Commodore User


Room Ten
By CRL
Commodore 64/128

 
Published in Commodore User #37

Room Ten

Dear oh dear! After the marvellous Tau Ceti look what's happened to CRL. Room Ten is... well? ... rubbish. Probably one of the most pathetic games I have seen for this price in the last six months.

Ironic perhaps that the designer should be none other than Pete Cooke of Tau Ceti fame - what a waste of credibility!

What then is Room Ten? Far, far away in a distant galaxy just north of Uckfield, live a group of caring people called the G.L.C. (so that's where they went to!). These were caring people who used to set up sports facilities for the underprivileged. One sport in particular though is what Room Ten is centred around. Glyding. No, not the type where foolhardy people jump off incredible heights clinging to an overgrown kite. Galcorp Leisure Corp (to give them their full title) have devised a safer version which is a bit like low-gravity table-tennis. Glyding is played in a room or rather "cell" of 60 x 80 x 20 metres. The room that it is usually played in is Room Ten in the leisure complex which is where the rather irrelevant title comes from.

Room Ten

Each player controls a bat at each end of the room and the object of the game is to shoot a ball onto your opponent's wall while preventing him from hitting yours with your "bat". The game uses split-screen display, the technique will be familiar to players of Activision's Ballblazer to which some may say Room Ten is similar.

The top half of the screen shows player one's bat in the foreground with your opponent's shown at the back of the screen. The bottom half takes the opposite viewpoint as if there were a camera at each end of the room.

A clever idea although the movement of the ball could hardly be described as smooth as a baby's bottom.

Room Ten

To win a game of Room Ten you must score thirty-five points, five points being awarded for each hit.

Don't expect to do any of your scoring with your joystick as it is incredibly slow and unresponsive.

Basically what all this futuristic drivel about the G.L.C. etc boils down to is an excuse to play a 3D version of the old TV game consoles "Tennis" you know the one played with paddles, a bit like that old favourite Breakout. The only difference being the slight improvement in graphics and sound (notice the slight!).

To try and improve this depressing effort CRL have chucked in a few options none of which make the game any more enjoyable.

Options include the game speed and also "Change colour scheme" which makes no exceptional improvement to the graphics which are to say the least dull. The other option has no great use, unless of course, you happen to be French, German or Dutch. Yes, it's a language change! Auf wiedersehen.

Ferdy Hamilton

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