| ★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ GAMESLIST ★ DARK FUSION (c) GREMLIN GRAPHICS ★ |
| JOYSTICK HEBDO | Amstrad Action | A100% | GEN4 |
Exams, don't you just love them? Hours of sweating over paper just to gain a certificate or entrance to a profession. Well, it may surprise you to know that life is no easier for the shoot-em-up heroes of space. The Guardian Warrior - that universally famous protector, saviour and all round nice guy has exams too. But of course, being a rough tough tumbly type his exams require him to use his skill as a fighter, his cunning as hunter and a rather large gun. The long and the short of it is that to pass you survive {having blasted countless nasties en route), and if you fail it's time to go to that great arcade in the sky. where men are sprites and everything else is just asking for trouble. This rather harsh recruitment tech nique doesn't seem to dampen the enthusiasm of potential Guardian Warriors, who line up by the bucket load to be guided by you on this ultimate test (can you imagine that down here on Earth? One failure at GCSE woodwork and it's a bullet in the brain!).
So revision over, it's time to get down to the examination (extermination?) itself. You find your would be Guardian (angel?) wandering along a two way scrolling landscape. The path is littered with obstacles that must be jumped over, shot etc. and a whole host of bug-eyed creatures who want, to sec you fail and die (not necessarily in that order). The screen is colourful, the sprites scrolling around smoothly and easily. The cadet under your control is not the best warrior sprite ever seen but he does the business (if you know what I mean Hairy). Some of the beasties and things that go bump in the night, however, are highly original, ranging from small bird-like creatures to gigantic headless chickens (it sounds daft but that's what they look like) spitting fire in multiple directions. Obviously facing such terrifying creatures as forty stone oven-ready poultry means you need some help. This is at hand in the form of the fusion pods, dropped by the aliens when they are zapped. These give your weaponry a much needed boost, bullets that fire upwards, a form of shield and extra lift to the jet pack, to name but a few. These supply drops are few and far between, so it's essential to make sure and collect all the available goodies, for who knows when you'll need the power to jump over a obstruction or to shoot at enemies in four different directions at once. The basic premise of Dark Fusion is not what you'd call Innovationsville Arizona (whaaa-?! ed.), but there are surprising and interesting facets that appear just when you feel that the game may be slipping towards mediocrity. For after walking around a bit, blasting a few things, collecting a few fusion pods, what do you know there's this darned great pillar with an arrow on it in the way! Now whilst ordinary people would shy away from taking a peek, big tough Guardian Warriors can't resist it ( 'ello 'ello 'ello wot's all this then?). It's now the game gets interesting, for you are teleported away from the nice safe carnage to an alien sub-world where the enemy are bigger, badder and braver than before. This situation is supposedly evened out, since for this section you are transported to a space ship Fat chance, these aliens are large, mean hombres and with very little room to move, quick accurate firing is a necessity. In all of the zones you are to visit, the screen informs you of your state of health, the weapons in use and the power of the shot you are about to release. Take care, however, when collecting weapons pods: you can only use one at a time with one in reserve. Collect any more and you lose the ones you've so carefully saved. Dark Fusion fails in one key respect: despite the generally slow pace of the game, it is too hard to survive early on. It's not that you're destroyed by too many creatures attacking too fast for your trigger finger to cope with: it's just the awkward nature of zones themselves. Your poor little Grauniad (sorry Guardian,) Warrior is left to the tender mercies of the aliens, all of whom take far too long to dispatch. Indeed many need three or even four high power shots - which again brings the pace of the game down. Dark Fusion is a professional and well executed piece of work, every area of the game well planned and presented. The magic that makes a classic, however, is sadly lacking. All that remains is yet another enjoyable blaster battle that joins the already swollen ranks of good but ultimately forgettable shoot outs in space. TW, AA |
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Page créée en 491 millisecondes et consultée 6567 fois L'Amstrad CPC est une machine 8 bits à base d'un Z80 à 4MHz. Le premier de la gamme fut le CPC 464 en 1984, équipé d'un lecteur de cassettes intégré il se plaçait en concurrent du Commodore C64 beaucoup plus compliqué à utiliser et plus cher. Ce fut un réel succès et sorti cette même années le CPC 664 équipé d'un lecteur de disquettes trois pouces intégré. Sa vie fut de courte durée puisqu'en 1985 il fut remplacé par le CPC 6128 qui était plus compact, plus soigné et surtout qui avait 128Ko de RAM au lieu de 64Ko. |
