Producer: Martech
Retail Price: £8.99
Author: I McArdle, D Richards

Raised by foxes and granted magic powers by the Sages, Martech's Vixen carries a magic whip and has the ability to turn herself into a fox. Her efforts to stay alive are displayed across a series of horizontally scrolling levels, which are loaded separately in three parts.

As Vixen negotiates the treacherous primeval landscape, a variety of mutant prehistoric creatures rush into attack. Their touch is fatal, but most beasts are despatched with a well-placed flick of the whip. The whip is also used to transform bonus icons into collectible objects. These include gems for extra points and items for additional time and lives.

Collecting fox-time icons causes a fox's head to progress along the display panel. Once the head has moved to its maximum setting and the current round has been completed, Vixen metamorphoses into a fox and enters an underground bonus level. Here she simply collects as many objects as possible within the imposed time limit. These objects are then used on the surface: mega whips kill all enemies with one hit and mega gems increase scoring potential.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: smoothly animated main characters moving against detailed backgrounds
Sound: little for 48K owners, but 128-ers will be pleased with the bish-bash title tune
Options: choice of three individually loaded game environments

Vixen's movements are smoothly animated and the transformation into a rather scrawny fox is handled well. However, anyone looking for the kind of excitement promised by the over-exposed publicity campaign is in for a disappointment. The wily heroine simply jogs through a series of similar levels whipping crowds of identical mutants into submission. Metamorphosing into the fox adds some variety, but not enough to keep you hooked, and the bonus items don't add much spice to this tedious procedure. This is a pity because the presentation is professional and gameplay on the whole is very smooth. Martech might not have had to spend so much time on promoting the box had they paid a little more attention to the action inside.
KATI [69%]

Oooh! A skimpily dressed woman carrying a whip... Well it makes a change I suppose. Vixen is really three games on one tape, but the only trouble is that they are all very similar. The main character of the game is quite well drawn until she turns into a supposed fox - it looks more like a bleached squirrel to me! Apart from the destruction of a few enemy mammals and the foxy gem-collecting session, that's about it. Vixen plays in a similar fashion to Elite's Thundercats, but lacks the glamour and slickness that Thundercats had. A groovy 128K tune brightens up the title screen and there are some whiplashing sound effects but, as usual, 48K owners miss out on the music. If 'average' is good enough for you, then whip down to your local software store and get a copy.
NICK [50%]

After all the sexist (and sexy) promotion, Vixen has turned out to be quite a pleasing game. So it's basically Thundercats with less variation, but at least it's moderately playable and addictive. The hookability doesn't last long, though, and you're left with a feeling that £8.99 is a lot to pay for a couple of weeks' fun. There's no arguing that Vixen has some great features - the cracking whip and superb animation of the fox lady to name a couple - but it lacks the variation that makes you want to load it up again and again. With a bit of thought the authors could have had various tasks to complete on each level and a different range of monsters to defeat. As it stands, Vixen's attraction is short-lived.
PAUL [60%]

Martech
£8.99
Reviewer: Ben Stone, Mike Dunn

Is it a Pterodactyl? Is it a Tyrannosaurus Rex? Is it (heaven forbid), T'zer with a wig? No, it's Vixen, the raunchiest Spectrum release Sam Fox Strip Poker. Martech has taken the pixels out of page three girl Corrine Russell and squashed up all her best bits 'till she's small enough to fit on your Speccy's screen. But raunchy rambling apart (well, almost), is there room enough for a game in the humble 48K Spectrum as well as Corrine's considerable assets?

Ms Russell's digitised pixels play Vixen, the only human left on the planet of Granath. Raised by foxes, she has vowed to her once great forefathers to avenge their deaths by wiping out the tyrannical dinosaur empire which has slowly but surely taken over the planet. How though, I hear you cry, can such a raunchy wench as our heroine liberate a planet as infested as Granath? That one's up to you, matey! Fear not though, mere gameplayer, for Vixen has a formidable arsenal (and there's not much wrong with the rest of her, I can tell you!) at her disposal. At her side swings a whip (say no more...), which comes in very useful for giving the dinosaurs a bad time. Standing, jumping, or crouching, Vixen can destroy the scaley beasts with a crack (or two) from this most daunting of weapons.

