Firebird/Core Software
£9.99/£14.99
Rick Dangerous is a similar sort of guy to Indiana Jones. You know the type - designer stubble, funny hat and all the girls swarming around him (and no, Skip, not like you). Surprisingly Rick's adventures began as his plane crashed over the Amazon jungle while he was looking for the lost Goolu tribe.
He found them too. Unfortunately they were wild, and armed with only a gun, some dynamite and a stick, he dived into the unknown depths at a cavernous temple (the plot thickens!).
This is where his troubles begin. The Goolus are not a friendly lot and to collect the treasure hidden about the temple Rick has to pop a few of them with his trusty pistol. But a tribe of crazy people aren't enough to stop this hero.
Escaping from the temple, Rick returns to London, and is soon off again, this time for the pyramids of Egypt to recover the priceless jewel of Ankhel.
These are just two of the four levels of this brilliant little game. Each one is full of enemies and traps of various kinds, from blowdarts and mummies to flames and guard dogs. Rick Dangerous is just like stepping into a cartoon. All the characters you come across are comical, cute and lots of other words beginning with C.
The sound suits the graphics with squeaks and blips when Rick uses different things. Each screen (there are 85) is as colourful and lull of puzzles as the last, and your first few goes won't see you going very far. Perhaps, once you've worked out how to do things, the levels will lose some of their appeal however. Rick Dangerous is an essential purchase for any arcade platforms and ladders freak (like me). Go out and buy this one NOW!
NICK
I'm not a great fan of platform games, but then there's always exceptions! Okay, the graphics are small, and the animation could have come from the days of Manic Miner, but who cares? It's colourful, challenging and playable. All the elements of a good game are here: in fact, there's only one problem with it - Nick can play it better than I can! Very enjoyable, maybe a touch pricey, but still well worth a shot (or a jump or a poke).
MIKE
Kixx
£3.99 cassette
Ever wanted to be Indiana Jones? All those courageous missions in mystical lands, dealing with priceless treasures thought only to exist in legend. No? (Got it in one -Prod Ed.) Well what about all those tasty women he gets his hands on? Yes, I thought so (sexist pig - Ed)...
Coincidentally, Rick Dangerous, star of this Kixx corker, fits the Indy mold exactly and you can slip into his shoes for a taste of the action. Taking time on from his devotion to stamp collecting (well, nobody's perfect), he cruises above the Amazon jungle in his trendy go-fast plane then realises he's forgotten to fill up at the fuel station. What a plonker!
Forced to crash land, he finds himself in a vast and hostile land, armed with only a handful of weapons (don't you just hate it when that happens? - Ed). It's the kingdom of the Goolu, the vicious guardians of an ancient Aztec tomb crawling with foes and booby traps. But there's treasure in that there tomb, which Rick's got to get his greedy hands on.
You guide the unfortunate bloke through this multi-screened platform affair using just a gun, a trusty stick and some dynamite. Not a lot, considering the vicious traps awaiting you.
There's the good old rolling boulder for starters, poisoned darts, walls of flame and oodles of Goolus, who ain't too happy about you half-inching their nest egg from the temple.
It's a big old game - 85 screens, each with some new problem to baffle your brain cells. The traps are well thought out, requiring quick thinking to conquer, often involving ingenious use of your weapons.
Rick Dangerous is great fun to play, if a little on the tricky side, with a rainbow of colours and atmospheric bleeps to get you into the swing of things. With a cheapo price tag, those who fancy a bit of dangerous living could be in for more than they bargained for!
All information in this page is provided by ZXSR instead of ZXDB