Your Sinclair


Red Heat

Author: Rich Pelley
Publisher: The Hit Squad
Machine: Spectrum 48K/128K/+2/+3

 
Published in Your Sinclair #68

Red Heat

Davey Wilson reviewed this film tie-in beat-'em-up as a full pricer a couple of years back, and I still pretty much agree with everything he said.

Red Heat was that tough comedy thriller starring Arnie Schwarzenegger and James Belushi. In the game, you get to play Arnie, punching, shooting and head-butting your way to the final showdown with Viktor, the big baddy. Davey told us this at the beginning of his review, and I certainly agree with him there. He also happened to mention that Red Heat features nice big clear, yet detailed, monochrome graphics, smooth scrolling and even a sense of humour. And you can't argue with that. However, as all gameplay takes place through a horizontally-scrolling cinema-type pic with the characters visible only from the waste up, the remains of the screen were a tad sparse for Davey's liking, and (agreeably) mine also.

More explanations of the actual content of the game came next, referring to such delights as the four levels, the subgames entered by collecting icons and the variety of baddies (a bit of a 'Dave Rave' apparently). And finally, no doubt exhausted by this point, Davey concluded in that brilliant way only Davey knew how - "This is a straightforward horizontally-scrolling monochrome beat/shoot-'em-up. The graphics are clear with big sprites and detail. There is a wide range of adversaries, and the sub-games add variety. All in all, an addictive and appealing game". And, once again, I just have to agree with him. Then he awarded it 85%.

But I reckon that it's just a trifle too thin and repetitive, so I'm going to give it 76% instead. (Hope you don't mind, Davey.)

Rich Pelley

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