Producer: Virgin Games
Retail Price: £9.95
Author: Gang of Five

Rebel takes place in a time far from now. a time when the nations of the world have made peace and all are equal. There is no Third World, there is no terrorism. there are no 'reds' hiding in the closet - but the population has grown out of control and food supplies are dwindling. Unless something is done soon, famine will devastate the planet.

So the world's leaders, aided by their best scientists and nutritionists, set up thousands of 'Agri-dustrial'plantations in each nation's most fertile and productive regions to end the crisis. These plantations produce high-protein foods, enough to alleviate the food shortage within a decade.

But this miraculous recovery has its price. Unbeknown to the majority of the population, the millions of workers who operate the farms were selected and drafted at birth. They are kept in horrifying prison conditions - and death is the penalty for disobeying an order or not completing the work quota.

Deep within one state-controlled soya plantation, worker THX2240 makes a bid for freedom from her hellish servitude. Stealing a crowd-control vehicle from the armoury, she breaks through to the outer compounds.

From there on, THX2240's movements are controlled by you. You have one hope: the solar beams which THX2240's plantation uses to support crops during bad weather. These solar beams are carried to the fields using reflector stations, huge mirrors. By positioning the mirrors exactly, you can use the solar beams to blast through the exit to the outside world on each level.

Mirrors appear in blocks throughout each level. They can be swivelled through 180 degrees, or picked up and moved to another location. Take care, though - if a beam is deflected or shot out of the compound, one of THX2240's four lives is lost. The threat of death also comes from the plantation's patrol squads, surveillance machines and trains. (Rebel ends when all THX2240's lives have been used, or when the bonus score, which starts off at 5D0, counts down to zero.)

The scrolling playing area is viewed from above, with the action taking place in the central two thirds of the screen.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: interesting, good colour and shading
Sound: few FX
Options: ten skill levels

Rebel is so hard it'll have you on the floor in tears - so if you have the time and patience, it's recommended. The graphics are excellent and the sound is good, though there's not much variety in the sound and it gets monotonous. Also, if you hate wading through instructions, remember there's nothing to wade through in Rebel!
PAUL [88%]

Rebel is another game with smooth scrolling over pretty backgrounds, like Shadow Skimmer. But there are some quite neat new ideas here. The graphics are brilliant, and I really like the water effect in the rivers running through the play area. My only grudge is the lack of sound effects; there's an excuse for a tune at the start, but hardly anything else.
NICK [79%]

Games like Rebel have been around for as long as the Spectrum. Programming techniques have improved, so things are generally a lot slicker - but Rebel is a simple, unoriginal and pretty unplayable game. The early levels are pretty simple: it's just a matter of wandering around, positioning mirrors and dodging the nasties. And the sound is minimal, a poor tunette and virtually no effects. Rebel's only redeeming feature is the graphics - nice characters, a well-detailed playing area and speedy scrolling. On the whole, though, I wouldn't go for this.
BEN [62%]

Virgin Games
£9.95

Rebel Without A Cause - that was heart-throb James Dean's most famous film. Now it's your turn to be a rebel with a cause - and that cause is to escape, of course (Course it is. Ed!) This time the hero is, gasp, female, and with the rather catchy name of THX 2240. Just trips off the tongue, don't it? Rebel, written by Gang Of Five (Dan Dare), tells the story of a future time when the populace is forced to earn a living working on gigantic 'agridustrial combine compounds' (down on the farm, to you and me). This futuristic version of the Archers is not for our heroine, oh no. She prefers the easy life. So she decides to make a bid for freedom. The only way to do this, and avoid capture by the ever-alert police surveillance patrol machine, is to steal a CCV (Crowd Control Vehicle) and head for the way out. Problem is that all of the exits she needs to get through have to be blasted down by the powerful solar beams that provide much needed sunlight during sun-tree periods. To get the beam to hit the exit, mirrors have to be positioned in a number of reflector stations scattered about the area, and positioned carefully. Once the beam opens the exit then it's off to the next level.

