Producer: Thorn EMI
Memory Required: 16K
Recommended Retail Price: £6.95
Language: machine code
Author: Nick Burroughs

It is your task to destroy the evil race of Zerans, who live on the volcanic planet of Zeras. To do this you must make your way through an underground metropolis to the depths of the city, where you will find a volcanic plug. If you can plant your plasma bomb there, you will blow up the planet. But you must make your escape before the city fills up with lava. Okay?

The Zerans resemble purplish coloured amoebas and they scutter round the city complex in company with their much bigger slaves. Often the Zerans will ignore you, but they may try to crush you. 'You' resemble a little black spider.

There are five skill levels and depending on which one you select there are between 3 and 15 levels to the city. The display shows you only a tiny part of the whole complex (of one floor). There is a map at the top right hand corner of the entire floor you are on and looking at it gives you a headache! It's huge.

Your protection is a suit or armour which wears down as the Zerans fire at you. When it's gone the two other systems, power and bio system, become vulnerable and you die if they fail. Your blaster has plenty of charge, but that too runs down with use. These four are shown as falling bar codes at the bottom of the screen. Here and there in the maze you will come across various objects like tool repair kits and spare oxygen, but you must be quick because a Zeran will take them if he gets there first.

To go to another floor you must find the lifts, which are going up and down all the while. When you enter one (wait for it to arrive at your floor) you can activate it but you won't know whether it's going up or down, only the indicator at the left of screen tells you this. Entering an up lift on the top floor replenishes all your armour and power. Lifts only connect between 2 floors, otherwise it would be too easy.

COMMENTS

Keyboard positions: a lot of keys to use. Direction is a bit odd; 6/7 left/right, 8/9 up down. Zero fires blaster, 5 operates a lift, 4 plants the plasma bomb.
Joystick options: Kempston, Sinclair
Keyboard play: very responsive in 8 directions
Use of colour: good
Sound: none
Skill levels: 5
Lives: 1
Screens: 15

This is a very complex and complicated game to play. The graphics really are very good, colourful and very smooth, with 8-directional movement and continuous fire. The effect of the blaster is wonderful, great bolts of yellow mingled with red. It all has a satisfyingly violent feeling to it. My only complaint is with the keyboard layout, directional keys all in a line are awkward to use instinctively.

If you enjoy large mazes then this is bound to be a winner! The complex is massive and it's crawling with the enemy. Skill in moving and firing take a while to get together. The damned lifts don't help either with your never knowing where they're going. On the whole a playable and fairly addictive game with original looking graphics. But what happened to the sound?

I never find maze games enjoyable to play, but this game offers load of enemies to go round zapping (good blaster effect). What is good is the way the aliens get excited if you shoot one of their number. All the others visible on the screen start dancing round as though they were actually hopping mad! I never got anywhere near planting my plasma bomb, even on the lowest skill level - it's a game with plenty of playing scope. I'm sure it would be even better if there was some sound.

Producer: Thorn EMI, 16K
£6.95 (1)
Author: Nick Burroughs

It is your task to destroy the evil race of Zerans, who live on a volcanic planet. To do this you must make your way through an underground complex to the depths of the city and place a bomb on the volcanic plug and then make your escape before it goes off. 5 skill levels provide a city with between 3 and 15 floors. The screen only shows a tiny part of the whole with a small map of the entire floor you are on. Floors are connected by lifts which only travel between 2 floors. The Zerans are equipped with blasters and huge crushing slaves. Dotted about are tool repair kits and spare oxygen bottles, but the Zerans will take them first if you're not quick. Your armour and life support is eroded by Zeran attack. The graphics are very good, especially the wonderful blaster effect and all in all this is an excellent maze game with plenty of potential. Lots of control keys, joystick Sinclair and Kempston. One drawback - poor sound. Apart from that, a very good game, overall CRASH rating 69% M/C.

Producer: Thorn EMI, 16K
£6.95 (1)
Author: Nick Burroughs

It is your task to destroy the evil race of Zerans, who live on a volcanic planet. To do this you must make your way through an underground complex to the depths of the city and place a bomb on the volcanic plug and then make your escape before it goes off. 5 skill levels provide a city with between 3 and 15 floors. The screen only shows a tiny part of the whole with a small map of the entire floor you are on. Floors are connected by lifts which only travel between 2 floors. The Zerans are equipped with blasters and huge crushing slaves. Dotted about are tool repair kits and spare oxygen bottles, but the Zerans will take them first if you're not quick. Your armour and life support is eroded by Zeran attack. The graphics are very good, especially the wonderful blaster effect and all in all this is an excellent maze game with plenty of potential. Lots of control keys, joystick Sinclair and Kempston. One drawback - poor sound. Apart from that, a very good game, overall CRASH rating 69% M/C.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
JOYSTICK: Optional
CATEGORY: Arcade
SUPPLIER: EMI
PRICE:

Ever seen a robot get the jitters? Volcanic Planet is android-infested and boy, do they get panicky when you blast them into little bits and send them to that Great Workshop in the sky.

You control a good-guy android as he explores a multi-level maze, moving between levels via lifts that you locate using a small-scale diagram in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

The main display shows your location and features scrolling graphics as you move about blasting enemy androids and hunting for such useful things as oxygen supplies and armour repair packs.

There are five levels of play, and the higher the level the more layers there are to be penetrated.

Once you've reached the bottom of the maze you have to find a 'volcanic plug' and deposit a plasma-bomb beside it. Then it's a race against time to find the lifts and escape before the bomb explodes and floods the maze with molten lava.

The program has no sound, and uses the number keys '3' to '0' which makes things a bit cramped if you don't have a joystick.

The only reward for success is the message 'Mission Completed that flashes across the screen at the end. The action is fast and smooth however and should afford a few hours amusement.

The program doesn't have a recommended retail price so it may be worth shopping around for the best offer.