Producer: MAD X
Retail Price: £2.99
Author: Fernando Herrera

It's four years since his last adventures but Rockford, hero of Boulderdash and Rockford's Riot, has returned in the conversion of his own arcade machine.

The game consists of five worlds which are accessed individually and carry their own different themes. Each has four levels, and comprises an underground landscape of boulders and strange inhabitants. The object of the game is to tunnel past the precariously balanced boulders in order to collect a specified amount of hidden treasure within a given time limit.

Each location has its own unfriendly natives and while all cause death on contact, some explode, when strategically squashed, to create more treasure.

If Rockford's task becomes too exhausting, the player can always try playing Rockman, a platform game featured on the reverse side of the cassette and which scored 69% when it was first released in 1986.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: colourful but dated, with jerky scrolling
Sound: insignificant title tune and spot effects
Options: definable keys, one or two players

The new features in Rockford prevent it from being just a simple Boulderdash clone. Such a lot of attention has been put into the presentation, though, that it's a pity the game falls down on technicalities: the scrolling is jerky and the controls are sometimes insensitive. These were problems in the original Boulderdash and instead of improving they seem to have become worse. These niggles don't completely spoil the gameplay but they do contribute towards making Rockford an average budget game instead of quite a good one.
KATI

The graphics on Rockford might have been passable in the days of the original Boulderdash (Crash issue 12) but now they're only to be laughed at. The animated characters and colour haven't been changed, and the only real game differences are a 128K tune plus new screens. Despite the amateurish graphics the playability and addictive qualities are still there, though, and with the inclusion of Rockman it may be worth a look.
NICK

I've always been a great fan of the now-aging Boulderdash and while some of the monsters from that famous game rear their ugly heads here, there are many new features and fiendish screen designs. Graphically the game is quite good, being bold and colourful, although Rockford himself does tend to look rather small and splodgy. Not 'The ultimate version of Boulder Dash' as it claims on the inlay but a pretty decent imitation.
MARK

MAD X
£2.99
Reviewer: Tony Worrall

Is this the "greatest piece of software ever released?" 'Cos that's what it says on the label! Sorry to differ chaps but I think that's a little out of order. It may not be the greatest, but Rockford is certainly an excellent and entertaining program.

Rockford, for those who know not, is a conversion from the arcade Amiga based coin-op game. And not a bad conversion either. The plot is Boulder Dash re-visited, or to be more correct, Boulder Dash with knobs on.

Contained in the program are five separate playable sections, each multi-level, giving even the most skillo player plenty of action and a big enough challenge to keep him/her coming back again and again.

In all the screens the action is basically the same, dig through the earth like some demented coal miner and liberate every collectable token. Keep a watch out for falling boulders as you go, to avoid mega headaches (and instant death), and Bob's yer uncle. Some screens take a mite more cunning to suss out, while others need a quick eye and a responsive joystick. Every section has a mean time limit to beat, so don't hang about.

Anybody who enjoyed Boulder Dash simply can't fail to find Rockford a bit of a nifty program. All the familiar addictiveness is here, together with hot playability. A couple of the sections may prove to be tough to the uninitiated, but like everything else -practice makes perfect. I found the time limits left very little room for error. Each time I completed a section, it was with two or three seconds to spare. This can be frustrating at times (in fact most of the time!), but if I can live with it I suppose anyone can.

I always enjoyed a good bash at the earlier Boulder Dash games, still do in fact, so Rockford is very welcome on my Speccy any day or night. There are a few rough edges, such as the jerky push-scrolling and the feeble sound, but on the whole the game feels right, and what more do you want than that?!

And the goodies don't stop there. Included on the 'B' side of the tape is a copy of an old Mastertronic title - the ever so wonderful Rockman.

What more can I say? This is an excellent value package, and as it's only £2.99 there's no need to dig deep into your financial standing. Not quite a mega game, but pretty damn near. Rock me Mastertronic.

