Producer: Martech
Retail Price: £8.99
Author: Creative Reality

Slaine, the psychopathic nice guy, is out with his faithful friend Ukko to lop a few heads from evil bodies in this licence based on the character from the comic 2000AD. But the first striking feature of Slaine isn't the violent, pseudoancient saga - it's the control system REFLEX, developed by Creative Reality over six months and first used here.

The rough 'n' tough boy's actions, which are reported by onscreen text rather than shown in graphics, are determined by choosing from options in a 'mind frame' on the left side of the screen. Within this window a freetyomoving severed hand is used as a selection cursor, selecting an action from Slaine's thoughts as they scroll across.

Martech hopes this REFLEX system, conceived after dissatisfaction with the atmosphere of the company's Nemesis The Warlock 2000AD licence (61% in Issue 40), has produced an interactive story that really captures the spirit of the comic character as Slaine and his companion move through their monstrous world.

When they enter a new area, Slain can look around, examining his fresh surroundings as a short description of the environment is given onscreen. (Before moving to some locations, though, Slaine has to perform specific actions.) As they progress through the land of Lyonesse (the country of Arthurian myth, supposedly submerged off Cornwall), the pair encounter evil in its purest form - the Drune Lords (their powers are bark, their hearts are cold, the lamb is theirs, the inlay tells us).

And when the fierce hand-to-hand combat begins, options flow thick and fast through the mind screen - so very quick responses are necessary in this adventure. If you can get the cursor there accurately and in time, Slaine can throw a punch or aim a kick, and - if he carries one - swing an axe or throw it to cause horrific damage. (This, however, leaves Slaine unarmed and he must call Ukko to retrieve the weapon.) But while you waste time dithering and choosing, Slaine just keeps getting hit.

What Slaine can do is ultimately determined by his warp rating, a measure of his strength and power. In combat this can be reduced if opponents are too strong, but a successful fight, a period of rest, or the eating of food can push Slaine's rating to higher levels.

But if the warp rating reaches its maximum, the barbarian goes berserk, slaughtering all enemies that he encounters.

In a more cerebral vein, the muscular menace can manipulate objects that he finds on his travels, picking them up, dropping them, putting one inside the other, or using one upon another (inserting a key into a chest, for instance).

For all that, nothing but quick wits will get Slaine through his day intact.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: distinctive icons and attractive side panels create a strong atmosphere
Sound: spot effects
Options: definable keys

To the nonplaying observer, Slaine looks dull; but the thoroughly mindless fighting is enjoyable to play! The graphics, are good, albeit unimportant, and though the scrolling of the instructions is annoying at first at least it keeps you on your toes.
DAVE [73%]

Slaine is probably the best adventure I've played. Detailed graphics and the REFLEX system keep it more interesting than the usual type-it-in style of text adventure.
MIKE [73%]

Slain is the best 2000AD licence yet, but I am (again) unimpressed. Why oh why did Martech use REFLEX for such a brilliant subject? Perhaps the programmers thought Slaine would appeal to more people in a kind of limbo between adventure and arcade - but the control system falls between two stools. It makes a simple task, like going north or picking up an difficult and overcomplicated, and it would be more (and far quicker) to either type in an instruction or press a key.

So Slaine hasn't got the sophisticated command vocabulary of a good adventure; and it doesn't work as an arcade game either, because the fight sequences are boring and unimaginative without onscreen action. You're left with a flat, unatmospheric reflex test.

There are good things in Slaine too - the illustrative graphics are brilliant, and if you can ignore the input system you'll have fun. But it should have been so much better...
BEN [63%]

Martech
£8.99
Reviewer: Phil South

Slaine the King, Slaine the Warrior, Slaine the Drunken Merrimaker... Yes, that is the character of Slaine, in the deep, dark past of this land of ours.

Slaine is a very unusual game, a sort of freeform hybrid somewhere in the marshy ground between arcade game and graphic adventure. The system used to create this effect is called Reflex, an original concept involving the real time selection of text with a free floating cursor. The cursor in this case is a gory, severed hand, which points to your selection in the 'thoughts' window, snatching at the thoughts before they float out of Slaine's warped mind. It makes it a bit tricky to get used to, but then again once you've done it a few times it comes a little easier. Like most things in life, You might say, and I'd agree but I'd slap your wrists first.

