Your Sinclair


Vectron

Author: Sue Denham
Publisher: Insight
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Your Sinclair #1

Vectron

Insight's Vectron's not a game for the faint-hearted. I'd only recommend it to those of you with fingers that move like lightning and whose quick reactions haven't been dulled by playing too many adventure games.

Inside a massive computer, you control a fighting machine and it's your task to manoeuvre around a maze of corridors, blasting plasma bolts at the various nasties you find there. Movement around the corridors is conducted at a terrifying pace - it's an exhausting process lining up one of the enemy Randomizers or Tanx in your on-screen sights in time to blast it to smithereens. More likely, you'll find that you've bumped the fighting machine into a wall at the end of the corridor and you're careering off in the opposite direction!

To help you, there's the option to view the whole affair from above - by pressing one of the keys from the 'B' key to the Space bar - but this can be just as confusing as you can see the on-screen map from above superimposed over the view out of your fighting machine. The map depicts the Randomizers in red, the Tanx in magenta, the energy units in cyan, and your fighting machine in white - and try taking that lot in when you're shooting around the maze at what seems much faster than any sensible speed limit! The idea is that once you get near to one of the enemy, you quickly switch to the normal screen and zap them with your plasma blasters.

For those with the faith that you can get past the first stage - by destroying all the alien nasties - there are three more stages that look just as tricky as the first, especially if you have an aversion to killer robots, fireballs and all sorts of other traumas.

Overall , a great idea for a game, but it may prove to be just a little bit difficult to play. Still, if you reckon yourself as a hot arcade games player, Vectron might be the one you've been waiting for - if this doesn't keep you quiet trying to finish all four stages, then nothing will!

Sue Denham

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