock you sideways, bounce you forward two places (or backwards) and generally mess you about in practice, however, you don't have much control over the ball in this section. The road scrolls inexorably towards you without much variation in the obstacles and all you can do is cope with the effects of the different squares as best you can. Gameplay isn't a strong point here, but luckily this part doesn't last long.

The second phase of highway hi-jinx gives you complete control over the ball's progress and the roadways are varied in both format and challenge. You may find yourself on a single-square-width highway or having to choose between two different roads that may lead to different obstacles, swapping from one to the other. You may also find yourself bouncing happily along for miles, only to find that you've reached a dead-end and must bounce all the way back. There's a time limit, so a lot of practice and road memory is essential here.

Again there are a number of different rectangles in this phase with varying properties. Some switch you from one roadway to another, others grab hold of you and whisk you from side to side, at which point you must choose at which point to bounce off carefully and quickly. Running out of road loses you one of five lives, as does running out of time (but with the added annoyance of sending you back to the beginning).

The warp-bridge' phase is viewed directly from above as you move over a landscape that scrolls from top to bottom, avoiding hazards ranging from black holes (bridged, but only for a moment at a time) to nasty flying objects overhead that deplete your energy on contact. Again you're up against the clock, and at various points you have to choose your route carefully as the wrong one could have you up a blind alley.

The graphics are good, though the rectangles tend to strain your eyes alter a while and colour is used simply but effectively. The atmosphere of Plexar is obviously not suitable for sound transmission, other than the occasional blip, but this doesn't detract from the game. Gameplay is simple enough and it's easy to get involved, but a little luck and hard work are needed if you wish to do well. A thought-provoking gem that should provide quite a few hours of fun and frustration.

Andy Smith

RELEASE BOX
Spectrum, £2.99cs, Reviewed
C64/128 + other formats, Undecided

Predicted Interest Curve

1 min: 68/100
1 hour: 80/100
1 day: 80/100
1 week: 70/100
1 month: 60/100
1 year: 40/100