The story takes place in the land of Lyonesse, and tells how it's in the evil grip of the Drunes, an elite corps of wizards. The last of the Drunes has died, but his magick will live on unless he can be named, the Drunes' names being secret of course, and naming them takes away their power. But as a bit of romantic interest, the last Drune had a daughter, Reya, who was the only person alive who could name him. To seal his secret before he died, he imprisoned Reya in his home, Small Sky Tower, close to the northern village of Tautega. Slaine gets to hear about all this from villagers along his route, and decides to seek out the tower and release the fair maiden. (Cor, wallop!) But what of the Drune's magick, and will Slaine figure out that the job's only half finished when Reya is free? That's up to you.

Trying to relate this game to any other is a little difficult, 'cos it isn't like anything else I've ever seen. But what I can tell you is that it's graphically and textually true to the original comic book, and the spirit of the game is truly warped. What more could you ask? The puzzles are ones which would challenge even the reasoning skills of our own troll supremo, Sir Mike of Gerrard, and the plot is as twisted a path as I've ever wandered down. The game took the programmers, Creative Reality, six months to write, according to my information, and in my opinion that was six months well spent.

Label: Martech
Author: Creative Reality
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

OK, I admit it. Slaine is my favourite character from 2000AD. He's a regular kind of guy. None of the obscure historical/biblical analogies found in Nemesis the Warlock. None of the fanatical stern-ness of Judge Dredd. Slaine the King is a down-to-Earth fella. You know where you are with him - usually.

The only flaw in his character is his tendency to lapse into a Warp. Spasm at the slightest sign of a fracas. So violent are these spasms, which allow warriors like Slaine to summon up incredible war-like powers, that Slaine must continually wear a harness to prevent him tearing his clothes and injuring himself during a fit.

As you can tell he's a bit of a handful, and Martech has really done a fairly splendid job in converting him to the Spectrum.

The whole project has been approached from an entirely different angle from that of Nemesis, the previous Martech 2000AD convert. Instead of going for the predictable side-on view and producing what would inevitably be written off as a Barbarian clone, Creative Reality - which was hired to take on the job - invented a system called Reflex.

The Reflex system operates by presenting you (as Slaine) with a list of thoughts, of which any one can be selected. The thoughts take up the left-hand side of the screen, which is enclosed by a suitably gothic border. Resting in this part of the screen are two dismembered hands. The large one is yours, and by moving the joystick over the desired word and hitting Fire, you can select it. The smaller hand represents the presence of Ukko, your utterly despicable side-kick goblin. Ukko follows you around and is a frightful pain. As a consequence, you think of striking him a great deal. Even carrying out such a heartless act won't make him vanish for long, though.

Anyway, because barbarians have an attention span of about three seconds, not having exceptionally large brains, thoughts drift across the selection area at a quite alarming rate, and picking them out can be quite tricky.

The right-hand half of the screen is left to accommodate a description of your current location and the comic-book style graphics which depict the action.

One of the most important aspects of Slaine is the combat sequence. For one reason or another, you are absolutely bound to get yourself in a scuffle of some sort. Here the program takes on a decidedly D&D feel, with both sides inflicting and incurring damage points. During the fight sequence, solely war-like thoughts will come into your head, and you have to choreograph your moves without seeing their result.

At the end of the combat, assuming you are the victor, you'll be informed of your injuries and given a fill list of initial options - Move, Action, Look, etc.

Much of the game is spent wandering from location to location, encountering characters and attempting to use your objects to best effect. If you waste one villager, don't expect the others to be particularly helpful.

The biggest niggle I had with Slaine was that you never really feel that you are in a real environment. The despcriptions seem a little cramped, and the atmosphere provided by the little black and white pictures that pop up now and again to depict the scenes is limited by their infrequency.

Don't let the adventurey-ness of Slaine put you off. It's genuinely engaging game, with completely original controls and high-quality cartoon-style (though static) graphics.

An intriguing game.

Martech move Celt from comic to computer.

