Gremlin
£10.99/£14.99
Four brave warriors ready to encounter high adventure in a world of magic - that's HeroQuest! Gremlin's adaptation of the top-selling board game is here and I've signed up to become a hero (a bit of a change from a Speccy reviewer, I know, but you've gotta take what you can get these days).
Who shall I be? I can take my pick from a Barbarian (strong but not much cop at magic), a warrior Dwarf (good with weapons but not magical), an Elf (slightly magic and reasonably strong) or a Wizard (good at magic and a bit naff at scrapping). You can control one character, all four, or invite a few chums around and let them join in.
HeroQuest has 14 different adventure quests, each one more difficult than the last, which can be played in any order. Quests are played in sets of rooms and have up to 22 locations, and all but the very first (The Maze) are taken from the board game. A brief run-down of your objectives are given but then you're on your own.
Locations are displayed in isometric 3D, furniture and ghoulish characters shown with detailed graphics. There's no scrolling but a flip-screen technique is used as you move between locations. The whole game is played with a cursor which you move around the screen and use to highlight and select options.
Control of your character and his actions is achieved using a set of icons at the bottom right-hand of the screen. There are four directional pointers, and Fight, Map, Inventory, Search and Key icons.
Players take it in turns to make a move, which always begins, with a roll of the dice, or in this case, by stopping the rapidly changing numbers at the top of the screen. Say, for example, it stops on seven. You can then move the character currently in play seven squares, as marked on the floor. You can also engage in combat or search the room for hidden traps, doors or treasure.
Each aspiring hero has a turn then it's Morcar's go. Who's Morcar? Only the spookiest dungeon master of them all! He controls the evil goblins, orcs, fimirs, skeletons, zombies, mummies, gargoyles and chaos warriors that are your sworn enemies. Should you enter or be in a room when one or a collection of his devilish minions are there, he always attacks!
The battles themselves aren't shown on-screen. Instead, the display switches to a results table, which shows a picture of your character either being slashed to bits or defending himself. If an opponent scores a hit, one of your body points is lost. Lose them all and your character is out of the game.
You can retaliate when it's your turn. Select the Combat option and choose a weapon (if you have any). A map of the playing area is displayed; move the pointer to highlight your target and hope for the best. Check the results table to see what state the fight has left you and your adversary in.
The Map icon is really useful: it shows a complete map of the playing area and adds details to it as you discover objects and foes in the corridors and rooms.
The rooms hide many secrets: potions which restore your body points, treasure which can buy you additional and stronger weapons at the end of the quest. However, there are also many unfortunate traps and unseen enemies which may spring up and knock you down.
HeroQuest is like a really good adventure game made even better with the use of great graphics and animation, bringing the whole thing to life. It's to be played as an adventure game, not an arcade action game, so don't expect to wander in, beat up a few demons and scarper. You need to plan, to map, to think out strategies and develop attack tactics to complete each quest.
Where HeroQuest's gameplay really wins ever other 3D games is the amount of surprises the quests hold - like the secret doors, treasure and opponents which appear from nowhere!
The ability to involve four players in one game is great fun; the quests aren't just strategic exploration exercises but include race elements as you all attempt to complete the objective first. The only snag for fans of the board game is that the quests are identical to the original game's, so you can cheat really easily by looking at its quest book.
It's a really engrossing game and it'll be a long time before I get through the many varied quests - but I can't wait to get stuck into the tougher ones! in fact, I'm off to play some more now - see you in about five months' time, folks. Byeeeee!
RICHARD [92%]
At last! I don't need to spend ages with plastic figures setting up the board game! I can just play! As up to four people can take part, a touch of friendly rivalry is added to the proceedings. The playing area's certainly big, and the surprises are many, while the icon system is simplicity itself to use. This control method does mean that battles are decided by the computer rather than your joystick skills, but doesn't spoil gameplay. I hope the success of HeroQuest ensures that more roleplaying board games are converted to the Speccy. (Just as well, really - Gremlin are releasing Space Crusade later this year! - Ed).
MARK [94%]
Gremlin
£10.99 cass/£14.99 disk
Reviewer: James Leach
A horrible, hideous evilness has befallen the land. Nasty things are occuring every day, and people are getting concerned enough to write off to The Times about it. It's time to dust down some Heroes.
But who ya gonna call? An Elf, a Barbarian, a Wizard and the obligatory Dwarf, that's who. These are the intrepid Hero Questers who are suddenly dumped into The Unpleasant Dungeon of Morcar, where they must complete up to 15 spooky quests, involving killing various creatures, finding secret treasure and rescuing people too pathetic to rescue themselves.
Each character can be controlled by a different player, and on the earlier levels the dungeon is mapped out for you (which makes things nice and straightforward because you can't get lost). Each blokie starts off at a different corner of the 'board', then there's a random dice roll for each and they trog off in any direction they want.
Now listen carefully - this is important. Each character has one action and one movement per turn. The movement can be as many squares as he's rolled, and the action may be carried out before or after the movement, but not in the middle of it. An action can be a fight, casting a spell, searching for traps and hidden doors, and searching for treasure (which is the best of the batch).
The maze has lots of rooms, contents unknown. Each character must explore these using his actions. Every search might reveal a secret passage, special magic potions or cash. This wandering around would be absolutely fine and dandy if it weren't for the...
MONSTERS!
(Tremble, quake!) Roaming around the dungeon are some of the most loathsome beings ever (just like Andy first thing in the morning). Goblins, orcs, skeletons, Chaos Warriors (the biggest of the lot) - they're all best dealt with by being run up to and attacked with a battle axe, sword or anything you happen to be armed with.
