Marcus This is one of the most
blatant rip-offs of a game I've
ever seen, but in this case
Mastertronic has used a good
model - the gut-wrenching
brilliance of Jon Ritman and
Bernie Drummond's
Head Over
Heels. I can't say I'm too
displeased - I was getting a little
bored of the cheapie labels
ripping off
Fairlight and
Sweevo's World (their usual
models for this sort of 3D
isometric game), when they
could be duplicating the one that
has really set the standards. So
here we are with
Head Over
Rentakill Rita, or whatever it's
called.
And really it's terribly good.
The programmers (uncredited)
have half-inched loads of Jon
and Bernie's routines and turned
them into a spanking good
game. You are the
aforementioned Rita (another
female hero - times are a
changin', and for the better), and
it's your job to rid your
employer's manor house of
some irritating bugs which
wander around several rooms.
The only way you can do this is
by crushing them under huge
weights, and this you control by
jumping onto switches which are
always in the most out-of-the-way parts of the screen. It's
puzzle-solving time in fact, and
although there's more stress on
pixel-perfection than in the
original, some of the teasers are
quite ingenious.
Otherwise it's all the usual
nasty-avoiding and map-making
stuff and although I've only got
part of the way into the game,
there's enough to keep you
occupied for more than the odd
evening.
And as Jon Ritman has no
plans as yet to follow up his
masterpiece, this may be all that
we addicts can get. Unless our
Game Of The Year award has
some influence...
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