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There have been some rather weird signals emitting from
the moon lately so you, Charlemagne 'Charlie' Fotheringham-Grunes,
have the task to pop up there and see just what is going
on...
The
game begins with you trudging about the surface of the
moon, complete with spinning Earth low on the horizon,
mountains, rocks and craters.
Don't
fall into a crater as soon as you start, you have to
find a friendly mole who will help you on your quest.
A mole on the moon, you cry. Well, yes (it must be all
the cheese) and you have to capture the little devil
as he pops up from behind a rock. Capturing him (he
must be a him 'cos he's got braces) isn't too hard,
just jump over him and he's all yours. These moles are
good little creatures and can help you in the game by
burrowing through certain walls to allow access to other
caverns.
When
you have your mole, you and he can leap into a crater
and fall into the cavern below, which has ledges, monsters
and (sometimes) floors. Most of the monsters are a right
pain and continually try to crash into you. When they
do they'll sap some of your life energy; if it diminishes
to a certain point our hero has to sit down to recuperate.
If it gets to a critical point then he'll lose one of
his three lives (although there are extra ones which
you can pick up).
You
can use ol' moley-babes to help you out in these situations;
pressing up on the joystick will bring him into action.
Charlie will stick where he is and you'll be able to
move the mole about the screen. By simply crashing him
into most monsters you will find that they'll explode,
although some of the animals are immune to moley's death
grip.
These
monsters will pester you the whole time you're on your
quest to find the Monolith, the objective of the game.
To get it you have to collect the eight keys, or alchiems
as they're known. These are littered around the 256
screens, so quite a bit of exploration is necessary.
The alchiems are made of crystal and have to be picked
up by walking over them; once picked up they're yours,
well, until you meet the red spaceman ghost. This unsavoury
character who pops up from time to time will swipe one
of your alchiems if he touches you, so you'll have to
avoid him at all costs.
The
task of exploring the whole system is not a simple one,
and a little cartography would not go amiss. The whole
underground network comprises of many separate caverns.
Access to most is only possible if you use your borrowing
chum; just get him out of your pocket and put him against
a wall. If the wall is diggable then he'll burrow his
way through in next to no time, digging a big enough
space to allow you to squeeze through to the next screen.
Throughout the caverns there are many weird things which
either help you or help ruin your game. Whirlwinds for
instance, if touched, transport you to another cavern
in a different part of the game. There are also the
added hazards of huge, deep shafts, down which you can
plummet and lose a life . . . mind you, there is one
massive shaft you may tumble down, arms flailing, that
has a powerful updraught allowing you to land softly.
There
are things called gravity sticks which you can use to
help you along. These, when planted in the ground, cause
a gravity field to be transmitted, which results in
the destruction of all monsters in the immediate vicinity
-- handy, especially when your life energy is at its
lowest ebb.
There's
also a novel aspect to Nodes. As with the current
vogue for music specialist remixes, Odin have done a
'disco' remix of this game, so on the other side of
the tape, should you be bored with sedate moon gravity,
you can play the super fast 'bop' version -- it's quite
different in 'feel'.
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