Producer: Firebird
Retail Price: £9.95
Author: Paul Hibbard

The spirit of that evil monk, Rasputin, is back. Not content with terrorising Russians and Catherine the Great, not entirely happy with being the subject of a Bony M song, Rasputin now appears in a computer game. Drawing power from the Jewel of the Seven Planets and protected by eight spells which have been cast in his name, Rasputin is threatening to cross the barriers of time and do all sorts of unpleasant and nameless nasty things. It's up to you to intervene.

The playing area is a multi-roomed castle hovering in space/time, a nether world inhabited by evil creatures which sap your life force on contact. Some, like the guards which patrol doorways, seem relatively unconcerned by your arrival in their little section of the universe, while other nasties home in on the figure of your crusading knight and do their best to wipe him out.

The quest begins in a hallway from which the other locations which make up the Seven Planets may be accessed. Your Crusader is equipped with a magic shield and a magic sword, both efficacious when it comes to dealing with the denizens of doom - but their power is limited. Each time you use the magic weapons their power diminishes a little and the candle on the status screen used to indicate the power remaining in your weapons grows a little shorter. Contact with the nasties reduces your limited life force, as displayed by a horizontal bar on the status screen. When you run out of energy the game ends, and it's back to the courtyard of your dark side (where the game begins according to the instructions).

The action is shown in a 3D viewscreen which takes up three quarters of the display area, and the graphic style resembles that used in Alien 8 and Fairlight. The Crusader's movements are also similarly controlled: he can spin round on the spot, walk and jump. First you select one of the eight directions available, turn your hero and then walk forwards. The M key raises the shield to stave off attack, while M and P together brings the sword into play. A little care is needed, as the P key on its own causes your hero to leap in the direction he's facing - make sure you don't jump at the enemy instead of poking it with a sword!

Since the courtyard of your darkside is a pretty strange place, it's not surprising that the scenery is strange. Most of the screens are made up from stone blocks suspended in infinity. Falling off a walkway due to carelessness sends you tumbling down to land on a cloud. Your hero is returned to the start of the room he fell from, but loses some energy in making the trip.

Travelling between screens is achieved by jumping onto one of the teleport blocks which causes another room to flick into view. The overall aim of the game is to collect the eight spell runes which have been inscribed on blocks of stone scattered in the playing area. Spells play a very important part in the game - on entering a room the spell it contains can be released by leaping on all the special blocks. Once this has been done a monster materialises - kill the monster and you gain the spell.

Most of the spells are regenerative, topping up your energy or weapon status, but Eyes of Heaven spells are very important indeed. Each of the eight runic spells you have to collect is protected by an evil eye controlled by Rasputin's spirit. When you collect an Eye of Heaven spell one of the four Spell Harmony Indicators in the status panel indicates the colour of the room in which your Eye of Heaven Spell is active. On entering a room of the appropriate colour, the eye it contains is deactivated and you can collect the rune it defends.

Once all eight runes have been collected your Crusader will be able to collect the Jewel of the Seven Planets and put an end to Rasputin's evil plans for ever. Rah Rah Rasputin.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q turn left, W turn right, O walk, P jump, M use shield, M and P use sword, SPACE to pause, ENTER to continue
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2, Cursor
Keyboard play: fine
Use of colour: monochromatic rooms hence no clashes
Graphics: neat animation and good 3D effect
Sound: excellent theme tune at start, otherwise blips
Skill levels: 1
Screens: 48

Rasputin is an arcade adventure type game based a bit on Knight Lore and Alien 8 in that each screen is presented in a single colour. The graphics are brilliantly drawn in 3D and are easy to recognise, although the single colour approach can get a bit dull. Sound is well used. I liked the idea of raising you on a cloud when you take a tumble. At first it was hard to move around the screens, but when I got used to the game I found it quite addictive. Another good game which is fun to play from Firebird.

