Producer: Silversoft
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £7.95
Language: Machine code
Author: unknown

Having just been careless enough to loose their Crown of Eternity, the battle weary English are now looking for a hero, to recover the crown from the impenetrable vault in which it has been locked. You play the role of Talos, the battle robot. However, even after Talos has been found the English have still got to find the rest of him. Confused? then read on.

At the moment Talos is nothing more than a gleaming brass hand that was once part of an equally gleaming battle robot that had a very bad day and ended up scattered across the countryside. To be exact, poor old Talos has been broken into seven pieces which are spread over an area of some 200 screens. You are the hand and must go forth and find the rest of most entertaining bits is watching the little man come you, so you can become great again and strut your stuff on the crown rescuing front. It's important that you find the bits in the correct order after all there's little point in finding a leg unless you have a body to hang it from.

Once Talos is complete the next task is to find and enter the vault. Recover the Crown and who knows... perhaps you will get a good rub down with Brasso from the grateful citizens.

Of course, there are a number of complications that make the rebuilding task onerous. First, most of the natural wildlife has a pretty bad effect on Tabs, draining his energy which is measured by the shrinking candle on the right of the screen. Some energy is gained by picking up certain types of objects the money bags always seem to do Talos a power of good. Most of the time he is able to avoid the wildlife or fend it off by liberal use of electric charges. The bull is a little bit more of a problem: that's immune to Talos' defence system so the best advice is stay well clear.

During your tour round the maze you will come across a wide variety of other hazards, not least being the pools. More often that not a bit of Talos can be found at the bottom of some deep pool and, since a brass hand isn't exactly cut out for swimming, you'll have to find a way of getting the bits out. Should you find a bit that you can't actually fit to the body, never fear, you can drop a magnet at the place and a compass underneath the candle will help guide you back to the spot when the time is right.

About half of the maze is barred by a series of white gates. The gates remain in place, and the secrets that lie behind them stay hidden until Talos finds and recovers a white pearl. When all the gates are open you can fully expect to be given the opportunity to behave like the hero you are expected to be... and maybe you'll get that rubdown as a reward!

COMMENTS

Control keys: Z/X left/right, KIM up down; P to fire and A to drop magnet.
Joystick: cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Keyboard play: very responsive
Use of colour: good
Graphics: average
Sound: nothing special
Skill levels: one
Lives: initially three, more lives can be awarded
Screens: 200

I found this to be a very annoying game, mostly because it is so hard to stay alive for a reasonable period of time. The graphics and sound are so Silversoft it's uncanny. Without a doubt this is a very straightforward maze game, and so long as you keep your wits about you, you shouldn't find it too difficult. Having said that, there are some pleasant surprises in store for the player, although it's really just a matter of patience and stamina.

Talos is a sort of maze game. To be honest, I really find it hard to say much more than that. I liked the way the various forms of wildlife appeared from the blue, and, graphically there are some rather pleasing effects. The worms are great. The ponds are really strange and very well done - in many respects they are the best part of the game. Even though making progress in the maze is determined to some extent by the objects you manage to pick up (the white pearl which gets you past the white gates is a prime example) the game isn't that complicated. This is far from a maze adventure but nevertheless it poses quite a stiff challenge.

This game manages to incorporate some fairly good ideas, like the magnets, but there is still a lot missing. The graphics are quite well done and nearly always entertaining, but neither feature justifies the very high price tag the game has been given. However, I did have quite a lot of fun playing Taos so I feel safe in declaring it to be above average.

Dougie: The usual old twaddle of a story line but the game's not bad if you're into Ultimate-type clones. The story goes like this... the Crown of Destiny (You know the one. Ed.) has been stolen and locked up in an impenetrable vault (and if this game tells you it's impenetrable, you'd better believe it!). Of course, the only way to get the crown back is to call in the help of Talos, the invincible robot. Trouble is, all that's left of the old boy is his hand - so the hand sets off to find the rest of its body... and no dirty laughs, we're talking 'arms', 'legs' and a 'torso' here.

There are loads of locations - definitely one to map!

As far the action, the hand must first find its arm, then the torso, and then the rest of the bits and pieces. Once the hand's become a full-blown arm, it does present a larger target for all the murderous creatures, such as grasshoppers, sheep, birds and tortoises, that explode out of the ether in true Ultimate-style.

Apart from the occasional signpost pointing the way, there's very little on-screen to get your bearings from.

