Hacker Chronicles 2/HACKER2.BIN/2048.ROTOX.REV

Text File | 1991-09-07 | 6KB | 101 lines

 ROTOX

 The genre of arcade-style games is heavily-influenced these days by the
conservative decisions made at the big cartridge system companies -- Sega,
Nintendo, and NEC. For the most part, side-scrolling platform games,
horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-ups, and some pseudo-3D first-person
perspective designs dominate the field. How refreshing, then, to see a top-
down, rotoscoped action game that makes use of solid-fill technology to create
the playing area for each level. ROTOX is an ingenious and original design
which functions as much as a puzzle adventure as it does a spaceships and
robots shoot-'em-up. (This review is based on the Amiga version.)

 After the intro screens throw some large-scale animation and James-Bond style
music at the player, the game begins. A document-based check serves as copy
protection, and once passed, leads to the initiating cyborg drop. Rotox, half-
man, half-machine, has been placed in a series of ten increasingly difficult
mazes to both test and train his abilities. The player controls Rotox from
overhead via joystick.

 Each level consists of nine different but related maze puzzles. Each of the
ten levels has a theme, and the manual includes a complete overview map of all
levels to give the player some sense of what's in store. The "Auto City"
level, for instance, consists of a series of cartoon-like vehicle pictures,
which serve as the two-dimensional platform on top of which the player
negotiates Rotox.

 The platforms Rotox has to deal with are all polygons, perched in space; walk
Rotox off the edge of a platform and he dies (unless he has a special jet-pack
with fuel; then he's in business!). Some polygons move, expanding,
contracting, sliding back and forth, and rotating, and thus require careful
anticipation of the right moment and the right distance to cross.

 The platform designs alone would make for an interesting game. But of course
the main project during play is to wipe out the endless waves of bad guys to
get to the end. Enemy units are all bit-mapped sprites, and offer a touch of
the hat to previous classic arcade games; the opening scene in level one, for
instance, is a scaled-down encounter with Space Invaders. Defender-like snakes
wiggle across the screen, and other recognizable sprites and sprite-patterns
crop up as one progresses through the game. At least on the first few levels,
the Ultimate Bad Guy is usually represented not by a single impossible sprite,
but by massive clusters of enemy sprites which have to be defeated to gain
access to a power-up of one sort or another. Some sprites serve as generators,
issuing attacking creatures until they are destroyed. Certain sprites home in
on the player instead of following a set pattern, which definitely ups the
tension level during play.

 Surrounding the main action screen, instruments, maps and radar provide a
rudimentary simulation-style interface. Charge indicators, weapons readiness,
location of enemy sprites, and a zone completion marker help chart progress
through the game. Rather than the usual number of limited lives, ROTOX
provides an energy bar which depletes with each hit on or loss of a cyborg.
There's enough margin in the energy bar to allow for quite a bit of play
before having to start over, which does much to lower frustration levels.

 Enemy sprites can be eliminated either by walking into them or shooting them
down. Three different kinds of improved weapons are available in the game, as
well as the jet-pack, which allows crossing of the interstices between
platform elements. Once a sector in a level is cleared, the screen flashes
briefly to indicate that it's time to move on. Energy does not deplete with
the passage of time, so the player can stop and plan the next move, based on
what the radar indicates is out there. Getting from sector to sector is
usually tricky; the route to completion is usually indirect. However, the
player can choose to explore areas in any order and direction desired; no
arbitrary obstacles are set up to lock play into The One True Path.

 The Amiga version comes complete with a musical soundtrack and a mass of wild
sound effects. Some sounds are thrown in just for atmosphere, while others
emanate from weapons and enemy sprites. The solid-fill animations move and
rotate smoothly throughout, no matter how intense the action gets. The bit-
mapped graphics, while mostly small, are cleverly designed and grouped, and
intelligently motivated. The game pegs itself at just the right level of
challenge, and there's plenty to dig into once you get going.

 Problems? Well, the game comes on two floppy disks, and while it seems to
recognize an external drive, unless drive DF0: is used to insert both disks,
the game hangs (at least on my older-style A500 with 1MB of RAM and only 512K
of CHIP RAM; the design may require more CHIP RAM and the newer machines to
make use of extra drives). At least floppy-swapping is kept down to an
absolute minimum; most of the actual game resides on one disk; the other
contains the intro and ending animations. The endless waves of explosions,
while fun (ROTOX reminds me of NY WARRIORS in that regard), do seem excessive
after awhile. And the manual is fleshed out with yet another one of those
mini-novellas that have virtually nothing to do with gameplay (this one's at
least readable and amusing, though). Other than that, there's not much to
complain about in the design.

 ROTOX comes on two uncopyable disks, and requires 512k of RAM to play. It
will work on all A1000s, A500s, and A2000s. A single floppy drive and joystick
are all that's needed to run the game. Further copy protection is added on top
of the disk protection in the form of a manual look-up scheme. No hard disk
installation is possible.

 Certainly not at the cutting edge of software design, ROTOX nevertheless
introduces some new concepts in the way it effectively combines elements
usually separated into different genres and styles of gaming. It's eminently
playable as well. Definitely worth a look for those two reasons alone.

 ROTOX is published by U.S. Gold and distributed by Accolade.