There have been many attempts to convert comics into computer programmes. Scott Adams took the Marvel superheroes and stuck them in rather primitive graphic adventures with tricky puzzles and poor parsers; Melbourne House came up with their own superhero, Redhawk, and actually tried to create a comic on-screen, complete with speech bubbles-and scrolling frames. Neither approach really succeeded, though fanatics could do worse than check out Stifflip and Co from Palace, which adopts the Melbourne House approach and improves upon it.

Slaine is something completely different, superficially at least. Based on the 2000AD comic strip hero of the same name, the program presents a colourfully decorated screen featuring cameo displays of your location, the characters in it, a text-frame, and - above it - a blank area across which various commands and playing options scroll smoothly and rapidly.

Slaine and his side-kick Ukko (both of whom are reasonably faithful in appearance and characteristics to their excellent comic counterparts) find themselves caught up in a search and destroy quest, with numerous ogres, dwarves and other enemies to do battle with as well as treasure to find and wrongs to right. Gameplay involves selecting (using a 'severed hand icon') the appropriate actions as they slip across the screen. This in itself takes at least half-an-hour to get used to and even then control is difficult if you're in a hurry (when fighting, for example). The method is ingenious and imaginative, the idea being that the options as thoughts flitting through Slaine's mind, but is also highly impractical. Combine this impracticality with a rather limited scenario and you have a recipe for an intriguing, attractive, but seriously flawed game.

One thing Slaine and the earlier Red hawk have in common is the favouring of programming techniques over storyline. It's not an approach that brings either lasting interest or intense player involvement, but it does have a value in showing us different ways of structuring programs, some of which may be further developed in future. In the meantime, you're probably better sticking to the comic...

RELEASE BOX
C64/128, £9.99cs, £12.99dk, Imminent
Spectrum £8.99cs, Out Now
Ams, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Out Now

MACHINES: C64/Spectrum/Amstrad
SUPPLIER: Martech
PRICES:
VERSIONS TESTED: Spectrum/Amstrad

He's here! The axe-wielding barbarian called Slaine is about to hack, slash n' slay his way through a very original adventure game.

I say adventure - but Slaine isn't like any other adventure you've ever played, it isn't like any arcade adventure you seen - in fact it isn't quite like any game you've ever seen.

it uses a new interactive system called Reflex which sets out to reproduce the way random thoughts flash through your mind - and how you grab these thoughts and turn them into actions.

Not quite sure if the system is as fine tuned as it should be yet - but it doesn't take anything away from the originality of this game - based on the cult comic hero from 2000AD.

But first let's take a look at the story behind the game. The peace of the village of Tautega has been shattered by the death of the Star Seer, Cas Walton.

A reclusive Drune - a sort of wizard - who lived in the Sky Tower, was blamed for the Seer's death and as punishment was locked on his own fortress by the villagers. The Drune's daughter, Reya, freed her bad old dad - and to show his appreciation he entombed he in the tower! Why? Because Reya could destroy him by revealing his name to the villagers. Nice guy this Drune!

And to prove it he set about taking his revenge on the villagers who had imprisoned him, laying waste to the land.

The Drune went too far and was killed during his frenzy of revenge. But before he died he uttered a curse which brought perpetual night to the land. The people buried the Drune inside a stone circle under an unmarked gravestone.

That's where the unwitting Slaine comes in. He gets caught up in a quest to bring light back to the land, and rescue the Drune's daughter.

Load in the game and you see a different sort of screen layout. On the Spectrum version the left hand side of the screen is taken up by the "brain" window, where random thoughts and possible actions scroll back and forth. Two small "hand" icons, representing Slaine and his smelly sidekick, Ukko the dwarf, are used to "grab" these thoughts in any combination the player thinks fit.

Basically you get a sort of control menu which opens out other possible actions or options as you play the game.

Catching the correct option can sometimes be irritating end frustrating - but the further you get into the game the easier this control system becomes.

At the top right of the screen is a large scroll which gives you basic information about your current location. Below that comic style graphic windows or text windows open as you play - giving you pictures of the characters and or locations plus any relevant text info.

These graphics, created by the Creative Reality team, are excellent - capturing the feel of the comic hero and the atmosphere of the land he inhabits.

As you explore you learn more about the land and the quest which Slaine finds himself drawn into. The packaging doesn't give much away about what you actually have to do - but learning is all part of the appeal of this game.

