Glider Rider

Producer: Quicksilva
Retail Price: £8.95
Author: Binary Design

Joining the 'Silent but Deadly' squadron is not a good idea if you're looking for a quiet life. Any dirty jobs going, and you get it.

This one looks particularly nasty. A bunch of arms dealers called the Abraxas Corporation, with few scruples and 'no questions asked, John', are causing a bit of a problem. So the World Council, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the Abraxas Corporation has got to go, and the lads at the good old SBD squadron are the ones to do it. 'I mean, boys, we'd do it ourselves, but what with the island being made of plastic and therefore invisible to radar, we thought we'd give you the honour.

When our brave chaps get to the island, they discover that some joker from the armoury section has been taking a little practical mickey. Instead of a rather fast jet and a couple of nice thermonuclear jobs, you've ended up with a convertible hang glider and a handful of grenades. Terrific.

Fortunately Abraxas has designed its plastic island with lots of nice hills scattered all over it. So the technique is to zip around the island with the hang glider cunningly disguised as a motor bike. Then scoot down a handy hill, and launch into the air by quickly reversing the direction of movement.

The object of the mission is to bomb everything in sight on the island. Unfortunately, things can only be bombed from the air, and as soon as you take to the ether, the local laser opens up - thus draining energy. Our hero starts his quest with 100 energy points; at zero, he's a goner; and he can become shark food if any careless flying is done over the sea.

The trick is to head-butt a radio mast - this makes the local laser base go a bit loco - then take to the skies quickly before the laser gets itself sorted out and bomb the reactor which tends to be very close to the laser base.

There are ten of these reactors scattered around the island, all of which have to be taken care of in half an hour, otherwise the rescue sub takes off, leaving our hero stranded. Stockpiles of grenades have been left lying around the place to which he can help himself whenever he likes. Well, they are arms manufacturers, so you would expect to be able to put your hands on a bit of ordnance when needed.

The screen display is in the now customary 3D perspective with the action flipping from screen to screen as necessary. The graphics depict the main base complex, including the factory, and the wooded surroundings of the base which contain the reactors you are out to destroy along with plenty of hills to launch the hang glider. On the ground, four direction controls move the motorbike in the corresponding four directions. When in the air, left and right tum the hang glider, and forward and back cause it to climb and dive. On touching the ground the hang glider reverts to its motorbike form.

COMMENTS

Control keys: re-definable
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair or Cursor
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: good
Graphics: excellent
Sound: poor on the 48K, but superb tunes and FX on the 128K
Skill levels: 1
Screens: 100

Good news first. Glider Rider has nicely drawn graphics (and a great tune if you own a 128). After that, I'm afraid, it's a bit of a disappointment. Once the technique of hitting a nearby radio mast, finding a convenient slope and taking off is mastered, the game is rather dull. Whether you can actually take off when you try seems entirely random. It's a nice idea, a lot of trouble has gone into the graphics and the animation of the character is good, but I just can't rate it that highly, because it's practically unplayable.

For those depraved non-128K/Plus 2 owners out there, Glider Rider is a fun sort of game, and worth checking out, as the concept, playability and addictiveness are all very good. When playing the soundless 48K version, I was reasonably happy with it, but it's the sound of the expanded version that really makes it top notch - on the 48K it's merely good.

I'm not overly impressed with this offer from Quicksilva since it isn't half as playable as it could have been. Because the playing area is nice, large and easy to get lost in and the blurb on the inlay sets the scene very well, on your first go it's very easy to get right into the spirit of the game. The graphics are very good - the playing area excellently drawn and so is your character. There's very little flicker and next to no colour clash as well. Unfortunately, sound on the 48K machine is limited only to the odd spot effect - it's brilliant on the 128K version. On the whole I found it very hard to get anywhere in Glider Rider and I suspect it will need a lot more practice to complete it than I have time for.

Since the differences between the 48K and 128K are rather obvious in Glider Rider, we thought we should indicate the ratings separately. The additional sound has most effect on ratings like playability and addictivity. Here's one critical comment for the 128K version:

What can I do, except go 'rave, rave rave' over the indescribably superb music in this game? There is just no competition for this (as I write) in the aural stakes, as far as any Spectrum games go. Mikie, Ping Pong, Knight Tyme, all their tunes are put to shame by the stunning soundtrack and FX of Glider Rider.

