Personal Computer News
14th January 1984
Author: Mike Gerrard
Publisher: Paramount
Machine: Commodore Vic 20
Published in Personal Computer News #044
Save The City
For those of you keen on helping governments out and preventing nuclear holocausts, this is definitely the game for you.
A mad scientist is holding the government to random with a massive explosive device which he's planted in the heart of the city sewerage system. Your mission, should you choose to accept it of course, is to defuse the bomb.
Objectives
However, life is made a little bit more complicated before you even start. The scientist kidnaps you and imprisons you in a large house in the jungle on the edge of town. Being the superhero that you are, escaping from the house was, of course, no problem, but from here on in it's you against the computer.
Get through the jungle, into the city, and finally into the sewers themselves, defuse the bomb and save the western world. You have a maximum of three minutes in which to do this, though the lunatics among you may care to try the two minute game. This is only to be recommended to potential Raiders of Lost Arks.In Play
The first problem to be solved is getting out of the surrounding security traps, so you must make your way past security devices and locked gates in order to reach the top of the screen and emerge into the jungle.
To open the locked gates, you'll need a key, and these are dotted about the screen, usually inches away from some deadly security trap.
Once you've survived that one, you're in the jungle itself. Here, there are some very strange man-eating plants - to be avoided whenever their mouths open. When their mouths are shut you can run over the top of them, and you'll have to do that a couple of times to get through this level and into the sewers.Then it's just a matter of running past a few deadly tendrils that move about unpredictably.
Here the joystick is probably not to be preferred, and for once an arcade game comes out better when you stick to the keyboard.
And if you escape the sewers? Who knows? I never got that far. A succession of poisonous tendrils got the better of me, and the city was blown to pieces.Verdict
Another game that uses the Vic 20 to the full, though you will need either 8K or 16K expansion in order to play it.
For the nimble fingered amongst you, this is an enjoyable and maddeningly addictive game.
