Hurrah! At last we've
got the YS SAM up and
running (it took cannibalised
parts from two Coupe's to do
it!) which means we've been able to take a
(belated) look at Enigma's Defenders Of
The Earth, the first, and so far only, arcade
game to take full advantage of the
machine's rather stunning graphical
capabilities.
(To be honest this is hardly a 'first look' - we've
had our copy of SAM
Defenders lying around the
office for ages waiting for a functioning Coupe -
but it's worth a gander nonetheless. After all, most
of us have never properly seen what the Coupe is
really capable of as a games machine).
So what's it like? Well, looks-wise, as you'd
expect, it's excellent. The graphics are
considerably more subtle and less blocky than the
best that the Amstrad CPC (the most colourful of
the 8-bits) is capable of, though (hand on heart) it
isn't really up to current 16-bit standards. It's not
as far off as all that though (try imagining a budget
ST game) and who knows what could be done (or
should that read '
could have been done'?) with the
Coupe in time. It's also fast - a lot faster than
other versions of the game I've played, which
doesn't help matters for a devout Mr Crap like
myself. All versions of
Defenders were tricky, but
this one is ludicrously hard, with many of the
opponents almost impossible to dodge, and the
speed with which the SAM whizzes everything
around the screen is a major reason why. (If you
want to know more about the actual gameplay - a
rather simplistic shoot-'em-up based on a
Saturday morning TV show - check out the
Speccy version review in
YS 54.)
And so, to sum up. There're just two points to
make really. For a start, well done, Enigma, for
both supporting the Coupe and coming up with
such a visually stunning demonstration of what it
can achieve. I still think the actual game itself is a
pretty average one really, but I'm going to bung
the SAM version much higher marks than the
Speccy one got simply because a) there's nothing
to compare it with and b) you bothered getting off
your butts and doing it. If you want a copy and
can't find it in the shops, send a cheque for £11.99
cass/£14.99 disk to Enigma Variations [address snipped - NickH]. (And look
out for other SAM things from them - apparently a
pack of SAM-specific puzzle games is available
now too.)
The other point is a pretty obvious one, but I'm
going to say it anyway. It's a real shame what's
happened to the Coupe, but until I saw this game I
hadn't quite realised how much of a shame. Let's
just hope something can be salvaged, eh?
| Ratings given by other magazines |
| |
7/10
|
|
7/10
| |
|
| Info supplied by the SPOT*ON database |
| YS Cross-references |
| |  | Defenders Of The Earth (SAM)/Enigma Variations | YS41 | NEWS |
| | | Defenders Of The Earth (SAM)/Enigma Variations | YS52 | NEWS |
| | | Defenders Of The Earth (SAM)/Enigma Variations | YS53 | NEWS |
| | | Defenders Of The Earth (SAM)/Enigma Variations | YS56 | NEWS |
| Some info from Sinclair Infoseek+SPOT*ON |