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

It has to be said. Mastertronic is the master of exploitation. It takes a certified popular computer character and turns him into an arcade game by the use of some relatively cheap computer boards. Then, as the arcade game has become reasonably popular, they do a computer conversion of the arcade game of the computer game. Good thinking, eh? With a large profit too, I suppose. But, for those who are new to the Spectrum market, here is a short portfolio on Rockford.

Way back in the mists of ancient time, a software firm by the name of First Star wrote a game. A game so simple, yet fiendishly difficult, it would have computer owners in their thousands playing for eons. Boulderdash was born, and its main character, a stick man with a large head called Rockford became a national hero. Who was he, where did he come from, what was his telephone number? This is what the public wanted to know.

But he wasn't happy. "I wish they had designed me a bit better. I look like the little bit of chewed Lego that no one can find any use for and will never look good on the little house they've been making for the last two weeks." Little did he know that his dream was soon to come true. One day, Mr Mastertronic and his younger executive, Mr Arcadia, came knocking on his door. "Hello," they said, "we'd like to put you in an arcade game, make you look a lot better, give you 5 disguises, give you 5 different areas to play in and generally make you lots of money." Before long, the contract was signed and Rockford was immortalised on a chip on an Amiga A1000 motherboard.

You can wake up now. The history lesson's over. Rockford has changed. I would just like to point that out so that the millions of Boulderdash fans don't go running down to their latest software dealers brandishing £5 notes. He may have changed, but not for the worst in all cases (though he has in some). Allow me to explain.

Rockford is not a single person anymore. He is now 5 people, any of whom you can select from the start. Each of his 5 personae has a specified area to explore, each with a certain number of levels. You can choose to be a doctor, an astronaut, a cook or even a cowboy. Each character has different things to collect. For the cowboy it's gold coins, for the cook, it's hearts. The game is played in the same way as Boulderdash, really, which is a good thing. The scrolling has been improved, although some ardent followers might disagree with me on that. The graphics have also been greatly improved. You can now see what he's meant to be, be it a spaceman or a cowboy. To some extent, though, the gameplay has been lost. The one great thing about the original was the excitement it generated and the pure arcade action it contained. I still play it now, and I can name quite a few others that do too. Now the cuteness has gone from the game. Rockford is a regular computer character, not the sort to be invited on chat shows. Still, you can't win 'em all.

I'd say it was a good effort by Mastertronic. Though I can't see the majority of BD lovers being overly excited by this, it's still a good game in it's own right, and when you consider the price, a very good buy. But wait, I haven't told you all. As the game is out on the new MAD X range, you get a free game on the B side, which in this case, is Rockman. I think that's one to look out for, don't you?

Melbourne House dig for treasure.

Original games will always spawn sequels and clones; Rockford is the latest in a long line-of games who owe their existence to the great Boulderdash. And just to prove its pedigree, the puzzles have been designed with the aid of Peter Liepa - who started the whole thing off in the first place. Rockford himself is, of course, the cute foot-tapping critter who starred the original.

Despite Peter Liepas involvement, however, Rockford is curiously unexciting. There are five different game 'worlds', in each of which Rockford plays a different character. Each world has 16 difficulty levels, giving you 80 screens in all.

The recipe is as before, push around the rocks or other obstacles, avoid monsters, gather the treasures and then make it out of the exit before the time limit expires. Depending on Rockford's character, the obstacles and treasures will change. On the Cowboy world you have to avoid the twirling pistols and collect gold coins, as the Cook you must gather apples, and soon.

The puzzles are tough, but don't seem quite so fiendish as in other games of that ilk, and the graphics and animation are excellent; but we've just seen too much of this stuff to get excited.

Reviewer: Pete Connor

RELEASE BOX
Atari ST, £19.99dk, Out Now
IBM PC, £19.99dk, Out Now
Amiga, £19.99dk, Imminent
Spec, £2.99cs, Out Now
C64/128, £2.99cs, Out Now

Predicted Interest Curve

1 min: 65/100
1 hour: 70/100
1 day: 68/100
1 week: 70/100
1 month: 40/100
1 year: 20/100