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Mastertronic, £1.99 cass

After Mastertronic's proliferation of cheap software for other micros they've now foccused attention on the Amstrad to release Nonterraqueous. The tongue-straining title is merely a description of the droid you control, it means not of air and not water.
The scenario features an evil computer enjoying a reign of terror over a whole planet's population. Regarding people as trivial, the computer uses them, to quote the inlay, 'as pawns in a universal chess game'. The citizens, understand-ably a bit miffed, decide to take some action. After months of carefully planned pilfering from an assembly line in an android factory, the humans have man-aged to amass enough spare parts to make up a droid named Seeker. The plan is to use Seeker to destroy the computer as an inside job.
The computer is megalithically large and housed within a mountain. The computer complex sprawls over 42 levels split into three sections, the cave, machinery and semi-machinery levels. Each floor has a multi-tude of rooms and the total loc-ation count tots just over 1000!
The game takes an arcade adventure format requiring cer-tain objects to be collected before major steps toward your final objective can be taken. An example is the route you need to pass through the gasroom. The only way to do it is in style - fly.
and for that you need the rocket but the rocket needs fuel that you have to collect - and so on. Useful objects lying around are bombs handy for destroying force fields
The droid is controllable in two different modes: sphere and defencless. When starting you're in defencless mode and, as the name suggests, you have no way of repelling attackers but you have the extra advantage of speed. In sphere mode you are supplied with a laser cannon giving a good impression of the streams of laser used in 'Defen-der'. To change modes you need to find a room with a terminal in it labelled 'Swap'. Hitting the pick up key toggles the mode change.
Positioned around the base are the computer's defenders that spew white noise at you. These sap your psyche, if it reaches 0 then you'll lose a life. Also milling around are fish like creatures that merely get in your way and hinder progress. Some rooms contain photon thrusters pulsing energy in vertical stre-ams across the width of the room. Flying into one of these means certain death.
The screens flick to and fro in the normal arcade adventure format using graphically similar screens to save on memory. Control is via joystick or keys though if you pick joystick you'll still be forced to make the odd key depression.

Control keys:
Q/A up/down;
O/ P left/right;
Spc to fire;
I pick up/psyche/swap;
U drop bomb

CRITICISM

Nonterraqueous shows amazing scope and complexity for budget soft-ware. In fact it's all a bit awesome at first and makes getting started a trifle hard. The graphics are above average and the combination of graphic elements to make 1000 screens is very clever as they aren't as repetitive as one would expect. The movement is slightly crude and not altogether flicker free, however. Things tend to slow down a bit if you unleash a spray of laserfire or if there are more than a few sprites in the room. Once you get into things the gameplay elements really are quite reasonable presenting respectably hard yet logical pro-blems. Overall a lot more than I'd expect to receive for just under two quid and this puts the majority of Amsoft's £8.95 range to shame.
They have finally brought the unpronounceable budget game to the Amstrad. This is one of those games you don't know whether to like or not. It has great gra-phics and very good sound with a continuous tune, but there's just something about the game itself that is a tittle bit monotonous. I think it would help if your man moved around the screen with a little more zip. I can't really see the point of having two different Seekers when they can both do the same things (other than fire) and go into the same places. Generally, I wouldn't buy this game, but for £1.99 how can you fail?
If you like absolutely immense, mega arcade adventures then this is really the one for you. There are plenty of puzzles to solve and lots to map (but only if you're a cartographer with huge paper resources)! The only trouble with this type of game is that because of its size it may be-come frustrating, since the re-wards of solving puzzles are rather few and far between. The graphics aren't too bad but I'm glad that there's a volume switch at the back of the com-puter — the sound is abysmal. At £1.99 it's excellent value for money, but even at its incredibly low price I'd recommend a look before purchase, it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

Presentation 71%
Standard packaging, good cover, not many frills or options.

Graphics 82%
Excellent, imaginative appearance, though repetition of elements may pall.

Playability 76%
Easy to start, but a bit daunting at first.

Sound 48%
Continuous tune, generally a bit tacky.

Addictive qualities 78%
1000 rooms should keep you busy, but the rewards are stre-tched over the game.

Value for money 90%
A snip at two quid.

Overall 81%
A game that, at its price, puts many to shame