Amstrad Computer User


Eliminator
By Hewson Consultants
Amstrad CPC464

 
Published in Amstrad Computer User #59

On a road to nowhere but your doom...

Eliminator

When there is no-one else to turn to, when the forces of law and order are too seared to act, call for the A-Team. Cue music, load explosions, bad actors rolling round the floor pretending to have been shot, then getting up and showing it was only a glancing blow.

That means we have to rely on John Rambo, fighting for the American way - truth, justice, liberty. He is off on a gook hunt somewhere.

This means we will have to call on the Eliminator. Dressed to thrill in Blob, his intergalactic spaceship, he is a one-man cliche machine. Eliminator, converted from John Phillips's 1988 original by John Wildsmith, is a third choice in every way. It is the kind of game you are likely to play only if your other games have become corrupted, or the cat has run off with the tape.

Eliminator

Eliminator has you spiralling through the galaxy but this is not a computerised version of something illegal; it is a mission to boldly go where no man would really want to go unless it was a wet Sunday afternoon and the football had been cancelled.

You are on a road to nowhere; nowhere but your doom, that is, one which bends up and down and side to side. I should point out that it does not really undulate like Overlander with you on it. Rather there are long corners and huge down slopes. The road scrolls slowly towards you in two-colour 3-D - Spectrum simulation - and is littered with obstacles around which you must drive; enemy blobs, which must be shot for the sake of all mankind - and especially young Johnny sleeping peacefully in Acacia Avenue; ammunition sprites for re-stocking and weapon sprites for strapping on extra big boy weapons.

Your inter-galactic spaceblob moves slower than a hibernating tortoise and only marginally faster than a dead one. That makes getting through the narrow gaps more hazardous than driving along the North Circular Road in the rush hour.

Armed only with a blob shooter initially, you can upgrade to twin blob, wide-angled twin blob, upwards-firing blobs and many more blob variations. If by now you have the impression that the graphics are basically indistinguishable blobs, you are correct. They are multi-coloured and 3D but blobs all the same.

The only real thrill is when you spin to the ceiling and leap over obstacles on the road via a ramp. Apart from that, it is a question of how long you can stay awake. That is a pity because the ST and Amiga originals were good. The only good point about this desperate exercise is the gritty music by Nick Jones, more deserving of a fate other than accompanying this particularly sad version of Eliminator.

Mark Luckham

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