BARGAIN BASEMENT

What's going cheap this month? (Make any bird jokes, and you're dead, Ed). Certainly not Marcus Berksquawk. (BLAM!!)

Code Masters
£1.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann

This is disappointing, especially when you look at the real Spectrum screenshots (Code Masters is always pretty hot on that, of course). But the game is a little drab.

Death Stalker (no relation to John, I presume) is an arcade adventure set in the usual mystical world of ghoulies, spells and wizards, and it's up to you to find the losty key of darkness and descend to the deeper dungeons. Why? I hear you ask. Well, it's never made entirely clear, or even touched on at all, but never mind - all you have to know is that the EVIL ORC MEN are bad, and prisoners, if set free, are good. As you slash around the monochrome screens, you occassionally pick things up, but more often die a lot. Why? I hear you ask again. (You're clearly in an interrogative mood today.) Because you can't see a bloody thing, that's why. The graphics are so poorly drawn that it's next to impossible to make anything out, unless you've got a really spanky monitor - in which case, what are you doing buying cheapie rubbish like this? Exactly. Next!

Label: Code Masters
Author: Tony Warriner
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Steve Mahoney

'Sword fighting, magic potions... loads of weapons, hidden doors and passageways... huge firepits - it's all REALLY EXCELLENT!'

This is the quote on the back of this game. It's hardly surprising, since the contributor considers the game to be so good, that it was written by David Darling. Why do they bother letting one of Codemasters' heads write the blurb, it's hardly an unbiased opinion is it? In fact, Death Stalker is a semi-reasonable very Karnov-ish looking game, which involves using spells, weapons and stuff, but not in a very compelling or exciting way. David Whittaker has done the 128K soundtrack, which isn't bad, but the game is very colourless and unoriginal.

Graphics are nice in a 'boringseenitallbeforehohumyawnsnore' sort of way and without colour it's hard to distinguish characters or work out just what is going on. In short, not good (and you don't get much shorter than that).

Spectrum, Amstrad: £2.99

Conspicuous by the lack of any "Simulator" tag, Codemasters' Death Stalker is an arcade adventure with a heavy scent of fantasy. The main character - a sorcerer with violent tendencies - is guided around the earthy rural landscape, on a mission to discover the lost key of darkness and in so doing, he descends into the "Deeper Dungeons".

En route, potions and items are collected as the solution to later puzzles, prisoners are rescued from their bondage and attacking members of the undead are despatched by nifty sword play.

Sections of the landscape appear only in proximity to the main character, and so the route gradually unfolds as progress is made. Gameplay is a little slower that it might have been, and the combat is pretty pallid stuff, but there's still a definite urge to explore.

Both Amstrad and Spectrum versions are reasonably colourful and should help while away an hour or two.