With a plot that owes a lot to Logan's Run and an early George Lucas film (THX 1138), Rebel can't be said to be original in story but the game itself is rather unusual. You drive around in your 'tank' collecting or repositioning the mirrors and then hit the beam switch. If you set them right, the door opens - if not, you lose a life. A life is also lost if you hit one of the patrol squads (but as these follow set paths they are easy to avoid), or if your time runs out. The game's as simple as that. What lifts it above the mire are the excellent graphics. Everything is viewed from above, and excellent use is made of shading. and colour itself. The ground objects have a real 3-D feel to them. Scrolling is smooth, and sound FX are great. The only downer is that maybe it's a little too simple. When I've completed the game I may have second thoughts about going back to it!! But that aside I think that Rebel's a reet good game, perfect for all those with a reflective nature.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

What's going cheap this month? (Make any bird jokes, and you're dead, Ed). Certainly not Marcus Berksquawk. (BLAM!!)

Ricochet
£1.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann

Fine game, this: I remember it well from its initial release in '87. The idea is simple enough. You have a tank, and you're stuck in a heavily mechanised agridustrial complex (it sez here). In order to get out, you must smash through an exit, but your only weapon is a beam of high intensity light which is beaming away on the other side of the encampment. Solution? Well, there are loads solar reflectors (mirrors to you and me) lying around and what you have to do is position them, in certain preset places, so that the beam of light will smash through the exit and you can escape. Interesting, huh?

What's particularly clever about this is that throughout the game you can always see that it's possible to do - it's just very tricky. Naturally there are loads of enemy tanks and things to avoid, but these just patrol in standard formations, so timing is all. The graphics are brill - brightly coloured and well drawn - and the whole game's a ripsnorter. Ten levels for two quid? A bargain, mate.

Label: Virgin Games
Author: Gang Of Five
Price: £7.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Graham Taylor

Rebel manages to be a strategy game disguised so effectively as an arcade game that it may simultaneously appeal to both strategy fans who like to think about game moves and the most brain-frazzled joystick junkie who gets bored if something doesn't happen every .001 seconds.

All this and a highly original game concept too!

Rebel is all done with mirrors, the basic game plot being so astoundingly simple that a complete dunderhead (even me) could grasp the game mechanics in about thirty seconds - getting it right however is another matter entirely.

Never mind all the details of the plot the gist of it is this: There are ten levels and on each the idea is to escape. Now the exit is pretty easy to find despite the fact that each level is patrolled by fiendish (but very square) robots which zoom back and forth along predetermined lines. The robot movement patterns are predictable so it is possible to learn their routes and avoid them (in theory - actually you crunch into a wandering security robot surprisingly often) but none of this is the point of the game.

Getting out of the exit involves persuading a laser beam to hit it. The laser is in one location and the exit in another, and the laser is powered up by standing on the exit. So far so good - find the exit, stand on it and... Zap. Well, no...

The only way to get the laser beam to strike the exit is by bouncing the beam around the screen using a series of mirrors. Your droid (which looks remarkably like a tank) can pick up, put down or turn mirrors by 180°.

The strategy therefore is to work out where to place each mirror and what direction it should be facing so that the laser beam bounces around between the mirrors and ends up at the exit. Mirrors can only be placed in special squares and only one combination of mirror placements and orientation will work.

It may sound awesomely difficult - and it is - but you can work out placement strategies that will help. For example the last mirror must go in a square directly north, south, east or west from the exit, the next either north, south, east or west from that one and so on ending up at some point with a square which is directly north, south, east or west from the laser. Get the idea? All this whilst dodging roving robots.

Having got through the first level (I just thought I'd mention it) I can exclusively reveal that the second level is harder and features, along with roving androids, droid trains hurtling along railway lines. Having also ventured into Level 3 (thought you might just like to know); I can warn you that the exit is across a river with one bridge which is seriously guarded by robots.

Despite the simple idea a Rebel is extremely well programmed. The relatively simple (OK then, square) shapes means that there is essentially no attribute clash noticeable at all.

And despite that the backgrounds are detailed including touches like shadows formed by trees and walls. Sound is tolerable but hardly matters on a game like this anyway.

So, is this a 100%, no compromise, rabid enthusiasm review? Not quite. It would have made an absolutely fabulous budget game game but at full price I can't help thinking that the total of only ten different levels is too low. The problem is then when you solve a level you've cracked it - you are more or less (subject only to avoiding androids which have, anyway, fixed movement patterns) assured of always completing that level every time you attempt it.

I can see some people finishing this game in about a week with a bit of diligence.

Nevertheless for originality alone Rebel deserves serious praise.