Meanwhile, back at the "brain" window - you can put together some quite complicated actions using the menu style parser - such as; "drop the coins and give the axe to Ukko" or "open the chest and look into it". But as I've said before, it takes a bit of practice to master the system.

The Amstrad version has a different screen layout with two "brain" windows, which makes things even more complicated. I preferred the Spectrum version because of this.

To help you know if you've positioned your "hand" correctly over a "thought" the word shimmers and vanishes if you've hit it just right.

Slaine uses a Dungeons and Dragons style combat system of hit points - but you still have to use the "brain" window to control Slaine's actions. You can make him punch, kick, throw an axe and so on. Use the scroll at the top of the screen as a guide to see what you should go for next as it tells you what your opponents are up to, and how much damage they've inflicted on you.

You can also send Slaine into a warp spasm - a sort of ancient smart bomb! - and he'll wipe out anything he can lay his axe on. But you have to have enough "warp points" to accomplish this. How these are earned I'm not quite sure - but resting seems to help!

Overall Slaine is a brave attempt at trying something new. However at times I felt the Reflex system was stopping me getting to the meat of the game - it looks to have real depth of gameplay.

But I will be going back for more adventures with our mean and muscle-bound barbarian. Slaine has a real addictive quality that most ordinary adventures just don't have - in fact you could say that it refreshes the parts that other games just can't reach.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £8.99
Commodore Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: 12.99
Amstrad CPC Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: 14.99

A SEVERED HAND

When the software industry gets its teeth into licensable material it doggedly hangs on to the theme until only the bare bones remain. Just when we thought they had probably squeezed 2000AD dry, along comes another character in his own computer game; this time its Clint look-a-like Slaine and his side kick Ukko. Martech have delved into the Dredd world before with Nemesis The Warlock, which did quite well for them even though comic fans were disappointed by the game. Melbourne House burned their fingers with Judge Dredd, and Piranha pulled theirs out of the fire smartish by withdrawing Judge Death for a rewrite. Earlier still, Strontium Dog and Rogue Trooper also proved to be weaker than their characters. What of Slaine?

Lyonesse has been in the grip of evil Drune Lords for many years. Now the last of them has been defeated in battle near the village of Tautega. Lyonesse waits and watches, wondering what powers will rule its destiny in the absence of the mighty Drunes. To this land awaiting a new balance of power, travels the warrior Slaine together with his companion Ukko, there to learn what he can of Tautega's history. The game offers only a hint that you need money to be able to get information from the locals. Only then will the obscure plot thicken sufficiently to discern an objective.

Slaine displays a very different style of game to the more usual graphic adventure software. Top left and right are the bounds of Slaine's imagination, within which his thoughts enter and leave. The idea is to move the cursor (via joystick or keys) onto the chosen command (move, status, attack, actions and so on) and click to capture it. The cursor itself is a severed hand, but with the unfortunate trend of trying to shock and revolt increasing in popularity this should perhaps come as no surprise, especially in dealing with a character as supposedly barbaric as Slaine.

SLIPPERY THOUGHTS

Choosing the thought Move, for example, presents exits available from Slaine's current location, after which you can then click on the choice of direction. Choosing Examine results in a list of objects available which may be looked at closely. The reasons and uses of the choices available are fairly straightforward throughout the game... if only the same could be said of the control method used to access these options. Slaine is obviously a quick thinker, and all thoughts enter his head and leave it quite rapidly and in a very antagonistic fashion. It states within the packaging that this so-called Reflex system is confusing at first but should soon become second-nature. The idea smacks of gimmickry and is decidedly detrimental to the gameplay. Rather than becoming second-nature, it runs the risk of becoming more annoying as inspiration arrives on how to gain progress in the game, and precious seconds are irritatingly wasted while trying to catch the 'thought' required to carry out an action.

Slaine's graphics are very good indeed, capturing the original bravura black-and-white comic drawings with great feel. But the game's depth is limited, probably because so much memory is eaten up by its flashy design, reportedly a problem with Judge Death version one. And there are one or two eyebrow-raising idiosyncrasies present, such as the ability to pick up the long oak bar but not take the food or ale off it, and the presence of the Thorin-style Ukko whose little messages grate before very long even though the option to hit him is mildly satisfying. Slaine is professionally presented and it is a shame that the mode of play lets it down.