REVIEWS COURTESY OF ZXSR

Barchou
by Zafarullah Karim
Central Solutions
1984
Crash Issue 31, Aug 1986   page(s) 110

Producer: Central Solutions
Retail Price: £0.99
Author: Zafarullah Karim

Those aliens are at it again! Why can't they leave civilisation alone? in this game, an intrepid spaceman has to prevent four cities from being obliterated by alien attacks. Single-handedly, he has to zip around and destroy the enemy's bombs before they reach the ground. The only way the nasties can be zapped is with a quick burst of laser fire. However, if your reactions are a bit slow, them is an explosion and the spaceman's atoms are spread evenly over a small area of space.

Those multi-coloured aliens move at quite a pace! Fortunately, the spaceman has five lives to play with, one of which is lost every time he gets too intimate with an alien craft. The game is over when all these lives have been lost or the four cities have been destroyed.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q up, W down, O left, P right, SPACE fire
Joystick: Kempston, Protek or AGF, Interface 2
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour, basic
Graphics: poor animation
Sound: the odd beep and tinkle
Skill levels: one
Screens: one


The graphics offer nothing vaguely interesting or new, just a few characters flickering around the screen. The sound is on a par with the graphics - a few spot effects here and there, but nothing special. Even for budget software this is a bad deal.


The graphics are pretty awful, with some bad animation and grotty sound. Even for its cheapo price, the game is still pretty bad, as it's not very addictive. I wouldn't fork out for it and I wouldn't recommend you to, either.


As usual, CENTRAL SOLUTIONS are assuming that ninety-nine per cent of the people who buy this game are going to be psychic. There are no instructions with the game and it only becomes obvious what you have to do after several attempts at thrashing around unsuccessfully and getting killed a lot. The game is also so fast-moving that you need impossibly fast reflexes in order to get anywhere. The whole game seemed to be a case of whaaaaat hit me?.

Use of Computer36%
Graphics32%
Playability25%
Getting Started21%
Addictive Qualities28%
Value for Money38%
Overall29%
Summary: General Rating: Virtually unplayable.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

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