Saracan Review For Cpc, C64 And Spectrum


Grebn

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Saracen was written for the 8 bit systems in 1987 by Ilan Ginberg for Datasoft (a subsidiary of US Gold). It was an unusual but fairly familiar sort of outing, combining aspects of Gauntlet, Boulderdash and general 'maze mania' type games. It was also one of few games that had its storyline rooted in religion! As a Christian Crusader, it is your job to travel to the holy lands to root out and kill the infidel Saracen chief.

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AMSTRAD CPC SCREENSHOT - I wonder if all the Crusaders were armless skinheads with black nipples?

However, on arrival, your young man must have discovered there to be 40 such heathens, because there's one for each of the 40 mazes you have to fight and puzzle your way through.

The game is viewed from a quasi-topdown perspective, similar to other games of this genre. Your man moves (fairly jerkily, it has to be said) around the gloomy dungeons looking for the Saracen to kill. Standing in your way are numerous guards, curiously looking like flashing jacks. They kill you on contact, even if you're only standing next to them. Fortunately they can be killed by arrows that litter the dungeon floors, but use them wisely - each one can only be fired once, and only in the direction it faces in. You can also only carry one at a time, so watch out for an en masse jack attack.

You'll also find clusters of stationary red bombs, which also kill on contact. However, put an arrow in them and you'll get some pretty impressive chain reactions. This can be useful for killing a lot of guards at once.

So that's the body count sorted - the puzzle aspect of the game is ably handled by locked doors, keys (which must be placed in the locks near the doors in order to open them), 'wall-makers' (shoot them and they'll form a barricade), one-way passages (indicated by red arrows) and some infuriating mazes.

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COMMODORE 64 SCREENSHOT

If you make it, you'll eventually find the Saracen chief, sitting around with nay a care in the world. So long as you managed to find the grenade (which is usually harder than finding the chief you're supposed to kill with it), you can pop off an arrow and claim your quarry. Then do it all again on the next level.

And that is the basic premise behind Saracen. So how does it play?

Well, out of the three, I'd recommend the Commodore 64 version as being the best. It's smoother (with continual scrolling rather than a 'scrolling' flip screen) and the graphics, while still pretty bleak, are superior to the other versions. The Spectrum version looks like a type-in game.

Across the formats, Saracen is a very compelling and strangely addictive game, but also a curiously depressing experience. The music certainly doesn't help, which rattles off in the background ad infinitum (courtesy of Ilan Ginsberg - cheers for that) - it's a well-written enough tune, but by God is it a dismal maudlin dirge. On the Amstrad version, add that to a painfully jerky scrolling screen and you've got a game that hurts your eyes, offends your ears and makes you feel miserable generally. Fantastic.

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ZX SPECTRUM SCREENSHOT

However, despite the potential need for a Prozak supplement, I still maintain that Saracen is well worth a slice of anyone's time. It runs well across the emulators, being joystick operable, and with only one fire/action button (pick up/use what item you're carrying), is made for a GP32. However, it is possible to ruin your chances of being able to finish a level (as in Boulderdash), in which case you'll need to press ESCAPE / BREAK /Q to forfeit a life and try again.

Conclusion - spastic graphics, wrist-slitting music, depressing generally, yet inexplicably addictive. The 8 bit equivalent of Mogadon.

To finish off, here's a review of the Spectrum version from Crash - if there's anything that those rejection letters from Mastertronic and Amsoft saved me from, it was having a reviewer describe my labours as "hideous and uninteresting". Bym and Dave - you don't know what's hot.

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The coolest thing about the Amstrad CPC version of this, was that the screenshots on the back of the box were from a different game!
 
Hi all!

No Moz I didn't write this game - if I had have done, it wouldn't have looked half as good.

Gleng - I think I remember that! Talk about having a guilty conscience eh?

Turrican clone????
 
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