C&VG


Fifth Axis
By Activision
Commodore 64

 
Published in Computer & Video Games #67

Fifth Axis

The Fifth Axis made its debut on the Amstrad about nine months ago, and was quite good.

The game is set in the future, and has the universe all worried about its existence. You see, this professor bloke built a time machine, and used it to collect artifacts from different times.

What's wrong with a bit of the ol' time travelling? Well, while on one of his many shopping sprees, his machine exploded, and scattered itself about everywhere, and I mean everywhere!

The Fifth Axis

The world is now mixed up, and you must go and straighten things out, collect the parts of the machine, and return the artifacts to their corresponding time zones.

To travel back and forward through time, you must use a new teleporter, which has just been invented. Very convenient.

By running about collecting the souvenirs the Prof brought back, you can transfer them back home. The teleport won't be active until you have collected all the right objects or when you kill enough of the professor's robots.

The Fifth Axis

These droids, built to aid the Professor, will go mad and attack you on sight. You must use your skills in the martial arts to overcome them.

Once you have completed stage one, you will be teleported through time to recover a piece of the time machine.

If you succeed, you will be show the piece and then you can continue collecting items. Fail and you will have to go through the last stage again.

The Fifth Axis

Each of the time zones has different graphics, but the lab remains the same, naturally.

The graphics are quite good in some places, particularly on the main character animation. He jumps and kicks very well in a sort of Impossible Mission style.

The sound comes in the form of two annoying tunes, the first one's not too bad. Not up to the usual standard though.

The game played better on the Amstrad, but that doesn't mean the C64 version is bad, just not as good as the original.

Check it out, but don't expect too much.