Label: Mastertronic
Author: Gang of Five
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Steve Mahoney

Rebel, originally released by Virgin is a tank game with a difference; you don't shoot anything. The idea is to find and place four mirrors in the right places (of which there are only a limited number, so it's not over-difficult) so that you can concentrate the baddies' giant laser onto a sealed exit tunnel to blast your way to freedom, or at least the next level. This game has BEAUTIFUL graphics and is very smooth to control. The enemies, although not varying much, are quite hard to predict, as some seem to just follow a set pattern of movement, while others go all over the gaff.

For £1 99. this game is very good value, it isn't very proficient in the sound department, but considering the strategical and arcade elements used, sound isn't very important.

If, however, you're one of those people who can't really play games which involve you 'Using ya nut' you won't find this to be much fun. All in all, I think that this should be a success for Mastertronic because it requires a lot of strategy and planning to produce success and when you do succeed, there are more pretty graphics as you see the laser ray going towards its destination, and destroying it.

Good game, buy it!

Supplier: Virgin
Version Tested: Spectrum

'Better to live like a man than die like a slave' might have been an appropriate motto for this game; your aim is simply to attain Freedom, or die in the attempt. Rebel's scenario does a good job of convincing you that your freedom is worth fighting for, your diary entries paint a suitably dispiriting picture of life as a soya plantation worker in the state-controlled agricultural bloc.

To escape you have to break through a series of sealed compounds in a stolen Crowd Control Vehicle (basically - a tank). This involves collecting and placing them so that a solar beam, when triggered, is diverted to the exit and blasts it open. The screen scrolls in four directions as you move about navigating around the walls, buildings and other obstacles that hinder your progress. Your CCV can shoot in almost any direction (Spectrum owners - read that box!), which is just as well since you're under continual assault from helicopters, planes and a particularly nasty kind of indestructible tank.

Placing the reflectors is a tricky business, requiring a great amount of thought. If you align them wrongly or leave the CCV in the ray path, you'll lose a life when you trigger the solar beam.

The levels are always the same. Once you've worked out the reflector placing and alignment required on a given level, you've cracked it for good. You'll still have to find the reflectors and place them, and they are scattered at random to try and maintain your interest.

With 13 progressively tougher levels, you'd think Rebel would hold your attention. It does, but only for a short while.

Reviewer: Dave Packer

RELEASE BOX
Spectrum, £9.95cs, Out Now
C64/128, £9.95cs, Out Now

Predicted Interest Curve

1 min: 5/10
1 hour: 7/10
1 day: 6/10
1 week: 5/10
1 month: /210
1 year: 0/10

MACHINES: Spectrum/Amstrad/C64
SUPPLIER: Virgin
PRICE: £9.95
Version Tested: C64

Meet the rebel WITH a cause. THX2240 a worker with a mission - to escape from the mind-crunching tyranny of the factory farm! Someone has been watching George Lucas films here I reckon. And someone has also rescued a good idea from Virgin's Dan Dare and incorporated it here - the C64 version anyway. Waste not want not!

If you remember the laser/reflector game in Dan Dare you'll get my drift. Still, in this game you find yourself inside a tank attempting to blast your way out of the many different complexes which make up the farm and head for freedom.

To escape you have to use the farm's solar reflectors to open doorways - deflecting the beam by placing reflectors in the right place/combination.

THX2240 breaks into the armoury and steals a one person mobile Crowd Control Vehicle, she makes her bid for freedom.

In the agricultural block, giant solar conductors are used to provide artificial sunlight for the crops during spells of bad weather. The solar beams are 'bounced' to their destination points by directable glass reflector stations. Obviously, if a beam were to be fired in the wrong direction, the results could be lethal.

The agricultural block is split into separately enclosed compounds, each of them joined by sealed exit tunnels.

Using the CCV, THX2240 will be able to turn the reflector stations so that they guide the solar beam into the exit tunnels, shattering their seals! in this way, there is just a slim chance that she could escape to freedom through the exit tunnel of the outermost compound and join the rebels.

All the compounds are heavily patrolled by police surveillance machines. Contact with any of these will mean immediate termination.

You must collect reflectors on each level while defending yourself from attack. Once you have explored the level you are on and found the sealed exit, you must strategically place and position the reflectors between the Solar Beam Generator and the exit.

Turn the solar beam on to blast your way through the exit to the next level. On each following level, the beam will appear to start from the point you entered the level.

There are 13 levels to penetrate before you can finally escape.

It is easier to collect all the reflectors on a level, clearing paths as you go.

Rebel is a reasonably entertaining game - but it lacks any sense of urgency and the thrill power that will get you coming back for just one more go.