Producer: Computer Magic
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £7.95
Language: Machine code

The object of Volcano is to escape from an erupting - well, volcano. The game is quite different because it involves many different elements across forty screens above ground and 290 below.

In a sense it is a giant graphic adventure, where you control your man, guiding him around the streets of the threatened town, seeking useful objects from the buildings. Falling molten rocks are shown as red blobs which appear on the map scapes, while rivers of red lava slowly engulf the roadways, making your task increasingly difficult.

Generally you must escape a reach a boat and flee the natural wrath behind you. There are several maps of the town, with an animated character which you control. There is the medieval city with its various precincts, the commercial section and shopping section; below the city there exists a maze of underground passages which are shown in wire frame 3D. Back above ground, your route to freedom is blocked by dangerous marshes and jungles, and even before leaving the city you may encounter riots and get killed.

Useful objects are things like dynamite for blowing rocks out of the way or matches which will enable you to see your way underground. Food is also essential to keep up strength, which wanes rapidly. Movement control is by left/right rotation and forwards below ground, with four way movement above ground. Whilst perambulating below the surface, it is well to remember that above ground the volcano is still erupting, blocking the town's streets with debris.

Volcano has a random element built into the program so that, except for the first three screens, dynamite, lava, rocks, food and ropes will rarely appear in the same place twice. Scoring is done by time alive.

COMMENTS

Control keys: CIA up/down, O/P left/right (above ground), 6/8 rotate left/right, 7 move forwards (below ground), C - collect, E = eat, X = explode dynamite, R = swing on rope
Joystick: not stated
Keyboard play: not over responsive, but well laid out
Use of colour: average
Graphics: small, simple, below average
Sound: good tune
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 5
Screens: 330 plus

Volcano is a totally different type of game. I can honestly say I haven't played anything like it before. As a game it isn't mega-brill, but it isn't mega-asterisks either. The graphics are simple but serve their purpose. The attraction of this game is that there is a lot to it, there are numerous screens to be discovered. Volcano is quite fun to play, but I did find it a bit repetitive after a while. It has some nice features such as when you die it tells you how long you've been playing, while playing a catchy tune. The 3D underground maze looks uncannily like those 3D mazes you used to get from ZX81 games and some early Spectrum games, but this stage becomes very repetitive a boring after a while. Overall quite a good game but I think it's got limited appeal.

The main appeal of Volcano lies in its sheer size, because the graphics are not the sort that make you want to play compulsively. Again, despite its size, you are confronted quite quickly by the inescapable fact that it's all been seen before on a smaller scale. The linked screens of the town make a large maze, where you waste time by going off the screen on a road only to find that it's a dead end on the next one. Herein lies the meat of the game, getting around fast enough before the ways are blocked to get all the things you need to survive. I found Volcano was quite playable but not addictive. Sheer size of a program isn't what makes a winner, and when you get down to it there isn't enough going on in the game to offer lasting appeal.

Strange game this. It seems to have a mixture of adventure and strategy and a good memory is required. The game seems to be of a very old type, according to the graphics, although essentially they are adequate. Many points of this game are unfair; one major example is when you fall down a hole into the underground passageways. If you are lucky, you will get three matches to enable you to see the map that you collect when you fall down the hole. This map shows you the way to the exit and also the starting position, but unfortunately, and unfairly, it doesn't show you your present position, so in many cases it is totally useless. Lighting a match enables you to see the map for approximately five seconds - hardly enough time to focus on the map, sum up where the start and finish are, and then guess where you are. I'm sure this part of the game requires you to have a photographic memory, not very helpful for 99.99 of the players. If you have unfortunately fallen down one of these holes you seemingly need no food, which now means unless you find your way out of this impossible maze of tunnels, you'll be doomed to stay there for the rest of your life (unless you turn the computer off). Perhaps this over-priced game should be re-written to allow for the novice player to have much more fun while playing this game - a quit key would be most useful.

MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Computer Magic
PRICE: £7.95

Volcano, the new release from Computer Magic, starts off with a good idea. You have to escape from a maze-like city - which has underground and overground levels - before lava from an erupting volcano covers everything with a molten blanket.

Nice idea. Shame about The game. It's really a simple maze game - like the ones you play with pencil a paper in puzzle magazines, but transferred to computer.

You move your crudely drawn character around the "streets" of the city - collecting dynamite, eating food and avoiding looters -en route for the boat waiting to carry you away from the volcano.

You need dynamite to blast your way through obstacles which block your way and you need food to stay alive. You get five at the start of each game - and they disappear at an alarming rate. You really need to make a map of the different locations as you move using a pencil and paper - the small map that accompanies the cassette doesn't really give you any useful information.

Make a wrong move and you could end up trapped in a dead end without a nydynamite to blast your way past the rocks which have fallen across the path behind you. Game over!

You also sometimes fall into a swamp. There is no indication of this happening to warn you - just a message which says you've lost a life. That's where your own map would come in handy.

If you are really unlucky, you might fall into the underground passages with graphics like those ancient "3D maze" games you used to play on your ZX81. There appears to be no way out unless you have a match and can use it to see the old map you apparently have with you.

A nice idea - but the graphics are crude and the game eventually too frustrating to be much fun.

I know that games are supposed to have a bit of mystery surrounding them and that the documentation shouldn't give too much away - but I felt that Volcano needed a bit more explanation for the player to make the most of the game.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
CONTROL: Keys
FROM: Computer Magic, £7.95

This is another game which boasts about its size. Forty screens above ground and 290 3D screens below, plus 100 shops and factories to explore... phew!

The aim of the game is to escape from an erupting volcano before all the roads are blocked and the town destroyed. The hero of this scenario is you - a little pair of shoes.

The program is really two games in one. The main part is played with a bird's-eye view of a map-like maze (a medieval city). All the time the maze's roads are being blocked by boulders which appears randomly.

The only way to remove these is by collecting dynamite which is to be found in some shops and exploding it. Other things which may aid your escape can also be found in these shops.

One thing you must never do is run out of food and there isn't much of it about so it needs to be conserved. To escape a boat must be found and here the game ends.

The second part of the game comes into being if a map is found in one of the clearings. By picking this up you are thrown into the underground caverns below the city: 3D corridors.

Escape from this labyrinth is extremely difficult. Three matches are given which when used give a momentary glance at a map which only shows the start and the exit - but it's almost impossible to work out a route. This can make the game extremely frustrating.

The graphics in Volcano are average above ground and rather good in the 3D perspective corridors below. The claims of '290 3D screens' are a little exaggerated since most of them are different views of the same place.

However, the game is a bit thin on playability and not particularly addictive, despite the hype. In fact Volcano is 'lava' boring!!

If Pompeii was like this I think most of its occupants would have slept through the whole thing. It's a terrific idea for a game, but the mediocre graphics and playability have crushed the life out of it.

All I did was waddle about the place as my clod-footed alter ego losing energy at an alarming rate. I also found the blobs of lava appeared too fast to let me get very far. Petrifyingly tedious.

BOB WADE

My excitement at this game soon ebbed. Volcano is slow, amateurish and boring. The graphics are simple, the sound is tedious and unimpressive and I doubt that many people could play for more than ten minutes without wanting to kill the programmer.

ROB PATRICK

No, I didn't erupt with pleasure playing this one. Watching the pair of feet scurrying around the maze is initially amusing, but quickly palls.

Graphics were very dull - so dull that even the large number of locations couldn't compensate for them. It was a relief when the lava, like a spill of red ink, put an end to it.

ROB PATRICK