Producer: Quicksilva
Retail Price: £8.95
Author: Binary Design

Joining the 'Silent but Deadly' squadron is not a good idea if you're looking for a quiet life. Any dirty jobs going, and you get it.

This one looks particularly nasty. A bunch of arms dealers called the Abraxas Corporation, with few scruples and 'no questions asked, John', are causing a bit of a problem. So the World Council, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the Abraxas Corporation has got to go, and the lads at the good old SBD squadron are the ones to do it. 'I mean, boys, we'd do it ourselves, but what with the island being made of plastic and therefore invisible to radar, we thought we'd give you the honour.

When our brave chaps get to the island, they discover that some joker from the armoury section has been taking a little practical mickey. Instead of a rather fast jet and a couple of nice thermonuclear jobs, you've ended up with a convertible hang glider and a handful of grenades. Terrific.

Fortunately Abraxas has designed its plastic island with lots of nice hills scattered all over it. So the technique is to zip around the island with the hang glider cunningly disguised as a motor bike. Then scoot down a handy hill, and launch into the air by quickly reversing the direction of movement.

The object of the mission is to bomb everything in sight on the island. Unfortunately, things can only be bombed from the air, and as soon as you take to the ether, the local laser opens up - thus draining energy. Our hero starts his quest with 100 energy points; at zero, he's a goner; and he can become shark food if any careless flying is done over the sea.

The trick is to head-butt a radio mast - this makes the local laser base go a bit loco - then take to the skies quickly before the laser gets itself sorted out and bomb the reactor which tends to be very close to the laser base.

There are ten of these reactors scattered around the island, all of which have to be taken care of in half an hour, otherwise the rescue sub takes off, leaving our hero stranded. Stockpiles of grenades have been left lying around the place to which he can help himself whenever he likes. Well, they are arms manufacturers, so you would expect to be able to put your hands on a bit of ordnance when needed.

The screen display is in the now customary 3D perspective with the action flipping from screen to screen as necessary. The graphics depict the main base complex, including the factory, and the wooded surroundings of the base which contain the reactors you are out to destroy along with plenty of hills to launch the hang glider. On the ground, four direction controls move the motorbike in the corresponding four directions. When in the air, left and right tum the hang glider, and forward and back cause it to climb and dive. On touching the ground the hang glider reverts to its motorbike form.

COMMENTS

Control keys: re-definable
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair or Cursor
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: good
Graphics: excellent
Sound: poor on the 48K, but superb tunes and FX on the 128K
Skill levels: 1
Screens: 100

Good news first. Glider Rider has nicely drawn graphics (and a great tune if you own a 128). After that, I'm afraid, it's a bit of a disappointment. Once the technique of hitting a nearby radio mast, finding a convenient slope and taking off is mastered, the game is rather dull. Whether you can actually take off when you try seems entirely random. It's a nice idea, a lot of trouble has gone into the graphics and the animation of the character is good, but I just can't rate it that highly, because it's practically unplayable.

For those depraved non-128K/Plus 2 owners out there, Glider Rider is a fun sort of game, and worth checking out, as the concept, playability and addictiveness are all very good. When playing the soundless 48K version, I was reasonably happy with it, but it's the sound of the expanded version that really makes it top notch - on the 48K it's merely good.

I'm not overly impressed with this offer from Quicksilva since it isn't half as playable as it could have been. Because the playing area is nice, large and easy to get lost in and the blurb on the inlay sets the scene very well, on your first go it's very easy to get right into the spirit of the game. The graphics are very good - the playing area excellently drawn and so is your character. There's very little flicker and next to no colour clash as well. Unfortunately, sound on the 48K machine is limited only to the odd spot effect - it's brilliant on the 128K version. On the whole I found it very hard to get anywhere in Glider Rider and I suspect it will need a lot more practice to complete it than I have time for.

Quicksilva
£8.95

You just can't go by appearance nowadays. The lush tropical island setting of Glider Rider turns out not to be inhabited by friendly natives knocking back the Um Bongo but by the evil Abraxas Corporation - international gunrunners, terrorists supplied at competitive rates. And the trees and grass aren't adding awful an lot to the ozone layer. Polythene and nylon, the lot of them. What about all the buildings then? Club Mediterranee? Power plants and nuclear reactors!

