Producer: Mastertronic
Retail Price: £2.99
Author: Smart Egg Software

Mastertronic doesn't publish adventures written with utilities, so I was eager to get Rigel's Revenge up and running. Sure enough, even the loading screen was pretty slick, with a designed look and a cleverly waxing and waning title. There's also a couple of pages of prose to set you off armed with the most recent news, some of which bears directly upon your first puzzles.

The story centres on two cop-sounding chaps, Harper and Elliot, who are in fact investigative journalists. But this is way in the future, the 22nd century to be exact, and their coverage of the Re-unification War must have been good stuff as it was carried by every major Federation comm-network. Their story told how the Fleet troops had brought the insurgent colonies back into the Federation's grip.

Success, however, has gone to Elliot's head, and he has persuaded Harper to join him as an agent for the Alterian Corps - not a Christmas food-hamper group, alas, but an influential bunch of dedicated peace-lovers. In return for Harper and Elliot's sterling work the Corps will guarantee scoop after scoop.

Their first mission is to go to Rigel V, where one region still holds out against the conquering Federation troops. The recalcitrant rebels claim to have a Doomsday Machine and will wreak the ultimate revenge if the Federation refuses to withdraw from the planet. Elliot has been smuggled into Rigel V by the Alterian Corps as a Rigellian trooper; his mission is to discover the whereabouts of the Doomsday Machine and report to Harper, who lands on Rigel V a week later. Harper's instructions are to meet Elliot at night in a back street in the occupied sector of town.

The game begins as Harper arrives on Rigel V, freshly alighted from the scoutship which now zooms off from above the darkened streets. With his light-intensifying goggles every detail is clear. All of a sudden an explosion from an adjacent alley tears the goggles from his face. He escapes serious injury but a low moan to the east emanates from his partner Elliot, who hasn't been so lucky...

Rigel's Revenge is a really interesting adventure with a sophisticated, yet still very friendly, vocabulary. The redesigned character set is most pleasing; the occasional pictures, with clues actually within them, are detailed and effective; and the scenes are atmospheric, with finely written pieces ('skeletal remains of the geodesic dome that once covered the town', 'huge shards of plastiglass towered overhead'). The slick feel and look are typified by the 'Anykey' at the bottom - short and to the point.

And though this game is no pushover, some parts being quite intricate (for instance, PULL BAR HARD is needed to do the trick when PULL BAR fails to achieve much after its first use), there's some humour, such as when you're examining the certificate early on: 'The Desert Scene Cert 18. British Bored of Censors. Signed Funny Squiggle.'

Incidentally, Smart Egg Software is best known for The Serf's Tail, which I haven 't come across yet (probably because it's not been released on the Spectrum).

DIFFICULTY: some very tricky bits
GRAPHICS: few, but good
PRESENTATION: smart, if a touch plain
INPUT FACILITY: basically verb/ noun, with some additions
RESPONSE: very fast

FAX BOX
Game: Rigel's Revenge
Publisher: Mastertronic/Bulldog
Price: £2.99
Reviewer: Mike Gerrard

A few months ago I raved over The Serfs Tale from Smart Egg Software, published by Players, and I know from the helpline letters that lots of you have bought and enjoyed it... If tearing your hair out is a sign of enjoyment. Now the Smart Eggs have hatched another game, courtesy of Mastertronic, so this one is likely to be even more widely available. It's not quite up to Serfs Tale's megagame standard, but there's only a whisker in it, it's still an ace adventure.

It tells the story of Harper and Elliot, one of the great newsgathering teams of the 22nd century. They're covering the Re-Unification War and are sent to Rigel V, which is still holding out against the Federation troops. Sounds almost as dangerous as being at YS when the sandwich man arrives. It seems there's a bomb on Rigel V, Elliot's been smuggled into find it and you play Harper, joining him soon after.

Not soon enough though, because when you find him he's on the verge, of snuffing it. But before he does, he manages to croak: "Go east across town. Cross no-man's land. Find device, disarm it... but beware android guard... Find my light-guide - buried in copse - use it to..." Well, you'll have to figure out how to use it for yourself, because Elliot, at this point, pops his clogs.