At first sight Rasputin looks as if it could be excellent: it has fantastic graphics and a very good tune. The only gripe I have about it is that it's not as playable or addictive as it could be. Graphically, I'd say that this rivals Ultimate's filmation games - there is always a lot happening on the screen, plenty of nasties bouncing around, moving stars, fire from the odd dragon and the like. The sound is also very good- lots of beep effects during the game and an excellent tune on the title screen. If found it very hard to get into the spirit of this game, so after a few goes I was beginning to loathe it. Also I found it very hard to accomplish anything, so it's not a compelling game to play. If you like pretty graphics and nice tunes, then this perhaps is a game for you. If you want a game to get your teeth into immediately, then perhaps not.

Rasputin didn't exactly melt my joystick when I was playing it, but I did feel it held some promise. The high price put me off quite a bit - after all, it's only another variation on the Knight Lore theme. The graphics are nicely animated, but the tunes are apalling and tend to buzz on for far too long. One of its good points is that the screen does not slow down, which results in a very playable game with something to do in every screen: a quality lacking from a lot of games around at the moment. I found Rasputin very good fun to play, but even after 30 minutes, I never felt that I had got into the main game. This could be a bit late to make its mark in the monochromatic games market - Chimera might be a better buy.

STARRY, STARRY KNIGHT

Last month, you saw the storyboard. This month, you've played the demo version. Now it's time to read the full review! Rachael Smith rights the wrongs of the mad Russian monk in Firebird's hot new megagame, Rasputin.

Fax Box
Game: Rasputin
Publisher: Firebird
Price: £7.95
Joystick: Kempston, Interface II, Cursor
Keys: Turn Left/Right - Q/W; Walk - O; Jump - P

Last month good ol' YS brought you a preview of Rasputin in the shape of programmer Paul Hibbard's Storyboard. Now, to and behold, good ol' new YS brings you a preview of the game in the shape of four playable screens. And, give or take a pixel, it's not unlike the storyboard except for one detail - Paul neglected to mention how @*!!*! hard it is!

Of course you wouldn't expect it to be easy. Your quest is to destroy the jewel of the Seven Planets which has kept the soul of mad monk Rasputin, the kind of guy gets religion a baaad name, alive. The bauble is hidden away in the dimensions of the netherworld, a sort of supernatural housing estate for assorted nasties, spreading off a main courtyard and linked by spells cast by the Lords of Chaos.

Now this is some task - even for a Super Crusader who closely resembles the knight from the Daily Express's masthead. So, as well as dodging the best selection of oddballs seen this side of Castle Rathbone, there are secondary objectives, such as discovering the Eyes of Heaven spell that'll black Rasputin's evil eyes as well as opening further boxes containing magic to neutralise his power.

Not that sword play is neglected. In many cases it's a good idea to clear a screen of wandering monsters before exploring properly. Be warned though - not only do the greeblies return when you re-enter a screen but if you come into contact with them, or take a fall, they'll flock back too. And talking of falls, at some stage you're sure to find that the netherworld is cruising at 60,000 feet and you haven't got a parachute. Luckily the clouds act as lifts and whisk you back at the cost of a life.

Once you've hacked and slashed to obtain unimpeded progress, make for the boxes with suns on the side. Jumping onto all of them causes a psychedelic display from which emerges a four-headed monster (see, I said this was like Castle Rathbone) shooting rays from its eyes. Slay this and you get a new spell to add to your armoury. Then you can move off to seek one of the stones engraved with a letter of Rasputin's name but be warned, getting those makes everything else seem simple!

Rasputin is not an easy game to get into and you'll spend your first few plays just working out what can and cannot be done - as well as what lies behind some of the Seven Planets' more extraordinary masonry (Winner of the Infernal Architects Award 1985). In this respect it's very much like Ultimate's products - never giving anything away. It's also got the same sort of 3D view. Though seen from a slightly lower angle which can cause problems. Take good care of the squared floor and how many (audible) footsteps it takes to cross one unit and you should avoid making too many trips down to cloud nine.