The playing area scrolls right as Vixen makes her way towards the end of a level before her limited time runs out, more than a bit like Thundercats. Certain bits of scenery can be whipped to reveal gems which score vital extra points, extra lives, extra time, or "fox time". When Vixen has enough of this fox time under her designer leopard skin at end of a level, a dramatic metamorphosis takes place, which transforms our luscious heroine into a ginger-animal of canine descent (like a fox, but we don't want to confuse you with all these buxom blonde girlies!), which immediately bolts to safety underground. These subterranean fox levels are guaranteed 100 percent dinosaur-free, and their purpose is as a bonus level. Playing against the clock, Vixen, in fox form, runs and bounds through this scenario, picking up gems, mega gems, (which increase your scoring potential above ground), and mega whips, which give you added destruction power, letting you kill even the most stubborn of dinosaurs with one fell swoop. Once fox time runs out, Vixen returns to her normal, much more delectable self.

Vixen loads in three parts, which slows down the gameplay fractionally. It's funny, but you never realise how much sound FX, tunes, and the like affect a game's overall playability until you come across a game which doesn't have any at all - the sonics are only noticeable through their absence. The pleasantly burbly tune and FX on the 128K version add a considerable amount of appeal.

Vixens best bits are purely graphical - the animation on the main character is beautiful, and the fox, although a little on the weeny side, moves superbly. The rest of the graphics suck - they might have looked worthy in 1984, but now they're quite the opposite. The game plays fairly slowly, and you have to battle your way through a sizeable number of nasties to get anywhere. Whipping dinosaurs in the right places requires a bit of nifty fingerwork, a bit of luck, and a lot more concentration! in short, it's not astoundingly difficult to play or hard on the eyes, just plain hard work. You have to go through a lot of hassle before you get any rewards.

Simply fighting off dinosaurs, jumping over holes, and occasionally belting through the bonus level isn't likely to be enough to keep most hardened games playing for long. If you're looking for a straight forward bit of violence (should that be whip 'em up?), then Vixen is the one for you - if it's thought-provoking compulsiveness you're after, then look the other way.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

A bit short of the readies? Low on the folding stuff? Totally borassic? Then pop down the Bargain Basement with Marcus Berkmann, and see what goes "Cheep!" (Eh? Ed).

React
£2.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann

Another distinctly Brie-flavoured oldie from Martech - but YS readers of old may remember the furore that greeted it. Not only did the game come with a scrumptious pic of some Page 3 girl (whose name now escapes me) plastered all over the front, but so did YS that month. Parents were furious and outraged. "I'm furious" wrote one. "And I'm outraged" fumed another. It was all an enormous hoot, and even if the girl had overdone oil a bit, YS readers of a certain age lapped it up. "PHWOOOARR!" opined Phil. "FNAR FNAR!" yelled JD. And Macca's monkey impersonations were a delight to see.

In fact we enjoyed ourselves so much it was only later on that we came to look at the actual game. And naturally enough it wasn't very good. A simple chaseabout enlivened only by Vixen's skill with a whip (bucket of water, someone, please), it goes nowhere in a pretty but unmemorable sort of way, and as there isn't even a giant poster of whateverhernamewas with her bits poking out, there really isn't much point in it all any more. A nice try, though.

Label: Martech
Author: McArdle/Richards
Price: £8.99/£14.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: Kempston/Sinclair
Reviewer: Tamara Howard

Phwoooaar! as the male members of the SU team have been dribbling for months. Vixen's arrived, and since the boize have been subjected to accelerated pulse rates and sweaty palms for months as the promo items came flooding into the office, I took it upon myself to write the review. Well, we don't want them keeling over from heart attacks now, do we?

