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Red Planet is a graphic adventure and is written with The Mojon Twins La Churrera utility. In previous articles I have waxed lyrical about how annoying I have found games written with this - Zombie Calavera and LaLa Prologue, for example - because jumping is such a hit-and-miss affair, and because colliding with a bad guy ended with the hero being randomly thrown about the screen. In Red Planet, I still hate the jump control but collisions result in the much more sensible loss of a life.

The story is the pretty typical "explore the rooms of the planet, collect the explosives and return to the first screen with it all to light the dynamite". And, to be brutally honest, the game itself is also fairly typical - avoid the patrolling nasties, jump from platform to platform, make a map, find the keys and open the doors.

However, what I really like about Red Planet is the amount of strategy that needs to be employed to play it correctly. You can run, jump and, once you've pick up a gun, shoot. But you cannot just therefore pick a fight with any tentacled nasty bouncing about in front of you. This is because most of them should be avoided rather than vaporised - acting like Rambo will quickly deplete your ammo and make it completely impossible for you to get past various nasties. Likewise, keys and doors require their own strategy. Jumping is, as I've indicated, a strategy all of its own.

With only seven lives, Red Planet might be a little too tough for the beginner but I found it very playable.

Available free from sites.google.com/site/speccy21/home. (Search for "Red Planet".)