So there's an unavoidable Ultimate comparison but before the boys at Firebird send me an ultimatum (Ho, ho), I must say that this is a decided advance, with larger sprites and some very smooth animation. There are some really amusing critturs in there, as well as some maddening nuisances plus the truly malevolent presence of the villain.

All that jumping may remind you of platform games but here the landscape is solid and incredibly well realised. Just as the dimensions of the netherworld spread from the central, circular highway the game has great depths. This one could take months to solve - it's certainly not for the faint-hearted. But most of you now have the opportunity to test your mettle against the infamous mad monk, and if the challenge of these four screens whets your appetite then rush out and buy the complete game because it's ten times as large and contains a whole host of nasty traps that'll test your timing to the limit!

The demo version of Firebird's Rasputin is only available with copies of YS sold in the UK. Unfortunately, it is impossible to send the tape abroad.

Publisher: Firebird
Programmer: Paul Hibbard
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Cursor, Kempston. Sinclair

The spirit of Rasputin has risen from the multi-dimensional abyss and threatens this world, with chaos and darkness.

You have been selected to seek out and destroy the Jewel of the Seven Planets, which is the source of the evil one's power. To do that you must negate eight spells which have been cast in the name of Rasputin.

The combat arena appears to be an oddly shaped castle drifting within the confines of hyperspace. The rooms within it have been cobbled together from odd shapes found, no doubt, in Knight Lore and Firebird's own Silver Range game Chimera.

The graphics make it immediately obvious that this is another Ultimate lookalike but it would be wrong to tag it as a clone. If anything, it is more difficult to solve than Knight Lore, although more reliance is made on movement than puzzle-solving.

Programmer Paul Hibbard - author of Buggy Blast - has his own method of producing Ultimate type graphics, which he calls Hib Flix One.

When play starts your character, dressed as a knight and holding sword and shield, stands in the courtyard of the castle. Unlike Chimera, in which the robot moves in only four directions, the knight of Rasputin can move in eight. That, of course, complicates joystick and keyboard operation. First you must orientate the knight in a chosen direction and then move forward.

In many of the rooms you must traverse narrow catwalks. If you fall off one, or drop off the edge of a room - there are no walls - you will plummet through space before landing on a cloud.

The computer then automatically bounces you back to the last room you were in. The length of the drop from room to cloud is important. As you rise back up points are deducted from your power rating which is shown as a red bar at the bottom of the screen.

Other indicators display the magical strength left in your shield and sword. The shield comes up in front of you at the press of one key but the sword is more difficult to use. You must press down two keys at the same time to attack one of the myriad creatures inhabiting the dimensions. That is a fatal problem if you have just noticed a guard or chameleon creature coming at you and you are not sure where to put up your shield or stick up your sword.

In your passage through the rooms, filled with too many monsters for comfort, you must find the rune stones with the mark of Rasputin on them. As you pick up each you will traverse the many dimensions of time and space.

The runes have been created by the Lords of Light, who knew that Rasputin might one day escape from the bondage spells they put on him. They will protect you against his powers.

The final rune, and most important piece of magic, is called the Eyes of Heaven and it will protect you from Rasputin when, at the end of the game, he shows his mind in the form of a powerful creature of darkness. You will have to defeat it before you can reverse the spells.

Rasputin is a challenging game and is not unlike chess in the way each move has to be calculated. You will find that you cannot whizz through any of the screens quickly and may find that you have to spend 15 minutes on several before finding a rune stone.

The movements of the monsters and guards which inhabit the castle are unpredictable. The guards seem fairly dumb in the way they prance around but monsters such as the giant globes. ET-headed robots and chameleons behave intelligently as they attack.

Firebird gives little information about the game on the cassette insert and you will find it difficult to get your bearings. It is, nevertheless, sufficiently different from Knight Lore and the others to make it interesting. Cheap, too!

