Zzap


B.A.T.

Publisher: Ubisoft
Machine: Amiga 500

 
Published in Zzap #71

Bat

Bat

In this French RPG, you play an agent of BAT (Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters), on the trail of the evil Vrangor who has threatened to blow up the planet Selenia.

After creating your character you can move around the gameworld. Control is totally joystick-driven, using icons and menus for command choices. The joystick pointer changes its shape when over specific areas of the screen, e.g. placing the pointer over a character may bring up a speech bubble. A door turns it into an arrow and so on. Clicking on these 'action' areas may bring up additional menus. Menu and icon design is pretty logical and easily learnt.

The Amiga version is, understandably, a better looking game but does retain many of the same problems as its C64 counterpart (65%, Issue 68). There is far too much eating and drinking required, which ruins the flow of the gameplay. I also became confused, all too often, as to which arrow moved me to what area. Then there's the weird programming section that allows you to create mini BASIC-like programs which, due to the vague manual, I couldn't understand how to use properly.

On the good side, graphics are excellent with small animated 'things' flying around the screen now and again, giving a real alien atmosphere. This is aided by some nifty background music and plentiful spot effects. But it's not enough to make up for a poor interface and game design.

Bat