Computer Gamer


Minder
By DK Tronics
Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Computer Gamer #3

Minder

Taking the part of Arthur Daley, you have two weeks, £2,000 and various goods with which to deal in order to earn as much money as you can. Starting rom Arthur's home, you can visit various locations, such as the lock-up, where you keep your stock of goods, Terry's flat, the Winchester club, or a number of dealers, to try and sell your goods.

The buying and selling is the heart o the game, and it's quite impressive the way that the game simulates artificial intelligence when dealers actually make the first approach and try and sell you a motley assortment of items. The language handling of the program is very good and allows you to type in some quite complicated sentences when you're discussing the prices and quantities in a deal. Try not to be too rude though, as some of the dealers can get rough.

The dealers and other characters all have animated faces that move in time to their words, and all the locations are drawn in the top half of the screen display, above the area used for text. Between locations there's an animated car that plays a strangled version of the Minder theme on its horns.

Minder isn't mentally taxing like an adventure, or a fast-paced zap game, but, like I said, it's original and fun. So, if you see one falling off the back of a lorry, grab it.