Producer: Triple Six Software
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £6.99
Language: Machine code
Author: J. Jones(!)
Your fate, in this game, seems to have arisen by the unfortunate use of the phrase 'Go to Hell'. You must have cursed someone, a person near and dear to you, with the result that they actually went to Hell. Now you must follow, and rescue them.
The game takes the form of a complex maze. The walls are 'built' from such strange graphics that one can get lost following the same wall from screen to screen. To rescue the person you cursed you must scour the maze looking for seven crosses; only a complete collection allows you to escape. The search for the crosses is hazardous, riot least because contact with the walls and all stationary objects rapidly drains the life force from you, and once drained you will have to re-start from the beginning.
Your energy will also be depleted when you are hit by one of the wide variety of gruesome objects being hurled at you by an even larger collection of gruesome creatures anything from large hairy spiders to mad headless monks. Your only defence against these creatures is a well aimed mini-cross, and a direct hit will replenish your energy a touch. In this nightmare world you will be distracted by the horrible events taking place around you; heads being crushed, victims on the racks, heads being sawn through and masses of other equally revolting scenes.
COMMENTS
Control keys: Q/A up/down, O/P left/right, M to fire
Joystick: cursor, Interface II and Kempston
Keyboard play: fine
Use of colour: varied, lots of attribute problems
Graphics: novel, fairly well drawn
Sound: lots of chewing and sniffing sounds
Skill levels: one.
Lives: three
Screens: over fifty
I managed to steal a glance at the press release that came with this game and read that we would find it hard to do this game justice. That may be so but when all is said and done it is a maze game: a fairly well drawn maze game; a complex maze game and a maze game that often requires a high degree of control skill. It is still only a maze game, and one that is full of revolting, crude and downright vile images. Now I am going to give Triple Six (whoever) the benefit of the doubt and assume that my reaction was exactly as they had hoped for... let' s see if they are right and maybe they can sell lots of games to punters who only want to buy it because it's so horrid. But - to do the game justice - if you really want a maze game that's full of lots of silly, nasty pictures then buy this one.
After looking at the subtle cover I was expecting a game that would reflect the same. Wrong. With lots of nasties and all sorts of things that one might expect to go on in Hell. Go to Hell's graphics are above average except that the main man is pretty poorly animated. This is a playable game but not at all addictive.
This is certainly a very unusual game, full of very strange graphics. Movement round the maze is very hard, not because of the other things throwing objects at you - it's the nearness of the maze walls that make for the difficulty. Frequently there is exactly enough room to fit your character through, one slip and you're as good as dead. All in all it's an annoying game to play.
Ross: Now you've got to be getting desperate to come up with a new angle like this. All the bumph on the game pushes the gruesome content and ghoulish goings-ons very hard (Is this what's meant by things that go bumph in the night? Ed.). When it comes down to it, though, you won't need to perform any diabolical deeds. This is really just another maze game, spiced up with a backdrop of ghostly (and ghastly) graphics.
Through fifty screens, your task is to find a friend and free him from eternal damnation. (Sounds like a sort of nonstop sesh on JSW! Ed). You must guide your little man through narrow passage ways, avoiding the deadly walls and the floating fiends that'll pass through anything. In true Hammer horror style, your only defence is your crucifix - use it when you get very cross!
The hope is that you'll presumably gasp at the gory graphics as you go on your rounds. You'll see people being sawn up, stretched on racks and having their heads crushed. The game may not keep you awake for long but I can't see anyone having nightmares over it. 2/5 MISS
Rick: Ugh, the horror of it all - and I don't mean the graphics but the game. Clamp on the thumb screws, stretch me on a rack but don't force me to play this again. 1/5 MISS
Roger: An erratic and ill-defined experience of pure purgatory, vicar... but still more fun than the other place! 3/5 MISS
Publisher: 666
Price: £6.99
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Sinclair, Kempston, Cursor
Bad taste carried to extremes is the concept of the first release from Triple Six, an ominous name if ever there was one.
Hell is a 50 screen maze, garish and full of cute little animated scenes of torture. Heads explode in gouts of red as spikes crush them. Bodies are stretched on racks, decaying faces are sawn into pieces.
The walls are composed of the bodies of the damned, or fiery pits, and the whole vile picture is set against a background of sound which can best be described as a sinister squelching, like somebody walking in squeaky shoes over pieces of raw liver.
The game is difficult and addictive, but there are no great ideas and programming involved. Spiders pursue you with webs, and other nasties hurl missiles at you.
The quest involves finding seven giant crucifixes culminating in a friendly chat with Beelzebub. For all their horror, the graphics are very much based on the UDG format, with a certain amount of flicker.
Buy it for the sicko humour rather than the game, and you'll not be disappointed.
MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Triple Six
PRICE: £6.95
The blurb for this game says it's unbelievably difficult. Well, that's true. It also says the game "will tax almost every reflex you ever imagined you had". It only taxed my patience.
The basic idea is to save your best friend from Hell by collecting the power from seven crosses and confronting the Devil in his lair. You have to explore 50 "hellish" screens complete with some tacky graphics of heads being sawn in two by giant saws, damned souls being stretched on racks and other pretty juvenile "horrifying visions" of that nature.
The graphics are crude and the sound even worse. I found it difficult to play and ended up wondering why I was bothering.
The best thing about this game - apart from the packaging - is the animated intro screen showing an evil looking monk who blinks at you.
If Go to Hell is an attempt at producing a "controversial" game that your mother wouldn't like, then it fails. Even bad taste software has to have style At least you know where to send it!
PRICE: £6.99
It was a bad move to tell your best friend to Go To Hell. Now you will have to got to hell to save him.
Another variation of the maze game, with much in common with Metabolis, also reviewed this month. Your aim is to collect six crucifixes hidden in hell and then to collect the seventh and final cross from Beelzebub's lair.
Graphics are excellent, the outlines of the maze are made up of tortured souls. Larger graphics dotting the maze show heads eternally shattered by spikes, helpless bodies writhing on the rack, and many other gruesome forms of punishment.
Other graphics are variable in quality, from the wonderful animated head of Beelzebub to some rather more blocky villains. Still, the game is original and fun. Keep an eye open for Triple 666 in future.
Produced for the 48K Spectrum by Triple 666, PO Box 190, Maidenhead, SL6 1YX.
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