BARGAIN BASEMENT

And down in the basement this month, it's Nat Pryce - himself available at 20% discount on alternate Thursdays. Any offers?

Top Ten Software
£1.99
Reviewer: Nat Pryce

Yawn... not another Rock-thingy game. We've had Rockman, Rockford, Rock 'n' Roll (a YS listing), and now here's Rockfall. Incredibly, all these games have you burrowing about in dirt dodging falling rocks. Quelle coincidence!

Rockfall may not be the most original idea since sliced bread, but its pretty nifty nonetheless. You play a subterranean Pacman who eats mud (!) and travels through caves of rocks, earth and boulders in search of diamonds in the best Boulderdash tradition. Clear the screen of sparklers and dash to the exit, to procee to the next cave with a juicy big bonus, (slurp). Of course, the ice ain't too easy to get yer mits on - it's surrounded by devious puzzles and it's all too easy to get squashed into Pac ketchup just as you clear the
screen. (You bite the dust, you could say!).

A good mix of quick arcade reflexes and mind mangling puzzle solving is required - not one for SU readers I'm afraid - but most game players will find it an enjoyable, if not totally riveting two quids worth. And you get a free screen designer too; now that's what I call value for money, er, well a screen designer anyway...

Label: Top Ten
Author: E Morris
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

Any time I see a game with the word 'rock' in the title, I leap screaming out of the window and plummet headlong to the concrete hundreds of feet below rather than face the prospect of playing yet another Boulderdash clone. (Rock, rock! - GT) Not that Rock Fall is that bad - three years ago it would have gone down well amongst the type of games player who prefers a combination of mindwork and fast reactions to pretty graphics.

It's the same old story: several chambers depicted in 2-D, full of boulders, diamonds, rock walls and booby traps. Collect the diamonds, avoid the booby traps, don't dislodge boulders which will fall on your head, and make your way to the exit before the air supply runs out.

Your Pacman-like rock chomper, Rock Fool, has 32 screens to work through. Control is by joystick or keyboard, but the keyboard controls are badly chosen and can't be redefined.

You can, though, design your own screens. Using a 14x9 character grid, you can place boulders, walls, skulls, diamonds and the like, then save your screens to tape and load them at a later date. This editor is really the game's saving grace; without it, we'd have had another cheapo clone, but with it, it becomes a jolly little bargain.