GrandslamEmerald Software
£9.99

It's showtime! And I don't mean that silly gameshow Bob's Every Second 3-2-1 Catch That Bullseye. Ooo super, smashing, great you've won a rubber bully! This is the highest-rated show in history, The Running Man. A deadly cat-and-mouse game where the contestant battles for the big prize- survival. Well that's what happens when you deregulate television. The funny thing, though, is Wogan isn't hosting this primetime gameshow, it's a bloke called Damon Killion who also happened to invent it.

Set in the year 2019, the USA has become a totalitarian state and only television distracts the people from their plight.

Ben Richards (played by our old friend Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a cop and while flying above a crowd of protesters in a big police chopper he is ordered to shoot at anything that moves. Being the sort of person who doesn't like murdering hundreds of innocent women and children he refuses and ends up in a high security prison (oh dear).

Anyway to cut a long story short... The End. No, I mean he escapes again but is eventually caught again and given the choice of going back to prison or playing The Running Man. This is where the fun begins, well for you at least.

But what of the Spectrum version of this blood-thirsty film? The title sequence with Ben shouting 'I'll be back!' at Killion and then shooting down a big chute is a neat touch. Each zone has a nasty stalker to be killed and they get more difficult as you progress. Subzero is in the ice rink, he has a razor sharp hockey stick and explosive pucks; Buzzsaw is in the suburbs with a big chainsaw; Dynamo is a fat opera singer who fires electric bolts, and Fireball inhabits the complex and does what you'd expect him to do.

All the sprites are well animated and recognisable. Sound includes some neat effects, with a tune and digitized speech at the beginning of the game. The only problem with The Running Man is that it's a bit difficult, the puzzle stage in which you have to work out the satellite link-up code in particular.

The Running Man is an enjoyable game overall and I would definitely recommend it even if you are not a fan of the film.

NICK

I haven't even seen the film, so I suppose that puts me in rather weak position to comment on the accuracy of the tie-in. As a stand-alone game, though, it's very enjoyable, so I suppose it makes no difference whether or not you like for have even ever heard of) the film! The graphics are very good: the scrolling is smooth, and the characters are excellently animated. While the game itself isn't ridiculously difficult, it's challenging, and ought to last a decent player for a few weeks at the very least. I have to have a moan about the between-stage section, which is completely and totally impossible - maybe we're just rubbish at puzzle solving, but I can't help thinking that it's a bit too frustrating. Even so The Running Man is pretty and I'll be playing it for a while to come.
MIKE

Grandslam
£8.95/£12.95
Reviewer: Duncan MacDonald

Blimey! It's another game with Arnie (Schwarzenegger) in it! You can't hold the muscle-bound chump down, can you (unless you anaesthetise him and attach him to five or six anvils first, that is). Anyway, it's quite a good thing that he's back (back back), 'cos this is, in fact, a rather spanky game.

The Running Man! There's a good chance you've seen the film (or video, which has got an advert for the game spliced on at the beginning). Unfortunately I haven't, so hang on a mo while I get Matt and Jackie to tell me the plot. Tum te tum. Really? Does he? Why did they do that? So he isn't really a baddie after all then. Oh good. Thanks chums.

Hello? Still there? Right, plot of the film (and therefore game) time.

Our 'Arn' plays Ben Richards, a futuristic cop/helicopter pilot. At the beginning of the film he disobeys orders to shoot down a bunch of innocent civilians, which unfortunately for him is turned into a 'crime against the state' rap. "It's a crime against the state, they ain't gonna ne-go-tiate. our Arnie's goin' t' do some time he's..." (Not that kind of rap. Ed). Normally Arnie would be flung into jail for this misdemeanour - but not so in this even more barbaric age: there's worse punishment in store - being forced to compete in a TV game show called The Running Man.

Making the Japanese show Endurance seem like an episode of That's My Dog, the contestants in The Running Man are really up against it. The first prize is death and so is the last - there's no getting away from it. No-one gets to take home a Blankety Blank cheque book and pen. In fact no-one gets to go home at all! Jeepers.

The title sequence of the computer game is jolly super, mimicking that of the film, with a silhouette of Arnie running over the logo and a bit of synthesised speech followed by a sequence of Arnie travelling down a tunnel into The Running Man arena. This is where the TV cameras are rolling to record all the action and it's where you take control.

You've got to survive against The Stalkers, who are psychotic gladiatory type brutes sent to execute you (or Arn, the Runner) in a vile manner - and there are five horizontally left/right monochrome scrolling levels for you to get through, so let's make a start.

Run to the right - the sooner you reach the end of the level the better. An on screen bar indicates your stamina level, which to begin with (surprise surprise) is topped up to overflowing. Yikes! There's a dog after me - quick, outrun him outrun him. Oh dear, he seems to be able to trot at a pace far more brisk than me, so I'm going to have to stand and fight. Here boy. Biff! Ah, that kick to its head won't have won me any friends at the RSPCA, but at least it's sent the beast packing - oh dear, he must have got a bite in, 'cos my stamina levels taken a bit of a hammering. Still, if I stand stationary for a while it'll top itself back up again. That's better. Blimey there's another dog - quick, up onto that bench thing, that'll thwart it. Oh no, it's hanging around - there's nothing for it. This is from me, son of Lassie. Biff. Off he goes.

