| ★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ GAMESLIST ★ TALES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS (c) INTERCEPTOR SOFTWARE ★ |
Amstrad Action | Micro Hobby |
The romantic hero is not yet dead - like Valentino on his white stallion you have to go to the rescue of a fair damsel in distress. The only problem is she's your sister and there's a high probability you'll get killed trying. The game combines platform screens with scrolling sections where you have to avoid things. There are eight stages in the game as you play Imrahil trying to get to the battlements of the Sultan's palace where Anitra, your sister, is being held captive. The first stage is set aboard Sinbad's ship in the Red Sea and Imrahil has to collect seven golden jugs in the correct order. The jugs are placed all over the ship and each one has a letter on it. The letters spell out the word ARABIAN and have to be collected in that order. This is far from easy since there are dangers on the screen to try to stop you. A cannon, octopus and plucked turkey (or what looks like one) all lose you a life when touched and send you back to the start of the screen. The other major hazard is falling while leaping around the rigging of the ship because long drops also send you back to the start of the screen. There is only one succesful way to get all the jugs and it may take a while to find.
If you complete this stage you move from the sea to a river. Here you control a raft's movement left or right on the screen as Imrahil sits on it, paddling against the current, From over the background of palms fly large rocks which have to be avoided or they will sink the raft - this is easily done. More of a problem is caused by crocodiles that surface along the river and have to be paddled over while they are submerged or shot with lightning bolts. Having done that it's back to the hard platform action as Imrahil tries to pick up another seven jugs in a cave. Once again they have to spell out the word 'Arabian' and this time there are a group of genies Who move about screen trying to stop you. Like the dangers on screen one the genies follow regular movement patterns which have to be worked out so that they can be avoided. One genie does home in on you though and like the bird on the first screen can cause many problems.
A flying carpet sequence over a desert is the fourth stage and after it follow more platform screens where you collect jugs. All the stages are quite tough and need constant attention and good timing to complete. It proves very frustrating at first but once you know the pattern for a screen you should be able to repeat it. BW, AMSTRAD ACTION #4
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