Publisher: Firebird
Price: £7.95
Programmer: Paul Hibbard
Joystick: Cursor, Kempston, Interface II

That insane snigger is getting to me. I can't stand it anymore, I've got to share it with someone.

The awful truth is that Rasputin has rebuilt his terrible domain for the 128K and hidden the runes that will stop the destruction of the galaxy in even more inaccessible places. New monsters and further filthy corruptions of his foul mind.

The 128 version of Rasputin bears little resemblance to the excellent 48K version of the game, and the initial rooms are easier to negotiate than the original. The first rooms in the 48K version were almost impossible to get through, until you realised that all the monsters moved in set patterns and that your moves had to be made with pixel precision. The 128K game is similar but the layouts are simpler.

There are, however, more fiendish traps than the 48K game. For instance, you may get mauled by jagged teeth and stakes which rise out of the floor with alarming regularity.

Other traps include loose masonry, boxes which crackle with etheric energy, and giant cog wheels which spin you round and deposit you on other traps. In some of the rooms you can't even stay on the safe floor squares; they make you jump on to the next square in the direction you are heading.

Your knightly garb which includes chain mail, helmet, sword and shield proves of little use against the multitude of werebeasts and robots which inhabit Rasputin's maze. You don't lose lives if you touch a monster but you will lose energy - depicted on a sword shaped indicator.

The four runestones, which you have to collect and slot into the initial temple screen, are located in a series of rooms at the end of the game. When you enter a rune room, one of the eye-shaped indicators at the bottom of the screen lights up and a square cursor indicates which stone is there.

Although each is marked with different runic symbols it is one thing to find them and altogether another to get to them. Most are hidden on narrow staircases, patrolled by monsters, or on platforms made up of a single file of blocks which hang in the air with no visible means of support. If you fail in your bid to get a runestone you are not taken back to the beginning of the game, you are just transported to the room's doorway and have to negotiate all those dangers again.

The distinguishing feature of Rasputin is its fabulous graphics content which is better than Movie and the Ultimate Knight Lore series of games. In Rasputin the animation is smoother than anything I've seen before, and on top of that there are at least five or six things happening on the screen simultaneously.

Make sure you have the television sound turned up loud, too, because the jaunty three-voice music is a treat.

If there is a down side to Rasputin it's that it is still a very hard game to play - despite the concession given by the author at the beginning of the game.

Not for beginners, this one.

MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Firebird
PRICE: £2.99

There's no disputin' that Rasputin is a good lookin' game. And at the price it's a real bargain. But when you play this Ultimate-clone you'll have to be pixel perfect when you're moving about, otherwise you'll end up going no where fast!

Meanwhile, back to the scenario. The spirit of evil old Rasputin, once main-man at the Russian Czar's winter palace, has risen from the multi-dimensional abyss and wants to bong chaos to the world.

Your job is to enter this multi-dimensional domain and find the Jewel of the Seven Planets. To reach the jewel you have to neutralise the eight spells that have been cast by Rasputin.

To do this you have to enter the courtyard of the darkside and enter the world of the Seven Planets. You are armed only with a sword and shield which have limited lives. Find the stones with the mark of Rasputin and step on them and you will absorb the power of the stone.

You begin on a 3D catwalk dotted with doorways protected by vicious guards. You can either sneak or fight your way through the doorways - where you'll find one of several amazing looking 3D "castles" inhabited by odd creatures.

Some of these screens are quite stunning in their complexity. You have to watch you don't fall from the catwalks or castles - you plummet downwards only to be rescued by a little fluffy cloud which carries you back to where you started from. But the more you fall the more life-force you lose.

Rasputin isn't an easy game to play. You'll need to spend some time on the game to get the most out of it, it's graphically excellent - but game control leaves something to be desired.

