Crash


Moritz The Striker
By Braunert
Spectrum 48K/128K

 
Published in Crash #3

Moritz The Striker

Mortiz has been on quite a few adventures for a humble dog - on the hunt for some medication, shooting aliens in space, and even visiting the moon - twice. Wow. Now, he's up to something a little bit more down to earth, as he's decided to take on the world of football. If a dog would be good at any sport, surely it would be football, given the amount of 'fouling' he'd normally get up to on the grass. Sorry. Moritz has other things on his mind though - dribble past some dubious-looking giant yellow cars, angry referrs, get the ball (get the ball - good boy!) take out the goalie and then blast it into the goal. What a strike! Who's a clever boy? Moritz is.

Paul Davies

As we've seen from the previous Moritz games, the game's art is high on quality here, benefitting from some lovely drawn screens, and some very cute cartoony graphics. Each room features a host of enemies that Moritz will need to avoid to collect the ball - which is usually waiting in a perilous area - and then use the ball to operate a mechanism or switch to remove the goalkeeper from his net. The first level sees you having to shoot the ball into a flag for example, which removes the 'keeper for you to proceed to shoot the ball into the goal.

Other levels feature light switches and similar devices which need to be activated either to remove the goalie, or remove things such as walls, should the ball need to be retrieved from behind it. When the ball does end up in the goal, it's on to the next level. Moritz can clash with a number of enemies, with each occasion gaining him a yellow card, which are collated at the bottom of the screen. Too many, and it's game over as he's shown the red card.

Moritz The Striker

On the positive side of things, Moritz moves about the place rather nicely and there's a good variation of enemies to try and avoid, along with a few guest appearances from the game's contributors; and the odd football manager too. And who can resist his little celebratory dance when he scores? Not I. On the flip side, the game does suffer a little when it comes to collision detection, offering very little forgiveness should you come a little too close to the enemies. This makes it a little frustrating at times, as even when timing your jumps well, you may still fall foul of an enemy or two.

The game could have also benefitted from some variation in gameplay or level style, as it can get a little repetitive at times. Despite this, it's still a fun, simple game which has its own kind of charm - and who doesn't just love to see a dog playing football?

Chris Wilkins

I must confess, when starting to play this game, I had no idea what to do - it all seemed a little bit illogical and frustrating. Even when figuring out what to do on the early screens, it soon became too hard to progress any further and I gave up. Collision detection is a big problem also!

Comments

Control Keys: Redefinable.
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair.
Graphics: Crisp, bright with a nice cartoon style.
Sound: Nice FX but excels in the music department with great work from Rich Hollis and Pedro Pimenta.
General Rating: A nice fun game, though slightly limited with some unforgiving collision detection.

Paul DaviesChris Wilkins

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