Righto, now for another bit of brisk running: pant pant pant pant, oh, there's some holes in the ground - alley oop! up and over, alley oop! and again. No problem. Hey, what's that over there? Looks like a brick... yes it is. I think it might be wise to pick it up. Hmmmm, handy things bricks, what with their inherent solidness and 'bung-ability' - woe betide any Stalker that dares challenge me now. Yikes, there's one approaching - quick, bung the brick! Uhh? He hasn't fallen down. I'd better steam in and kick and punch the blighter - hey, what's that in the distance? Looks like an iron bar - very 'pick-up-and-usable', I'll be bound. Crunch. Yikes, the Stalker's got me with a good one, my stamina level's plummeted. If I can just do a flying kick to his head I might be able to reach the bar (What do you want a drink for at a time like this? Ed) and pick it up. Whack, oh dear, the Stalker seems to have killed me.

The Running Man is an ideal scenario for a computer game, and if well implemented would be a corker. Has it been well implemented? Indeed it has by cracky - think of an updated 1989 scrolling Saboteur with 128K sound and you won't be far wrong. There are all the fighting moves you'd expect - kick, flying kick, duck, throw weapon, and one click to the side on your joystick makes Arnie trot, while two in quick succession make him run - which you do quite a lot, actually. At the end of every level you get sproinged onto a logic problem screen which has to be completed within a time limit. Its a sort of 2-D 'switch different pairs of icons about until the pattern on the left is the same as the pattern on the right' type of thingy. Complete it and your energy gets bunged back up to full again, fail to complete it and erm, it doesn't.

Summing up time. Erm... The Running Man by Grandslam. It's got nice sprites, it's got nice backgrounds, it's got nice music, it's got nice animation, it's got nice addictiveness (eh? Ed). All in all it's jolly super. In fact it's a bit of a corker! Buy it!

Label: Grandslam
Author: Emerald Software
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

A shadowy, muscular figure races through the darkness. Words flash past as he runs, presumably to freedom. A memory. Strapped to some contraption, like a go-kart without wheel. Bullet shaped, it rockets down a hole in the floor, pausing only for Arnie to mutter 'I'll be back', like he does in all his films, and very well he does it too. Then he's falling, shooting rapidly through the dimly lit tunnels...

This is the intro sequence to the latest, though by no stretch of the imagination, the best Arnie Swatch-and-egger game, The Running Man. Arnie has been roped into the prime time gameshow of the future. The prize, and the forfeit, death.

Arnie has to run for his life, and run he does. Across five right-to-left scrolling screens packed chock-a-block with dogs, guards, obstacles, free weapons and stalkers. Who, you scream, are the stalkers? Well, the stalkers are sort of end of level guardians, though they crop up about three quarters of the way along each level, which incidentally, is about ten screens long. On the first level come across an armoured player, who attempts to club you about the head with his stick. On level two you meet a chainsaw wielder. On level three you meet Electro, who fires bolts from his fingers, as well as driving a pretty hard truck. Level four and five I can't mention because I just haven't got there yet.

Arnie, big as he is, is still quite a versatile chap. He can walk (The Walking Man). He can run (The Running Man). He can jump (The Jumping Man). He can crawl (The Crawling Man). He can punch and kick (The Punching and Kicking Man). He can fall over after being savagely attacked by a rottweiler. (The Fall... (yes, we get it AS)). He can also make makeshift weapons out of items he finds on the floor. Sticks become nuclear missiles in his hands (or a toy for the rottys). Bricks can be hurled at the enemy. Poles can be hurled. Arnie doesn't actually do a lot with these objects other than hurl them.

Obstructions consist of things like low-slung galleys and walls and things, most of which can be leapt on or over. There are holes between some obstacles and. If you should mistime your jump, a fall means instant death. You get only one life.

You also have an energy meter. Being savaged by dogs or hit by a stalker decreases your energy. Kicking the dogs replenishes it, honest! The stalker also has an energy level, and the game won't let you finish the level until you've killed the stalker.

But then that's not the end of the level either. Between levels, just to add a bit of brainpower to all that brawn, you have to complete a puzzle sub-game. Two rings of eight icons are displayed, and then one of them is mixed. The idea is to get the two to match by swapping pairs of icons. You have a time limit of one minute and if you fail it's back to the start of the current level to try all over again.

The game is not slow. It's very slow. Perhaps they ought to have called it the ambling man, or the dawdling man. The speed, is what loses the game some playability points. The graphics are great. The backdrops are detailed and the animation is silky smooth. The thing is, the speed of the scrolling reflects on the speed of the joystick response. It just makes the game too damn hard.

The Running Man isn't quite all it could have been, it's certainly not bad. It just could have been even better.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £8.95, Diskette: £12.95
Atari ST £24.95

Sad to say the ST version plays just as badly as the Amiga game. Control of Richards is sluggish. When running he looks as if he's struggling through a vat of treacle. Things improve a little on the Spectrum version (picture above), character control of the reasonably detailed sprite is slightly better, making it easier to get on. But it's still the basic game concept which lets all the versions down.