Much the same goes for this game. I nabbed it as soon as I saw the first screen shots. The 3D graphics are excellent, if a little repetitive. And the idea of taking part in a mission designed to destroy the nuclear reactors appealed. As did the novelty of riding round on a motorbike that turns into a hang glider when you drive down hills. But like the biz about books and their covers, so you can't judge a game from its screen shots.

Glider Rider just never gets off the ground. For starters, if our secret agent wants to get any sort of speed he'd do getter swopping his Kawasaki with Paperboy's pushbike.

And no wonder hang gliding's got itself a reputation. It's downright suicidal if this is the sort of control you have. One moment you're pushing the joystick forward on a stairway to heaven, the next you're stuck at the top of a polythene poplar. The perspective's all wrong. If only the programmers had bothered to put in a proper scroll instead of paging from screen to screen. And it's doubly difficult when you come to drop your regulation hand grenades to destroy the enemy targets. Not that they ever explode anyway so it hardly matters.

The most frustrating thing of all though is that the game never lets you get to grips with it. It took two minutes to suss out how to take off, another two to go all the way around the island and that was as far as I got. As soon as you're airborne and within spitting distance of an enemy installation, the guns open up and drain your energy so fast it's impossible to do anything but die. And unlike your supply of hand grenades, there's no way of replenishing your energy. Curtains.

Glider Rider's a bit like the island it's set on. Looks good from a distance, lacks real depth.

Run it again and again and again - there's nothing like a good race game. You can always beat that world record just once more, as DOMINIC HANDY and MIKE DUNN discover when they go into...

Glider Rider
Quicksilva

80% (128 version 92%) Issue 34

MIKE: The first 128 game with any sort of enhancement, Glider Rider is made much more atmospheric by music. Trying to knock out the reactors which power some black-market arms dealers, you use your motorbike - which when zooming down hills and suddenly reversing direction becomes a hang glider, conveniently enough! The graphics are good, despite the awful scrolling and screen flicking, and Glider Rider is fairly playable and addictive.
76% (81%)

DOMINIC: The idea behind Glider Rider is very good, but the control method ruins the game. Still, the presentation is great - graphics, sound and options are all top-notch. And then there's that superb David Whittaker 128K soundtrack.
70%

Label: Quicksilva
Author: Glen White
Price: £8.95
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K (128K enhanced)
Reviewer: Graham Taylor

Glider Rider is an astonishing new game from Quicksilva. Astonishing in look, gameplay, plot and if you have a 128K, sound.

The games uses the Knight Lore style of 3D playing area but plays on two levels, literally, since you travel both on bike around the landscape and by hang glider swooping over exactly the same features from above.

This no doubt tricky programming feat has been achieved seemingly effortlessly and Glider Rider features a vast futuristic landscape over and through which, you may move.

The game has an interesting plot, or at least some interesting ideas. Your objective is to destroy the headquarters of the Abraxas Corporation - a nasty lot of arms dealers (based on the politics of the real world this game is not.) This involves blowing the plant to bits The plant is located on BoOs island - a giant artificial construction floating somewhere in the Pacific.

The way to obliterate the plant is to attack and destroy ten nuclear reactors - the power network for the whole place. This involves essentially two operation, seeking them out on a bike and, then having found an available hill, using a hang glider to fly over and drop bombs.

Where does the hang glider come from? Simple. If you find a big enough hill and speed down it on the bike and suddenly reverse direction the bike turns into a hang glider. Nifty eh?

Of course, it isn't as simple as that. Each of the reactors is very well defended by some devastatingly effective laser bases which will sap your energy (if it reaches zero then its goodbye). Then there is the problem of getting more bombs You start with nine and there are ten bases - clearly some more must be found.

Gradually a technique for playing the game develops, you discover which hills provide safe take-off sites (well, relatively safe take-off sites) and which reactors are the most vulnerable. I found I was within minutes of giving up on the game when I successfully bombed my first reactor using a mixture of luck and judgement.

The graphics are highly detailed and rather imaginative - a mix of green fields with rolling hills and the high tech areas of the central compound. The reactors are scattered around, some partly concealed by trees, sometimes more exposed - nearly always defended you can recognise them easily - they look like huge white bowling balls. If you blast one successfully a little screen opens up and says, emphatically BANG! No attribute problems - the game is mostly two-colour but that won't bother you too much once you get playing.