A candle burns away in the corner of the screen, waxing and waning with your fortune; however, until you've had a lot of practice, be prepared to snuff it.

All in all, very much like an Ultimate game but then using one terrific game as a model for another never did JSW any harm. I, for one, would be prepared to give a big hand to Talos. 8/10

Ross: You've got to hand it to them - this may remind you of Sabre Wulf but it's still up there in the addictiveness stakes. 7/10

Rick: You won't catch me forking out an arm and a leg for this one, but it's still worth casting an eye over if just for the neat graphics. 5/10

Publisher: Silversoft
Price: £7.95
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Sinclair, Kempston

Talos stomps across the pleasant pastures of rural England to recover the Crown of Eternity, and restore balance to nature or some such nonsense. All the little furry squirrels and chirpy grasshoppers are going bananas, and the old battle robot is the last chance of stopping the rot.

Trouble is, Talos has been dismembered and lies scattered in seven pieces. You start with just the great metal hand, and must find the other bits to reassemble yourself before finally getting the crown.

The screen shows fields surrounded by fences, and the occasional stretch of road - there are over 200 such screens, fairly spacious, in which the rabid creatures appear. Your main problem is running out of energy, which can be restored by collecting coins, candles, and parts of your body.

You get a magnet which you can drop and which activates the compass, bottom right of the screen. It is a useful marker if you find part of your body but, alas, not one which will link up with what you have already.

Talos is a highly competent maze game, though not exactly original. The monsters are not much of a problem, and you can usually ignore them if you move swiftly enough. More important and difficult is the business of finding all the various bits and pieces. Some only appear after others have been found.

What is fun is the way the robot changes each time a new part is added. It provides a good incentive to find the next piece, and we expect you will be clamouring for infinite lives POKEs before very long.

MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Silversoft
PRICE: £7.95

With Talos you take a crash course in body-building to the theme tune of "I ain't got no body".

Battle robot Talos has been smashed into seven pieces and his metallic remains lie mouldering across the countryside.

But one hand still has some life in it. And that's the starting point for this arcade adventure where your quest is to rebuild Talos and find the Crown of Eternity.

Using the joystick or keyboard, you must control the hand and try and find the remaining six pieces of the battle robot's remains which are scattered across 200 screens.

But he must be reassembled in the correct order. For example, hand, arm, body etc.

To complicate matters, the countryside is full of energy-draining creatures which sap Talos if they touch him. He can fight back by firing force bolts at them.

Some pieces of his body will be located underwater - which presents him with a pretty problem because he can't swim.

In his rambles around the countryside, Tabs will also encounter a number of white gates which he is unable to enter unless he can find the white pearl.

Score is displayed at the top of the screen and a candle indicates Talos's strength. He can make the candle grow by collecting objects around the countryside.

Spectrum
Silver Soft
Arcade Adventure
£7.95

You get to put your giant war robot back together again, starting with a hand which rather amusingly crawls about the screen under your control. You can shoot at the various savage snails etc which assail you, but first find your arm. Once you've got this, you can assemble the rest of the robot body. Of course, the bigger you get, the more of a target you present. Having got yourself together, you must go and find the Crown of Eternity. Not wildly innovative as a game, but will appeal to compulsive puzzle-solvers.

Silversoft
£7.95

Though this might seem like a standard maze-chase-zap-and-collect game, the theme and ideas behind this program make it a little unusual. For a start, you are not a whole person, in fact you are not a person at all. The crown of Eternity has been stolen and all the once docile creatures have now become your deadly enemies. TALOS is the only robot left who can retrieve the crown but he has been smashed into seven bits and all that is left that will operate is his hand.

So, you control this lightning throwing hand, avoiding savage snails and grasshoppers and similar attackers as it searches the maze for the rest of its body. To add to your problems is a candle which continually burns down, and burns faster when you are in contact with an insect. This is your 'life-time left' indicator and it can be topped up by passing over various objects. Each time it burns out you lose one of the three lives you began with. Bonus lives can be gained by topping the candle to its maximum height.

This is a fast and furious game which really needs to be played with a joystick for you to stand any chance of success. The screen backgrounds are simple but the sprites are well drawn and animated. I couldn't find my first arm so I only saw my hand movement and this was nicely done. My only criticism is that I wished there was a varying difficulty level as it takes an awful lot of practice to achieve any success, after 45 mins my highest score was 17%.