Personal Computer News


Hellfire
By Melbourne House
Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Personal Computer News #101

HELLFIRE

Return to the days of brave Ulysses and do battle with the Gorgon and the Minotaur in this three-in-one arcade game from Melbourne House, which should know all about the classics, after publishing some of them.

This isn't quite in that league, and has good points and glaring faults - for instance, you're not told it's compatible with Kempston and Interface II till it's loaded, which makes for some confusion.

There's also no pause facility or wait between games, and as you're required to do different things with different controls on each of the three screens you find yourself initially losing lives while scrabbling to find the cassette cover for instructions.

Hellfire

Screen one is a Greek Donkey Kong - bound up the slopes of Mount Olympus and avoid falling boulders. You leap from ledge to ledge heading for a cave at top right, and once you've worked out the route it's none too difficult, provided you judge just where to take off from before you leap.

It's eerily silent, too, like all three screens, the second of which counts as a pretty silly game. You make your way from bottom left to top right by running behind pillars. Go behind one from the left and you emerge on the right-hand side of a different pillar, so your aim is to discover which left-hand pillar brings you out from behind the pillar next to the exit.

You can bounce between floors thanks to an ancient Greek trampoline at one side of the screen, and must also avoid the Minotaur on the bottom level. Take too long and another appears.

Naturally each screen is harder as you go round and round through the game.

The third screen is toughest, an Ant Attack style maze where you mash monsters with your mace and search for the exit. I soon found the first two screens tedious, and wished I could start on this one each time. Good graphics on all three, but this one's definitely not a Melbourne House classic.

Mike Gerrard

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