Underwurlde was the second of three Sabreman
games released by Ultimate Play The Game during 1984 and the only one I have not played
before. It is the follow up to Sabre Wulf and was released at the same
time as Knight Lore. After escaping the jungle, the unlucky
Sabreman has been trapped in the ‘Underwurlde’ and must make his way through a
castle and caverns to one of three exits (one for each of the planned
sequels). To reach the exits you have to
defeat three guardians, requiring you to collect a particular weapon to pass
each one. Underwurlde boasts nearly 600 screens of side on, flip screen
platforming set in the castle and the caverns beneath.
This time out Sabreman can athletically leap about the
play area and cannot be killed by touching the enemy creatures. He can however lose a life by falling too far into
one of the deep caverns. When the
enemies touch Sabreman he is bounced around the screen. Due to the abundance of enemies and the
narrowness of the platforms and ledges this can make the game frustrating as it
is all too easy to die. You are armed but can only shoot left or right and the
enemies come at you from all around. Aside from using platforms you can descend
into the caverns by using ropes and ascend by standing on bubbles that
rise from the floor. Again, it is all
too easy be touched by a creature and sent plummeting into the cavern floor. Another annoying feature is that you jump
automatically when reaching the edge of a platform; this and the touch of the
enemy creatures give the game a slightly ‘out of control’ feel.
The graphics are up to the usual Ultimate standards with colourful,
smooth and fast moving sprites. The sound effects are also decent enough for
the Spectrum. Underwurlde is both fun and infuriating at the same time. I was in two minds about whether to include
the game on the list due to the annoyances, but the quality of the game (just)
won me over in the end.
Using a rope is the safest way to descend into the caverns.
Eagles can pick you up and try to drop you from a great height.
Tank Commander from 1984 is the fifth and final game on my list for
the Commodore VIC-20. I can’t quite
remember why I bought it as I had a Spectrum by this time. I think I got it because the description reminded me of a board game I had called Tank Battle. Again, there
were vastly superior games around at this point for other computers but this is one
of the better VIC titles.
The board game Tank Battle - well, it has a fuel dump, command centre, tanks and mines
Tank Commander is played
out over a large semi-randomly generated play area. The scrolling terrain consists of various
elements such as mountains, rivers, trees and a road. In the game you control a
tank and have to travel into enemy territory to destroy an oil depot, an (I think) communications station and a command
bunker before moving to the next level. The command bunker can only be destroyed from below.
Out to stop you are
enemy tanks, mines and the occasional aircraft. Enemy tanks are either black or white. The black tanks will hunt you down while the
white tanks are static and are normally placed next to bridges. Mines are scattered around and are easy to
avoid as are the bombs dropped by the aircraft.
Once past the tanks, the enemy installations are easily destroyed.
The graphics are
pretty good for the VIC and the sound consists a constantly rumbling engine
noise and some simple spot effects. As I said
this is neither the best game for the time nor indeed for the VIC-20 but I have
a soft spot for it so it gets on the list.
TLL or Tornado Low
Level to give the full title is an arcade game for the Sinclair Spectrum released in 1984. In the game you control a Tornado bomber and
have to destroy targets laid out over a scrolling wraparound play area. There are five targets which are shown on a
map at the start of each mission. You
‘hit’ targets be flying over them at (surprise, surprise) low level – you don’t
need to press any key to hit the targets it is done automatically.
The landscape is
displayed in a skewed top down view which gives a 3D effect. As I said the play area is wraparound which
makes it seem larger than it actually is.
This makes the targets easy to find on your radar, and some which appear
far away on the map can actually be quite close. As you have to fly at low level the difficulty
comes with avoiding structures such as buildings, electricity pylons and bridges,
though you can fly under the bridges and cables. A neat touch is the shadow of the plane
which helps gauge your altitude.
There is no doubt
that TLL is a hard game. The plane flies at two speeds – fast with the
wings swept forward and faster with them swept back. This makes hitting the small targets
challenging and requiring several passes.
Later in the game the awkward position of the targets in difficult terrain
doesn’t help. The time limit and finite amount of fuel just add to the pressure, although you can land to refuel.
It’s still a very
good game though, with a graphical style that surprisingly was only used
once again in the follow up, Cyclone. The scrolling is fast and smooth for the
time, though the sound is limited. The
game is colourful too with the dreaded Spectrum attribute clash being well contained. Although TLL
is a difficult game it is still addictive and takes a while to get frustrating.
The round object is one of your targets.
The mission map can be viewed when the aircraft is on the ground.
