Computer Gamer


Fiona Rides Out
By Viper
Commodore 64

 
Published in Computer Gamer #5

Fiona Rides Out

Fiona is a witch, the foulest witch ever to darken the skies of the computer screen. Her sister witches have stolen the tools of her trade and she wants them back. To do this, she must ride the night skies searching various locations for her precious belongings.

Nothing wrong with the concept and the play is not too bad, but the reality is that the game lacks variety and soon becomes boring.

At first, Fiona is flying through the night skies on her broomstick avoiding the other witches and thunderbolts flashing from the clouds overhead. Each time she touches another witch or a thunderbolt, she loses spell power and if all her power disappears she is doomed to Hell. In the passageways of Hell, she can still escape back to earth as long as she doesn't touch the sides or crash into demons or molten lava (it's very like Balloon Rescue at this point). The sprite collision detection could do with sorting out a little here.

Although sometimes when the tail of the broomstick overlaps the passage walls in some parts, the merest hint of a touch elsewhere results in an explosive death.

If Fiona makes the grade on her earthly flight, she enters one of six locations. The first is the Ghostly Graveyar where ghosts and skeletons roam. To retrieve her missing equipment, Fiona must build up her spell power by 2,000 points. These points are gained zapping anything that moves, collecting the debris and dropping it into the cauldron. If she should touch a moving ghost or skeleton she loses power. If the spell power drops to zero, she goes back to Hell.

Success leads to another aerial zapping session with bats and ghouls to be killed. Success leads to the Witch Kitchen where bats accompanied by severed hands and feet assail our anti-heroine. Again, she must add another 2,000 points to debris dumping but by now I'd seen it all before. Later problems combine the former problems with the odd malicious mushroom or problematic pumpkin putting in an appearance. Each successful room visited being followed by another flight and failure leading to Hell.

Not much here to sustain interest so I turned the tape over to sample the freebie program on the other side.

Daredevil Dennis is a platorm game and sometimes the random positioning of problem objects makes the screen impossible to complete. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

If you buy ths tape, get it for Fiona Rides Out and use the other side for recording your favourite pop song because Dennis is a definite Black Hole.