Pausing only to give him a decent burial, off you go to check out the hostile town around you. A piece of advice - read the loading screen carefully otherwise you'll never even get the game started. The first problem's a bit too sneaky for my taste. I like my clues to be in the game itself, not printed on the screen when I'm elsewhere making a cup of coffee! There seemed to be sudden deaths all round too, and I thought I was going to hate the game. But then I realised the deaths had all been signposted if only I'd been careful, and this set me on my toes for later signs of danger.

There aren't too many graphics in the game, but they are very well done. Mostly they come up when you examine things, like a door and a gun early on, and as well as being detailed they also often contain a clue as well, so keep your eyes peeled. The problems are tricky, and might prove too tricky for some as they do require a bit of inspired guesswork. In one place PULL BAR helps a little, but PULL BAR HARD helps a lot. Some of the problems also involve coming up with a sequence of commands.

It's a game worth buying, with many of the routines being very convincing - bullets rain as you walk the streets, and you have to dive down into a basement out of the way, or a pack of dogs sets about chasing you. Breathlessly you try to outrun them. A touch of thriller-writing about the text, and this two-part tale is probably Mastertronic's best Speccy adventure yet.

Label: Bulldog
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: None
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

I've been ordered upon pain of death to make this short, so here goes. A couple of geezers called 'Arper and Elliot have joined some rebels, ryte, and they meet in this slum area, and then wouldn't you just believe it, a bomb goes off killing one of 'em. Don't it always just happen, eh. So, this 'Arper fellar 'as to go on ahead and blow up this fing celled a Doomsday Device. So, off he sets, and guess who's controlling 'im? Yep, it's youz out there reading this.

Now, come on, honestly, it's a rotten storyline! So what do you expect the adventure to be like? Well, it's Quilled, of course, and - although it does have long descriptive pieces which are, quite frankly, a delight to see in a budget adventure - the playability ranges from the impossibly easy to the pretty damned hard.

I didn't enjoy this at all and if you're looking for a decent adventure - look elsewhere.

SUPPLIER: Mastertronic/Smart Egg
MACHINE: Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad and Atari
PRICE CASSETTE: £1.99

The Rigellian war raged. Harper dropped down from the scoutship. An nearby explosion ripped off his nigh-sight goggles, plunging him into darkness. Nearby, a moan emanated from Elliot, lying mortally injured.

"The Rigellians have a doomsday device. They plan to use it to devastate the planet if they lose the war." He urges Harper to find and destroy the device. He is halfway through telling him how, when he dies...

Harper find the town in ruins, in the grip of war. Shattered flexiglass from the dome which once enclosed the town lies everywhere. Rubble, barricades, and broken windows are all around. He sets off in search of the device, first, of course, getting anything he can lay his hands on, that might help him in the task ahead.

The graphics are not merely representations of the locations - they actually contribute to the game. For example, examine a door that has you worried, and you will get a couple of pictures - a distance shot, and a close up of the handle revealing a trap. All instantly displayed, and removed from the screen for the resumption of text play.

The problems are there, an although some take a bit of thinking about (the first one had me worrying for at least five minutes!) none of them are too difficult, and the vocab and alternative commands allowed do not frustrate the solving process.

Some of the replies have a footnote reference to them (shades of Infocom!). Type in FOOTNOTE 2, and you will get advice to write to an Adventure Helpline, if you can't solve the problem in hand! The way this is handled is yet another example of what sets the game apart.

Despite its somewhat grim theme, a sense of humour soon becomes apparent, when, for example, Harper gets lost in the desert. There is obvious a clue in the sand that will help him get back to town - but EXAMINE SAND does not give it.

The game has a RAMSAVE and RAMLOAD facility, as well as tape. Despite being non-Quilled, there is so much held in memory, that the adventure comes in two parts, and data must be tape saved to move from one to the other. Once into part 2, however, a restart is possible with that part, without having to reload the saved data.

The character set is very clearly legible, displayed as white on black, adding to the very professional performance of what must be one of the highest quality budget titles ever! The only thing lacking is its price - at £1.99 it's a snip. If Mastertronic continue to release adventures of this quality at this price, they could well revolutionalise the cassette-based adventure market. Go out and buy it!