Producer: US Gold
Retail Price: £8.99
Author: Topo Soft

While a lone spaceship drifts aimlessly through space, you try in desperation to fulfil your mission: to save your alien race by getting ten pods into the incubators dotted around the ship. But the ship's hundreds of colourful screens are packed with lovable - and some not-so-lovable - aliens.

By pressing SPACE you can call up a status mode, which reports on your Force and Attack powers and the number of pods left. If you run low on Force and Attack, they can be topped up by dropping the pods in the incubators or by eating the small engineers who trundle around the ship mending things.

The ship consists of 142 areas divided into four zones, which are connected by a network of lifts, doors and air vents. But inside the air vents lurk small flying aliens which can only be dodged by hanging onto the ceiling - just hold tight till the danger has passed.

On entering a lift, your alien undergoes a metamorphosis and becomes an array of dots. These dots can be guided up or down to access any level. Once there, a simple left or right movement gets you back to the action.

Play techniques include ducking before you jump - this lets you jump higher and avoid awkward jutting obstructions. And your defence methods include spitting paralysing acid.

But don't forget: aliens don't like to be provoked!

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: cute and well- defined; colour is used effectively, though there's some clash
Sound: beepy FX but a good title tune

The graphics are really good: there's loads of colour and the characters are defined nicely. But I'm simply not impressed by Survivor. There's not enough gameplay, and it grows boring very after the pleasant teleporting effects and the neat presentation, play is a real letdown. Somebody's worked hard at this, but I'm afraid...
MIKE [61%]

I'm pleasantly surprised by Survivor. There's been no hype, no freebies and no great build-up - so US Gold has actually spent some time creating a decent and playable game. The best thing in Survivor is the astounding graphics. The ship deck is intricately detailed and complemented well by some simple but colourful platform-type graphics. And I loved little features such as spitting acid at the enemy, the Star Trek-like lifts and the babies crawling on the floor. It's very playable, mostly addictive and well worth a fiddle.
PAUL [70%]

At first this didn't appeal to me, but after exploring for a while and mastering the controls I'm addicted. The play area is massive and the graphics are top quality, despite some colour clash. There are some neat touches, like teleports and air vents, and the programmers must have a really sick sense of humour - who'd think of eating little engineers?! US Gold should have a hit with Survivor, the most addictive game I've played recently.
NICK [80%]

US Gold
£8.99

One fascinating development of the last few months has been the sudden emergence of Spanish software houses as a force to be reckoned with. Ocean signed up Dinamic, whose Army Moves and Game Over have already made quite an impression. Alligata nabbed Opera Soft and released Livingstone I Presume. Now it's US Golds turn - Topo Soft is the latest bunch of Manuels to be given UK distribution, and Survivor is the company's first game to hit the shelves.

Wossit like? Well, not unlike Army Moves, Game Over and Livingstone I Presume, to be frank (I thought you were Marcus. Ed). The Spanish have already developed an easily recognisable style in their Spectrum games, one that pushes the machine to its limit in terms of graphics and size, but which in my opinion is less convincing on the ol' gameplay front.

In Survivor you play an Alien - capital A because you look very similar to the slithery funster who munches through so many innocents in the fillums of the same name. Your object is to perpetuate the race by insinuating ten pods that you have lying about your person into incubators that can be found all over the ship. It's a big ship - 142 screens divided into four zones, each of several levels, that you move between via a network of lifts. Levels are connected by doors and air vents that are not immediately obvious. Nasties patrol the maze, and unfortunately the only weapon you have to dispatch them is your saliva - which just happens to be sulphuric acid. You can spit this about if you like, but it's hard to aim and always ends up hitting some totally harmless alien which then rears up and attacks you. Energy dribbles away constantly - more quickly if you insist on hitting things. The only ways of replenishing it are to drop a pod in an incubator or to nosh on one of the little engineers who wanders around, seemingly waiting to be noshed. (This is a particularly gruesome and entertaining graphic, as your alien devours his snack.)

As you can see from the screenshot, the graphics are lovely - large, colourful and detailed. Considering this, the game's not as slow as it might be. Even so, gameplay is monotonous and hardly subtle. Too often you find yourself having to judge a jump to the last pixel, and although there's loads to map, it all looks much the same. Air vents are fun, but as soon as you get to level 2 you get killed by all the millions of patrolling nasties, so what's the point?

Comparisons? Well, Alien's an obvious one, if only for the design of the main sprite. The platform screens are like Underwurlde, but harder and duller. And the graphics are very much in the style of Game Over and those other Iberian spectaculars - everything huge and attribute problems ignored.

Not that these are bad pedigrees, but I still thought Survivor a failure. Perhaps it's because there's no coherent character to the game, nothing special or unusual about it, just too many ideas half-inched from other games and cobbled together randomly. There's nothing here to suggest that Survivor's a survivor.

Label: US Gold
Author: Toposoft
Price: £7.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

This game is so similar to the Alien movies in graphical style and plot that I completely refuse to believe that it wasn't intended to be Alien in the beginning. Anyway, taking the role of a seriously endangered alien, you've got to wander around an 'enormous' (142 screens) ship, collecting pods and plopping them into an incubator unit.

All that you seem to do throughout the game is wander through the corridors (which, it has to be said, are rather attractively laid out) spitting a mouthful of acid or two at the numerous aliens which wibble around along the floor and picking up the odd pod as you come to it. The gameplay is very much tried and tested, involving left, right. Fire and jump, and the trip in the occasional lift.

This may not sound particularly exciting and, well, it's not really, because despite the rather pleasing graphics and the fact that you get to wander around spitting acid at things, it's really only a rather tedious exploration.

Survivor is disappointing, despite being professionally programmed, exploiting none of the opportunities its plot offers to the full. Nothing new here.

Supplier: US Gold
Version Tested: Spectrum

DEEP space floats an enormous and powerful spaceship, filled with lifeforms from a thousand planets. You control a solitary creature on board that spaceship in its attempts to perpetuate its race. You carry with you ten pods, the last of your species; introduce the pods to the incubators scattered around the levels of the ship and ensure the survival of your race.

This 2D arcade-adventure covers a playing area of some 140 screens, which flip rather than scroll when your character reaches a screen border. The ship is divided into various levels, which are accessed by lifts and air vents. Your creature has a limited energy supply that is reduced on contact with other creatures (who come in all shapes and size from mini space-shuttles to overgrown aspirins.) Replenishing your energy involves dropping the pods into the incubators. Alternatively you can get a tasty snack by eating one of the engineers who stroll around the ship looking like animated jelly babies.

Your defence from the energy-leeching aliens is to spit at them. Your saliva contains a paralysing acid, thus making it possible to jump over the creatures. Escape is your only alternative either by hiding in the air vents or the lifts.

Survivor's gameplay is pretty tough, demanding accurate positioning of your character to jump obstacles. Platform game elements creep in when you have to jump your way up several shafts in order to progress. Extra power for your jumps is obtained by ducking.

The animation of the characters is very smooth. Colour is used liberally and there are no attribute clashes as everything adopts the colour of its current background - this does cause the occasional problem as the aliens can be a little difficult to spot.

Survivor will certainly test your powers of endurance and perseverance, the game will take time and effort to complete. Sadly, despite its polish and classy construction it lacks that touch of originality that might make you want to take the trouble to try and finish it.

Reviewer: Andy Smith

RELEASE BOX
Spectrum, £8.99cs, Out Now
Amstrad, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Imminent

Predicted Interest Curve

1 min: 4.75/10
1 hour: 5/10
1 day: 4.5/10
1 week: 3/10
1 month: 2/10
1 year: 0/10