Home Computing Weekly


Danger Ranger

Publisher: Microdeal
Machine: Dragon 32

 
Published in Home Computing Weekly #50

Here is an unusual game which still retains the flavour of the arcades. It's a fast-moving machine code presentation where the object is to collect keys and treasures.

The animation is superb with an initial choice of different coloured screens: black, buff or green background. This can affect the quality of the drawings where - in the buff version, for example - the score was decidedly blurred. I found green best, a compromise between colour choice and clarity.

You guide a man down a series of shelves picking up keys while avoiding bats and laser firing urns. Why urns, I ask? They could equally have been robots! If you succeed then you proceed to the second screen where you negotiate acid coming from top and bottom. There are four demons which can be shot and treasure to collect.

This was a very addictive game initially but with only two screens it proved limiting. As you got better more hazards were added but the incentive to go on was lacking. These days it's not enough to see a mounting score - one has to be visually rewarded.