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ROLAND'S
RAT RACE
Ocean,
£7.95 cass, joystick only
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O Enjoyable, but easy
collection game |
The
lovable (?!) little furry rodent from TV-AM finally
hits the computer games scene in this simple arcade
adventure.
The
scenario: Roland is late for work and his decrepit car
won't start. So, being a city rat, he decides to go
below ground and make his way through the maze of drains
and tunnels to get there. To make things even worse,
his two friends (Kevin the gerbil and Errol the hamster)
have been caught by the nasties who've sworn to stop
Roland from getting to the studio.
If
Roland wants to free his chums and get to work on time,
he must get past the blocked tunnel exit. To do this,
he has to collect the nine pieces of door and take them
to the exit. These pieces are randomly placed around
32 screens of pipes, drains, and tunnels (see panel).
Also
frequenting the drains are pairs of wellington boots
and a train. The wellingtons appear on all screens (except
for the connecting pipes) and must be avoided or stopped
momentarily by Roland's instant glue gun (activated
by a quick press of the fire button).
This
gun is also used to stop the train which runs along
the bottom level. A quick spurt on the track when the
whistle blows will stop the train. Climb aboard and
Roland can travel the length of the lower level with
speed and comfort. Should Ronald miss the train, though
either lack of glue or bad timing, then a large quantity
of energy will be lost as it runs him down.
Roland's
on the railway line in the depths of the
sewer with a piece of door just in front of him. He'd
better watch out for the train or his energy will go
tumbling down.
Roland's
energy is shown as a bar at the top of the screen and
is continually diminishing due to his worry for his
pals. Energy can be replenished, though, by eating one
of the various goodies lying around (delicious blue,
glowing hamburgers and apples. Blue!? Well, he is a
rat.) The wellingtons too, deplete Roland's energy if
run into.
Should
Roland run out of glue (shown as a bar at the bottom
of the screen), then he must find one or two spare packs
lying around to replenish his supply. If he's not too
careful where he squirts his glue then he'll get stuck
in it for a while.
If
Ronald collects all nine pieces of the door and the
key to free his buddies, then he moves on to the final
screen -- the disappointing inner sanctum! This is a
very poor finale, consisting of a single platform across
the length of the screen. Roland has to run across this
platform, avoiding two measly worms and electrically
charged areas (both of which kill on contact but don't
seem to if you quickly run across), to get to the other
side to free his friends.
On
doing this, the TV-AM theme tune is played and all three
chums are transported to the surface on a lift. The
game is restarted with no noticeable differences.
Both
graphics and sound are very good. Roland and co. are
all small but well-defined outlined sprites, and animation
and colours are good throughout.
A
boppy little number plays through the game, but can
become annoying after a while. Other tunes and sound
effects are great, especially the BLEUGH!! noise made
on squirting a glob of glue, and the boogie beat played
while entering your name in the high score table.
GP
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