Producer: Bulldog
Retail Price: £1.99
Author: Charles Bystram

Dark thoughts, deeds and demons lurk deep in a sinister kingdom. Wolfan the barbarian enters this demonic paradise to clear up the clutter and confront that contradictory and nameless being the Nasty One.

Wolfan sets off on his murky quest through a flick-screen world of garden pathways, arboreal arcades and stone halls. He encounters monsters - some we intelligent, some have one brain cell searching for a friend, some are nomadic following Wolfan between screens, and some remain confined to a single screen.

These critters attack Wolfan, sometimes unprovoked, and he also risks falling down mineshafts. But the monsters can topple forward into these Coal Board relics, too, taking to oblivion any useful items they hold.

Wolfan can kill these aggressive creatures with well-aimed bombs or by transforming them into fat frogs. He then acquires anything they're carrying - but when the monsters carry objects to other screens, Wolfan can't get them back. Other items such as bones, moneybags and skulls can be gathered from the pathways and halls, to earn points.

For further aid, Wolfan can command monsters to speak, or ride on their beastly backs, though a fall from their bony shoulders puts our hero in intensive care. He can pick up extra knowledge by nuzzling the snout of a pig-headed Soothsayer, provided the Soothsayer has the globe of vision.

After chomping on a magic frog, Wolfan can barehandedly slaughter wizards.

And some mercenary monsters may accept bribes to join Wolfan's army; others are eager volunteers.

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor
Use of colour: monochromatic
Graphics: attractive but unoriginal
Sound: spot FX
Skill levels: one

We can do without a Greyfell clone this bad. The graphics are reasonable as forced 3-D goes, despite the unattractive characters, and the scrolling message is a nice (if unoriginal) touch. But there's not much playability, and Wolfan is essentially boring.
MIKE

Look out, world - it's another 3-D game with the same graphics and monochromatic colour scheme as all the others. Wolfan's only appeal lies in a cute touch: you can talk to any object around you, though the answer is usually 'Hello Wolfan... I'm a tree!'. Wolfan will only appeal to people who don't have many 3-D games.
NICK

Whatever will they think of next? Another monochrome arcade adventure, no doubt. There's nothing new or exciting about Wolfan, it s simply lots of old ideas bundled into a boring and unplayable package. The graphics are typical of the Bulldog range, as is the awkward 3-D presentation. Wolfan is very much one of the monochrome pack.
PAUL

Bulldog
£2.99

More Filmation fun, this time from Mastertronic's canine label. Fortunately, though, this one ain't no dog. In fact it's a best of breed. Top breeders recommend it. (Shaddup you stupid breeder. Japanese Ed.)

Charles Bystram's game is more in the Fairlight mould than Batman or Knightlore, although with a wolf as the hero, there are definite echoes of the old Ultimate classic. In a land where nameless evil holds sway and the very bunny rabbits do plot unholy death and carnage, here must ye go forth unto mortal combat with the Nasty One. It's never really explained why ye must, but I'm sure it's all for the best - your enemy calls himself the Wizard With No Name and eats only spaghetti. His kingdom is peopled by strange ungodly beasts who all naturally attack on the slightest provocation and often less.

So what this all comes down to is you, Wolfan, wandering around a large number of screens trying to survive. This can be a fair old task, as most monsters fight, pick up objects and chase you from screen to screen- and they're stronger than you as well.

You too can pick up and use objects, but the real puzzle lies in working out how to approach and neutralize each monster. By pressing S you invite your opponent to speak - some can then be recruited, while others can be bribed with things you're carrying.

Others, of course, will tell you to bog off, and these will have to be killed - a problem if you have nothing explosive to drop on them. Occasionally you can lure them down deep mineshafts, but then anything they're carrying is lost forever, which may make the game impossible to complete. Until you've found yourself a weapon to club monsters into oblivion, it's very hard to get anywhere, in fact. You have four choices of starting point - one (and I won't tell you which - snigger) makes the game more than a mite easier.

Graphically, as you can see, we have an almost entirely accurate Fairlight clone, but if I'm not mistaken, Wolfan is actually a touch faster. not having got very far yet (sorry, smuggies) I can't tell you how huge the playing area is - my guess is that it's unlikely to give you quite the challenge that its predecessors might have done. Still, the keyboard control is one of the best I've used on a game (much easier than joystick), and although initially very hard, I'd imagine it's fairly easy to finish. As regular readers will know, I'm a dismal sucker for games like this, but this is a goodie, and at £2.99, a real bargain. I'm sure the Tipshop (and the Clinic) will be trading inWolfan tips and teasers for a good few months to come. Map, anyone?

Label: Bulldog
Author: Charles Bystram
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: John Gilbert

Wolfan is Batman on the cheap. That's the only way to describe it.

Admittedly, it's set in grim and distant past, but that doesn't hide the similarity between the graphics techniques and the Ocean game. Even the bat ears and cloak, cunningly disguised as elven pointies and our hero's cape of office, show that the author appears to have gained inspiration from elsewhere.

Your heroic quest is to destroy the reign of the Nasty One, who's guards and monsters habitually leap down at you from pillars with nasty looking swords. During combat the two fighting figures are enlarged to cover the whole screen using a simple, but effective, magnification technique. Unfortunately fights last for only a few seconds when you're usually defeated. The graphics are also, sadly, wooden in animation and unconvincing as they goose-step around the screen.

Definitely not up to the usually high Mastertronic standard.