Request In Peace ================ Request In Peace ---------------- Matranet is a French publisher for the Spectrum, and Request In Peace is a 128K only number. It costs about £8 and comes in a nice plastic box with inlay, insert and cassette. There's a lovely textual prologue to set the scene of this highly original game, and it features a Cockney geezer who tries his hand at grave-robbing - only to end up "the bitch" of a bunch of undead zombies. Each of these zombies respectfully requests our hero to bring a certain object to one of the graves in the cemetery. Handily, most of these objects are easily accessible in the crypt at the top of the screen. However, the graveyard is home to some slightly more active zombies too, who wander around both getting in your way and, on collision, throwing you around and swapping your game controls. Theoretically, all you are required to do is to touch the grave where the zombie has his hand up, grab the item he wants and push it into his outstretched claw. You're also not restricted to doing things linearly either; you can touch all the graves with the outstretched hands to save a little time if need be. For the first few screens, you find you have just about enough time to satisfy all entombed zombies before time runs out. However, from screen four onwards, things start to get much more difficult. Items in the crypt become sealed up, meaning you now need to play tag between zombie, a magic wand and the seal before you can even get hold of the desired request. When you fail to deliver - as you surely will sooner or later! - the zombie emerges from his grave as a demon. You can then charge at him holding the magic wand or see what he does next...! The gameplay and music is excellent with themes from the movies Candyman, The Forsaken, The Thing, Alien and even Casper jingling along in the background. The only real gripe is that the small monochrome graphics do let the side down a little bit. Overall this is what every game should aspire to - a gradually increasing difficulty level with that "just one more go" factor. Also available free from World Of Spectrum. Scores ------ Graphics 5 Atmosphere 9 Presentation 10 Value for Money 9 Overall 8