CBM64 & Spectrum
Firebird
Arcade Adventure
£8.95

There is a clause in every software reviewers contract that he must review one isometric arcade adventure every month. That is not to say this game has its place in this month's reviews only because of contractual obligation - it is a good game, if lacking a little in the originality department.

You must destroy the jewel of the Seven Planets, which is the power source of the Spirit of Rasputin. Apparently his spirit lives on despite being shot, poisoned, and generally hacked to pieces. It is the familiar business of going round a maze picking up various objects and avoiding hazards like falling from a very great height, or getting your innards rearranged by any of the various monsters hanging around the place.

Although the maze lacks much of the problem-solving aspects of an Ultimate game - you cannot carry objects, only "absorb" them - it scores in other ways. It is extremely atmospheric. If I was venturing into a Russian mystical folk tale, this is precisely the kind of place in which I would expect to wind up.

Plenty of knights, mythical beasts, rustic machines, and over everything else the brooding presence of the old wizard. That is helped in the Commodore version with a neat rendition of the cossack dance.

Possibly the game's weak point is that it is so difficult to play. It is in 3D and has multiple levels in highly-detailed colour graphics. All this means is that it is very difficult to determine what you have to do to get round the screen. For true arcade adventure fanatics, this is one they will not want to miss.

Firebird
£7.95

Rasputin is one of the first titles to be released in Firebird's new Hot Range and certainly bodes well for future releases on the label.

Mind you, I'm inclined to give a slap on the wrists to whoever wrote the incomprehensible waffle that attempts to pass itself off as instructions: not only is it useless in explaining anything about the game, its also very badly written. That, however, is my only criticism of Rasputin as in all other respects it's a thoroughly classy game.

Rasputin is a cosmic loon intent on wreaking havoc on the universe, but who relies on the sacred Jewel of the Seven Planets for his powers. Your task is to venture into the netherworld, armed only with your magic sword and shield, and to destroy the Jewel. Naturally this isn't going to be easy, and as you set out on your quest you'll be set upon by strange netherworldly creatures, and be faced with a number of tasks that have to be completed before you can reach the Jewel. The main task being to neutralise the eight spells that stand between you and the jewel

The netherworld is based around a rather tasteful courtyard with exits leading off into various dimensions. The courtyard is patrolled by what seem to be the souls of dead warriors who will be reanimated and seek you out if you hang around too long. Once you enter the various dimensions you are faced with Knightlore-style obstacles, presented in highly detailed 3D graphics. But rather than simply being rooms, these dimensions float above the clouds and any wrong moves will send you tumbling down to the clouds below.

Assuming that you manage not to drop over the edge, the task that faces you in each dimension is to locate the stones that carry the mark of Rasputin and step on them in order to absorb their magical powers. To add to your problems, each dimension is occupied by a variety of deadly creatures just waiting to sap your life force; there are mystical spheres which will home in on you it they touch you just once, cyclopean creatures and a sort of ectoplasmic frog, all wandering round and standing between you and your goal. Getting to Rasputin's stones requires a combination of arcade reflexes and strategic planning that could provide a challenge for weeks or even months.

Your troubles don't end there though, for when you've stepped on all the stones in a particular dimension Rasputin will unleash another monster which will probably zap you pretty quickly. But, if you do manage to kill it, the creature will leave behind a rune that will counteract one of the eight spells. To add yet another complication, the dimensions and runes are 'colour coded' and if the dimension you are in doesn't match the colour of the runes you may not be protected when you attempt to neutralise the eight spells.

Yes, it is as complicated as it sounds, and I must admit that, partly due to the gibberish in the instructions, my initial reaction to Rasputin was 'nice graphics but where's the game?', simply because I couldn't work out what on earth it was all about. Fortunately I persevered and gradually the game started to reveal itself. In the end, Rasputin turned out to be one of those games that actually becomes more challenging and addictive the longer you play it, as all its intricate twists become clear.