Crash


Dream Warrior
By U. S. Gold
Spectrum 48K/128K

 
Published in Crash #55

Dream Warrior

In a future world, controlled by the Master Focus, war is no longer fought on the physical plane, but in people's brains; instead of their lives the victims lose their minds.

The Focus fellowships are battling for supremacy and as a result of their psychic activity, the world is slowly going mad. Three members of a resistance group have been captured. Your mission is to enter the minds of these men and destroy the Focus's most powerful weapon - Ocular, the Dream Demon.

Two of the men are imprisoned in the offices of Megabuck Inc, whilst the third is trapped in the world of Wynn, a planetoid two-headed snake. A dream hopper provides transport between dreams, provided sufficient energy is available.

Dream Warrior

Throughout all areas, demi- and giant demons roam; if the player hits them, he will awaken by degrees. Shooting the demi-demons releases a variety of globes which bestow such goodies as lift passes and cards giving the player access to sleeping potions. For each two blue psy-globes collected a section of a dreamer's image is reassembled in the centre of the screen display.

Having collected all three images, you face Ocular, the prince of madness. Shooting each of his six eyes in turn destroys the evil monster and simultaneously, releases the world from its nightmare.

Comments

Joysticks: Kempston. Sinclair
Graphics: garish backgrounds, blocky sprites and plenty of colour clash
Sound: none

Mark … 29%

Dream Warrior

'In my opinion Dream Warrior is dire. A splodgy main character sprite hobbles around a cluttered screen in what looks exactly like a diver's suit. Scrolling is jerky, with the meanies unconvincingly hurtling across the screen. Dream Warrior bored me to tears within the first few minutes of play. At first, I ignored the graphics and prayed that some sort of game was hidden beneath the outer layer - I was disappointed. This type of simple shoot and collect- 'em-up is as old (and as interesting) as the proverbial hills.'

Phil … 27%

'The use of colour in Dream Warrior is terrible. Variously coloured demi-demons move over garish two-coloured backdrops with terrible colour clash. I thought the blue and cyan colour scheme of the first level was bad, but on another level it's even worse: red and white - it's enough to make you throw up! As if that isn't bad enough, the main character is clumsily drawn and even the scrolling is very jerky. The whole game looks such a mess! Trundling around, shooting demons and collecting their pods is so boring and repetitive. The whole exercise seems totally tedious and pointless - enough to send you to sleep! I could never have dreamed of such a monotonous, badly programmed game - even in my worst nightmares.'

Nick 38%

'The main character is detailed and so are the backgrounds - it's just a pity they're both in the same game because they look terrible together. The controls are awkward - you can't go in any direction without bumping into something. The character recognition is clumsy and gives the game an overall feel of untidiness. When a couple of aliens come on to the screen it looks as if the game has crashed rather than progressed - they're just a mass of pixels, the same colour as everything else. Dream Warrior looks like one big mistake.'

Phil KingMark CaswellNick Roberts

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