The plot behind Vixen is dull in the extreme, as these things often are, and is a thinly disguised feminine version of the Tarzan story, swapping boy for girl and monkeys for foxes. Vixen, brought up in the jungles of Granath by the wiley foxes is the only thing close enough to a human being left on the planet, and so it's up to her to clear the place of the nasty mutant dinosaurs.

The nasty mutant dinosaurs (hereafter referred to as the NMDs, not to be confused with OMD who were a relatively successful band in the early 80s) can only be disposed of by a good whipping (if I hear one person go, 'fnar' there'll be trouble Douglas) and thus Vixen, dressed in an entirely impractical jungle bikini, is armed with a handy large whip.

So off she goes, joggin' along and she's whippin' the NMDs left right and centre. Some of them closely resemble Itsy and Bitsy; the spiders from that kids' TV programme yonks ago, some of them look like jelly fish with rheumatoid arthritis. Either way, whip 'em quick (some of them take more than one whip, so beware) and whip anything else which comes your way. Stones and funny gourd things will hide extra points, in the shape of gemstones which can be collected, a mega whip (DOUGLAS! be quiet at the back there) and fox time, which is represented by a fox head (peculiarly enough) and is thoroughly useful on the bonus round when you turn into a fox.

Ah. Not only was Vixen brought up by the wiley foxes, but she also has the ability to metamorphise into a fox herself and run around underground collecting extra gems for bonus points. Nice trick, I'm sure that I'd find it thoroughly useful whilst travelling on the Tube.

Gameplay throughout is fairly standard, what we have here is a horizontally scrolling whipping game with things to leap over, things to fall down and things not to bump into. Although with protuberances like Vixen's it's going to be hard...

The central figure is actually very well animated. The girlie trots along at a rather sedate jog, hair flapping nicely in the breeze, and she's got a good reach with her whip. This is all perfectly acceptable whilst she's above ground, but once she gets into the caves, well, it's another thing entirely. Crouching down, the poor girl has to walk like a large orangutan, knuckles dragging on the ground, until she reaches a spot suitable for a spot of metamorphasising. The change into the fox is done nicely, but once she's become the fox things deteriorate. It's a piddly little sprite (how Corinne managed to squeeze herself into that tiny little outfit I'll never know), and the running movement isn't very convincing. As for the jumping, my life, if looks as though the poor little mammal has been squashed by a JCB. You could wear it round your neck as a ruff.

Out you get from the caves, change back into Corinne, I mean Vixen, and off you go. Do the whole thing over again. Jungle, jungle, NMD, NMD, whip, whip, whip. Easy. And that's yer lot. Nothing else happens.

And it's a tad dull after about ten minutes. Superficially a very pretty game with some very nice animation (loadsa digitised pieces of Corinne running around studion in Holborn, so we're told), but the gameplay is too similar to other, better games on the market. I cite Thundercats and rest my case. It's a shame really, because had there been a little more variety within the gameplay. Vixen would have gone down in my book as a top-notch game. Perhaps a tad less Bimbo and a touch more gameplay next time chaps - still worth a look, if you like girlies in bikinis with large whips fnar, titter, barf etc...

The gorgeous, pouting MARTECH?

Bullwhip time again folks! Indy Jones it seems is not alone in favouring tightly-bound strips of leather when it comes to dealing with nasties - dinosaurs in this case. Dinosaurs who have for eons terrorised the planet Granath. But now comes Vixen, raised from infancy by a pack of foxes. She now has the ability to change into a fox at will.

This sideways scrolling whip-em-up's got nothing original to offer and its doubtful you'll be playing it in a year's time.

