MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: US Gold/Americana
PRICE: £2.99

More stuff from the Spanish Dinamic team has arrived in the shape of a space age cavalier on a quest to free a beautiful princess from a bunch of 'orrible aliens.

Armed only with a sword he plunges into the passages of the enemy fortress and more often than not comes a cropper in the first couple of seconds.

This game looks as if someone hadn't quite finished the fine tuning before it was released. Enemies come at you so impossibly quickly that your three lives are used up in a matter of seconds - however long you persevere trying to get into the game.

And looking at the pictures on the cassette inlay it looks as if the person who was taking them didn't get any further into the game than me. The main screen shot shows the central character getting speared by an enemy - which happens with frustrating regularity.

Americana
£2.99

Not only does this game have an absolutely unpronounceable name, it's also virtually unplayable - or at least it's not a game that I can imagine anyone wanting to play.

Supposedly set in the 25th century, Sgrizam casts you in the role of the warrior Mirdav who has been entrusted with the task of rescuing the Princess Doxaphin. Naturally, being a princess, Doxaphin (Doxie to her friends no doubt) is dead beautiful and if you can rescue her you get to win a huge dowry and her hand in marriage, so off you go to rescue her from her captors on the planet Kindos.

Tucked away in a cell in the Castle of Kindos, Doxaphin can only be rescued by you battling your way along the corridors, dodging or killing the creatures that will stand in your way. These include zombie ducks, swordsmen, snakes rats and the like. Most of these can't be killed, but by ducking or jumping at the appropriate moment you can avoid them. Getting hit three times ends the game, and whenever I or anyone else played Sgrizam each game lasted about three seconds.

The trouble is that there's so little game in here - you can walk along the corridor, jump/duck to avoid the animal, or jiggle your sword in the direction of one of the armed enemies that comes along occasionally and that's about it. There doesn't seem to be much skill involved in the swordplay and simply avoiding the stream of creatures that comes wandering along (always from the same direction, so you don't even get to run backwards and forwards to add a little variety to the game) gets monotonous in a very short time.


The graphics are quite good for a budget game and Mirdav is large, well animated sprite that wouldn't look out of place in a more sophisticated arcade/adventure. It's just a pity that the gameplay itself is so dreary.