Sound on the 48K version is fairly minimal but adequate. The 128 is another story altogether. The graphics, originality and range of fresh ideas in Glider Rider make it a sure winner.

C64, £8.95cs, £12.95dk
Spectrum, £8.95cs
Amstrad, £8.95cs

A game that is most memorable for its music and transformation sequence. You're on an island driving a motorbike that can miraculously transform into a hanglider - changing the delightful accompanying music at the same time.

Using this technological wonder you have to destroy the installations on the island. This calls for extreme accuracy and patience because the island is heavily defended.

Not the most colourful of games but worth getting just for the music and the sheer difficulty of the task facing you.

MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Quicksilva
PRICE: £8.95

At last! A decent game on the much respected and late lamented Quicksilva label. Since Argus took over the name not much of worth appeared under the once legendary Quicksilva banner. But Glider Rider could change all that.

You begin the game with just nine grenades - but you can find more on the island if you are smart enough. And if you were smart enough to qualify as a secret agent you're going to be smart enough to find the ammo. Aren't you?

But the first necessary act is to find out the way to disable the defence lasers on the island - 'cos these things fry you to a crisp whether you're in the air or on the ground.

There's a free packet of Hula Hoops awaiting the first person to phone the Ed with the answer!

Transforming your bike into the hang-glider is no mean feat. First you have to find you way to the top of a plastic hill. The higher the better if you're a beginner. Then you drive the bike fast downhill pulling back on the joystick will make you sprout wings - and wheeeee! It's a bird, it's a plane! No it's a motorbike falling back to earth! Never mind. Practice makes perfect.

The graphics are really nice - just one colour but extremely effective. Sound isn't bad on the 48k machine and the 128k version has a neat soundtrack making the most of the machines extra soundchip.

RIDE THE THERMALS IN QUICKSILVA'S GLIDE AND DESTROY MISSION.

Quicksilva
£8.95

This is a real dare devil mission. As Commander Glenn White you are dropped onto an island - your objective is to destroy the nuclear reactors that destroy the nuclear reactors that power the munitions plant owned by the Abraxas Corporation (Arms for Anyone, Anywhere, Any Reason).

For the mission you have been provided with a trail bike which converts into a hang glider. The trail bike will take you over rough territory and the conversion to hang glider is very slick - simply find a slope, career down it, reverse direction and the hang glider opens out like a butterfly and you are in the are in the air. Staying in the air however is a different matter as practically all the installations on the island are heavily defended by ground to air lasers which if they lock onto you mercilessly sap your energy rating.

Puttering about on the motorbike is enjoyable and the grand tour of the island is recommended before attempting your objective. You can drive round the perimeter of the of the island without too much interference too much interference from laser outposts and laser outposts and appreciate a) the size of the island size of the island and b) the excellent and excellent and well thought out detail in the out detail in the contoured 3-D graphic landscape. Then find an incline and take off. Mastering the controls of the hang glider takes some time as it seems to react as an actual hang glider would - bank too steeply and it stalls. If you are over the ocean and ditch you are immediately and ditch you are immediately consumed by predatory sharks.

Flying around and across the island is fun but it's when the serious business of bombing hell out of things gets underway that a a few flaws in the game are revealed. You can only bomb installations from the glider and are given a ration of nine (extra supplies can be picked up from ammo dumps by using the bike) but the question is what do you bomb and how do you know when you've hit it?

The instructions are hazy at best, hinting that 'power units are vulnerable'. But what are power units? There are all kinds of structures on the island so where do you start? An index to buildings would have been a very useful aid.

The second problem is whether it's actually possible to destroy anything. Drop a bomb and there is no sign of an animated explosion.

One solution of course may be that I'm too jittery to control the hang glider or too myopic to aim properly but the fact is that I spent a great deal of time and concentration just attempting to register a hit on something - anything.

I tried dropping bombs from every conceivable height and angle on any potential target. The result? Nothing. (Bombs also have a disconcerting way of disappearing in mid air if you happen to switch screens as you fly over a target).

This, to say the least, is very annoying and it's all the more infuriating because everything else about the game is very appealing. Making things difficult for the player is all very well but getting a toehold on the game should be easier than this. This fact is the only thing that prevents Glider Rider from becoming a Monster Hit. It's a game I shall return to again in an effort to crack it, but I can't help thinking that this one should have been called Mission Impossible (literally) if someone hadn't thought of the title first.