Reviewer: Andy Smith

RELEASE BOX
Spec, £8.99cs, £14.99dk,Out Now
C64/128, £9.99cs, £12.99dk, Out Now
Ams, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Out Now
Atari ST, £19.99dk, Out Now
Amiga, £19.99dk, Out Now
IBM PC, £24.99dk, Out Now

Predicted Interest Curve

1 min: 60/100
1 hour: 70/100
1 day: 50/100
1 week: 30/100
1 month: 10/100
1 year: 0/100

MACHINES: Spectrum/Atari ST/CBM 64/Amstrad
SUPPLIER: Martech
PRICE: £?.??
VERSIONS TESTED: Spectrum/Atari ST

Okay, so my mate Matt Bielby gets to meet Vixen star Corrine Russell in the flesh and I get to play the game. Life can be very cruel. Still I'm used to getting the rough end of the pineapple.

I suspected the game would turn out to be a naff offering with a tiger-skin clad cleavage on the cassette cover as its main selling point. Actually it isn't bad.

The animation of the main figure is really very good, slickly smooth with a wiggle in her walk. The ST animation is especially good. When Vixen runs watch out for the way her hair bounces. I wonder what shampoo she uses?

The game play, however, is a little suspect, lacking variation.

The setting is the planet Granath, populated by hordes of rampaging reptillian creatures. Stalking through this world, armed only with a whip is the striking figure of Vixen Abandoned as a child and raised by foxes. Vixen has somehow gained magical powers which, under certain circumstances, enable her to transform into a fox.

Each level of the game must be completed within the set time limit. On the way Vixen must collect gems, extra time, lives, mystery bonuses and battle against the monsters, lashing them with her whip.

She also has to accumulate Fox Time which allows her to transform unto a fox and try out the underground levels.

Because all the gems, bonuses etc. are on the floor, and also that the monsters are fairly small, most of the first levels are played with Vixen in a crouching position. This I found little tiresome.

Apart from the increasing difficulty of the levels, there doesn't seem to be much more to Vixen above ground.

The underground fox levels ore really just for bonus points against the clock, no real brushes with death.

Good graphics, nice sound, but a little mundane in the playability stokes - that's Vixen.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £8.99, Diskette: £14.99
Amstrad CPC Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99
Commodore 64/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £12.99
Atari ST Diskette: £19.99

CUBBING TOGETHER

Corrine Russell certainly fills the packaging Martech gave her for the cover picture, but does the game pack as much in? The programmers of Vixen are based in Brighton and call themselves Intelligent Design. Their previous game for Martech was the graphically impressive Catch-23.

The planet Granath spins in a parallel universe where dinosaurs remain the kings of terror. Over eons the terrible lizards have hunted most mammals, and almost every human, to extinction. Only one, magical woman remains to resist them - the eponymous Vixen. Raised by foxes after her abandonment in the wilderness, Vixen is able to transform into a fox when necessary. Armed with this gift and her lethal whip, she's a formidable heroine.

Vixen is composed of a series of levels, the majority on the planet's surface, with bonus screens played underground where Vixen becomes her foxy alter-ego. The main levels have the superbly digitised woman running to get to the tunnel before time runs out. Attempting to prevent this and make her their next meal are a wide variety of small, but deadly dinosaurs. Vixen can kill these with her whip, though some take several hits - unless she is armed with the Mega Whip found in the bonus level.

This section is accessed by completing a level with the Fox Time indicator, at the top of the screen, on maximum, increasing Fox Time is done by collecting Fox's heads hidden in bags hanging from trees. Using the whip exposes what's in them, as well as the contents of small obelisks on the ground. Contained within the obelisks are gems (points), clocks (extra time), skull-and-cross bones (smart bomb), fox's heads (lives) and mystery objects which boost your score.

At the end of a level the amount of remaining time is translated into extra points and, if Fox Time is sufficient, Vixen is shown metamorphosing into her bushy-tailed other self. The aim of the bonus game is to collect as many gems as possible while still getting to the end of the level. Some obelisks contain Mega-Gems, and, unless Vixen loses them by dying, they add bonus points at the end of a level.

Much has been made of the game's intendedly sexy packaging, but beneath the skimpy leotard, and admittedly very fine graphics on both versions (and good tune on the ST), Vixen is an attractive and involving Thundercats-type program without offering anything significantly new.