Screenshot of Ramparts

Ramparts

(Go!, 1987)

Reviewed by Chris Lennard

A rehash of the more popular classic Rampage which was released at about the same time as this game; you aren’t faced with the choice of mutant monsters, but in its place the duller one of ugly looking medieval knights. Set in the Middle Ages, you must proceed to destroy stone castles of various shapes, colours and sizes by climbing up their towers and using your knight in shining armour to knock them down with his fists. Naturally, the castle’s inhabitants don’t take kindly to your demolition derby and sap your energy by attacking you. Food bonuses boost your health, while rescuing various damsels in distress boosts your score. A second player can also join in on the action. An unoriginal game that pales in comparison with its more illustrious counterpart.

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Screenshot of Ramsbottom Smith and the Quest for the Yellow Spheroid
Screenshot taken from Mode 1 version of game

Ramsbottom Smith is preparing to travel to the jungles of Northern Borneo in a quest to find the mythical Yellow Spheroid. This text adventure begins in Smith’s bedroom. His flight is due to leave soon, and his companion Wee Yin keeps telling him to hurry up. The pressure is on to find all the things that the duo will need in their mission, but those of us who leave packing their luggage for their holidays to the last minute know that it’s all too easy to forget something... Once you leave your bedroom, the rest of the story is narrated piece by piece without any interaction from you, and only then will it be revealed if you have forgotten to bring an essential item with you. It’s an interesting variation on the single-location adventure, and it is important that you search and examine objects as much as possible – and it’s best to double-check!

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Screenshot of Ranarama

Ranarama

(Hewson, 1987)

Mervyn was messing about with some spells and has turned himself into a frog, and now he has to conquer eight dungeons, each containing eight levels. He can cast spells, but to do this (and to survive) he has to tackle the warlocks and necromancers wandering the dungeons and grab some runes off them. This involves rearranging some letters within a tight time limit so that they spell ‘Ranarama’. There are also hordes of other monsters waiting for Mervyn! This game involves a lot of exploration, and there is that something that makes it really fascinating for me. It’s a bit difficult to get the hang of at first, but as you keep playing it and explore more of the dungeons, you’ll soon love it. In fact, it’s one of my favourite games for the CPC.

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Screenshot of Rasputin

Rasputin

(Firebird, 1986)

The Spirit of Rasputin must be destroyed! His power comes from the Jewel of the Seven Planets, but to reach the jewel, you must neutralise eight spells that are cast in Rasputin’s name. You must enter each of the dimensional labyrinths, collect all the spell boxes in it, and destroy the creature that appears. The spells that need to be neutralised take the form of stones inscribed with runes, but they are heavily guarded, and the only way to obtain them is to use the Eyes of Heaven spell which matches the colour of the room it is in. The story is not quite as confusing as it sounds, but it is a frustrating game to play. The graphics are viewed in pseudo-3D, and it’s tricky to make sense of the layout of the room, and the controls are awkward as well. All of the CPC magazines rated this game highly when it was originally released, but I can’t see why.

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Screenshot of Rastan

Rastan

(Imagine, 1988)

Reviewed by Chris Lennard

Horrible monsters courtesy of evil King Karg have overrun the fair kingdom of Maranna and only its buffed up sword-wielding ruler Rastan can clean it up in this hack-’n’-slash platformer arcade conversion (rip-off of a certain Robert E. Howard character called Conan the Barbarian). Sporting only a loincloth and a large sword (oo-er!) you guide him through six levels of barren and perilous landscapes on his way to the castle dispensing justice on any passing fiend whilst avoiding the lava pits, fatal precipices, and exploring underground caves. Power-ups strengthen our hero and a range of more destructive sharp weapons can be acquired and utilised. Good looking solid action with lots of guts and gore and nice sound effects.

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Screenshot of Raster Runner

Raster Runner

(Mastertronic, 1990)

This is a Tron clone, and it’s fast. You can play with either another person or the computer, which has three skill levels. The winner is the first player to win nine rounds. You should be aware that you can press the fire button to tunnel through the trails left by both players up to three times during each round, and you’ll need to know this to beat the computer even on the easy skill level. The graphics are nothing special, although the music is quite good, and I love that warping sound that you hear throughout the game. It’ll take some quick reflexes and a lot of practice to beat the computer, but there’s really not much of a game in there.

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Screenshot of Rasterscan

Rasterscan

(Mastertronic, 1987)

A spaceship is stranded somewhere in the galaxy and is in danger, and as a spherical droid, you’ve got to repair it – and your previous role was to repair toasters. You’ll also have to open doors to get to certain areas of the ship by solving puzzles first; there are eight blocks arranged in an octagon, and you have to swap the colours about until all of them are yellow. It’s nowhere near as easy as it sounds, and once you’ve started the puzzle, you can’t exit from it until you’ve completed it successfully. The digitised graphics may be impressive, and the music may be absolutely brilliant, but most of the puzzles give Rubik’s cube a run for its money.

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Screenshot of Rat Connection

Rat Connection

(MBC, 1988)

  • Knowledge of French is required in order to play this game properly.

Waking up after a particularly wild night, you remember that your secretary has gone missing, and you must find her – but not before you find your clothes and get dressed to face the sleazy streets and citizens of Rat City. This is a text adventure game created with The Quill, and frankly, it’s very disappointing indeed. The text is extremely brief, and hardly any of the objects that you will need to search more closely are even mentioned – so you need to look at the pictures or guess the names of the objects. As an example, to find your clothes, you must search your bath; however, neither the text nor the picture mention a bath. The pictures are fairly well drawn, although everything is very grey and gloomy, but the difficulty level is very frustrating indeed and put me off completely.

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Screenshot of Rath-tha

Rath-tha

(Positive, 1989)

Many aeons into the future, the human race built a long tube that absorbed all of the rubbish that was generated by the planets in the system. However, one planet, T’ufo, is notorious for its dirtiness, and has sent a ship called Rath-tha to destroy the tube. You have to guide a spaceship along the tube, take it into outer space, and ultimately reach Rath-tha and blast it to smithereens. This is an average vertically scrolling shoot-’em-up. It’s a blatant Spectrum port, so the graphics lack colour, and the scrolling is slow as well. Despite this, it’s not that bad, and it’s not as difficult as some shoot-’em-ups I could name; I managed to reach the third stage out of four after a few attempts. The music on the menu is terrible, though!

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Screenshot of RBI Two Baseball

RBI Two Baseball

(Domark, 1991)

Reviewed by Robert Small

The RBI series has always been a popular choice for baseball fans. The good news is the accessible and arcade nature of RBI is intact on the CPC. There’s a nice loading screen and some good music to welcome you to the game. There are a wealth of teams to select and a fun two-player mode is available. The game controls well for batting, pitching and fielding, but batting and pitching is what the game does best. Graphically it’s a bit on the small side but it uses nice, colourful Mode 0. Don’t let a lack of baseball knowledge put you off; you can enjoy this regardless.

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