Personal Compuer Games


Roland On The Run
By Amsoft
Amstrad CPC464

 
Published in Personal Computer Games #14

Roland On The Run

Roland, who is not, as some may expect, plagued with diarrhoea, is apparently a convict trying to escape arrest. When you first see him, he's standing in a train looking very white (I think this is due to the graphics rather than the state the poor guy's in).

Anyway, he's got to cross this road to get to his hideaway (... sounding familiar yet?) However, instead of jumping inbetween the trucks you've got to jump into the back of them. "Frogger!" I hear you say. Yes, but I'm afraid this one is no improvement on the original.

At the beginning you're given a choice of how many men you're going to need for the job (1 - 255) - I recommend 255. This may seem excessive to one who's not played the game, but I assure you it is indeed necessary. To add to this there's a choice of skill levels, but it didn't seem to make much difference when I played.

Roland On The Run

Then, having made your choices, you get to the screen complete with train, trucks, a town and a hideaway. The problem is, your little guy can only jump when he's flashing (no wise cracks here please!), which he does very quickly for about half a minute.

If you don't manage to jump him from train to truck in that time you've had it, until he flashes again. Mind you, you've always got men on the go, since as soon as one has moved on, (or passed on), another of your store takes up residence in the train.

The sound, which I believe I haven't mentioned yet (with good cause) consists of occasional beeps which occur when you jump off the train, or when you die.

What with flashing men and jerky scrolling, minimal sound and not much point to the game, I don't think there's anything more to say. do you?

Bob Wade

The first time I saw the graphics for this latest Roland escapade I thought I was in for a real treat. Then I saw how they scrolled and discovered the aim of the game and was more than a little disappointed.

Your task is ridiculously straight-forward - it doesn't have even the complexity of Frogger. It isn't easy to do though, but that just makes it frustrating.

The train, trucks and background are beautifully depicted but move jerkily. The option to have 255 lives also seemed silly, giving little incentive for improvement.

Steve Cooke

Roland's graphics are fairly colourful and have obviously been designed so that they won't look too bad if you've got the green-screen monitor.

The controls are also very simple in theory - you won't have to spend hours working out how to play. In practice, I found that the key responses weren't exactly razor-sharp. Pressing a key also pauses the action for a split-second.

I guess we've been spoilt with the Amstrad so far. For a new machine, there have been a number of excellent programs for it. This isn't one of them.

Samantha Hemens

Other Amstrad CPC464 Game Reviews By Samantha Hemens


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