Of course, you may get a wee bit hurt by some of these gruesome confrontations and this is where body point levels and mind levels come in. Every creature has them (including your fearless 4). The Dwarf and Barbarian have high body points but low mind points ('cos they're ravver stoopid) while Elves and Wizards have good brains but weedy muscles (so when they're fighting they tend to use magic spells instead of swords, axes or potato peelers. Sensible really).
As the guys blunder around they can set off hidden traps which strip all-important life points from them. Luckily, searching for treasure can also unearth healing potions (sort of supernatural Andrews Liver Salts) which restore their strength. Other magic potions give a character double strength in any attacks, or make him immune to damage (for a while).
Of course if you find any treasure then you'll soon be wanting to spend it, and luckily enough there's a friendly Dungeon Happy Shopper at the end of each quest. Here you'll find helmets, swords, axes, shields, Marigold gloves (in 3 sizes!) and even the odd spell or 2.
IT'S DEEP MAN!
So you should be getting the picture by now. There's a lot of depth to Hero Quest. And there are lots of ways to play it. You could get all the characters to meet up so they travel round in a group (which means they'll completely trash any monsters they find 'cos they can all jump in at once). Of course, that means that the first person into a room often get to find the treasure, but that isn't too much of a bad thing either 'cos then you get to fight about it amongst yourselves (and it's a lot of fun scrapping with the dwarf!).
The original board game that it's based on was squillion-seller success and they've done a really nice job of transferring it to the Spec. The icon system of movement makes things easy-peasy-lemon-sqeeezy and there's even a Save-character facility so you can use the same bloke in continuing quests over 3 or 4 weeks.
I do have one quibble though, and that's that the spelling's diabolical. I mean, you lot pick us up on every speeling mitsak we do, so why should the Grems get away with using dreadful English. I'm sorry but I feel very strongly about this, I really do (I'll be talking to their headmaster about extra lessons for them after school.)
But apart from that it's all pretty hunky dory, and the good news is that Gremlin are working on expansion packs, to take you into even more hideous, nasty dungeons in the future. There'll be worse monsters, priceless treasure and more painful traps. I can't wait!
REPLAY
And a personal hello to carpet-fitter Bernard Opportunity of Dalton! (He's the only one who ever reads this box, you know.)
GBH Gold
£4.99
0742 753423
Reviewer: Jonathan Nash
The random nature of the universe. It's a problem, isn't it, readers? Just when you think things are all hunky-dory, the flip of a celestial coin and you're hit by a falling tree while riding the escalator in WH Smith. Hero Quest is a similar experience, except without the tree, or the escalator, or indeed the popular high street shop.
In Hero Quest, you control a bunch of mythical heroes during an average fortnight's hacking and slaying. Some of 'em are really beefy, some can use magic, some cook a really ace dead rabbit, and so on. You have the choice of fourteen quests to undertake, involving things like rescuing knights, stealing gold, destroying the ultimate evil force in the universe, and so on. Monsters pitted against you include ores, zombies and evil versions of yourselves. (And so on, ho ho. Ed). Everything takes place in dungeons, and you have to get out after succeeding in the quest of the day.
Well, that's Hero Quest in a nutshell, except for the important bits like gameplay and presentation. (A mere bagatelle. Ed) On the graphical front, it's pretty darn smart, with a sharp isometric 3D view and large sprites. Regarding gameplay, it's dismal. Miserable, in fact. Because, you see, everything relies on chance. The original Hero Quest (the board game) involved lots of dice and throwing of same - the Speccy conversion prints a load of random numbers, and you press fire to stop them. Wowee, eh?
Never mind the scope for introducing real combat sequences involving, well, skill - just bash fire and hope the great luck goddess favours you with a decent number.
It's a bit sad really. Tasty presentation (the 128K has plenty of tunes as well), up to four players in a game, and a slew of tricky levels, all ruined by the reliance on little flashing digits. There are times when conversions can be too accurate.
Gremlin
£10.99/£15.99
This is it, the computer adaption of the best-selling board game, and it's great. You can play with up to four characters (players) - each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and, magical powers.
The objective is to attempt the 14 different missions that take place in the dungeons of the evil Morcar. The locations are displayed in isometric 3D and the characters controlled entirely by clicking a cursor over icons.
Throughout each mission, Morcar's evil henchthings attack without mercy, although the outcome of battle is decided by the fall of 'dice' rather than a thwack or three on the fire button.
Although there's always lots going on, don't expect an action-packed game - it's a proper animated graphics adventure. HeroQuest brings a great roleplaying tradition to your screen.
Gremlin
£10.99/£15.99
The computer adaption of the best-selling board game is great. You can play with up to four characters (players) - pick from Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf or Wizard. Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, and most have magical powers.
The objective is to attempt the 14 different missions that take place in the dungeons of Morcar. The locations are displayed in isometric 3D and the characters controlled entirely by clicking a cursor over icons. Although there's always lots going on, don't expect an action-packed game - it's a proper animated graphic adventure. Don't miss out on HeroQuest's latest Quest pack - Return of the Witchlord: ten new missions costing £5.99 on tape and £7.99 on disk. You must have the original game to play the new quests.
Gremlin
£10.99/£15.99
This is it, the computer adaption of the best-selling board game, and it's great. You can play with up to four characters (players) - pick from Barbarian, Dwarf, Elf or Wizard. Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, and most have magical powers.
The objective is to attempt the 14 different missions that take place in the dungeons of Morcar, the nastiest villain around (boo, hiss). The locations are displayed in isometric 3D and the characters controlled entirely by clicking a cursor over icons.
Throughout each mission, Morcar's evil henchthings attack without mercy, although the outcome of battle is decided by the fall of 'dice' rather than a thwack or three on the fire button.
Although there's always lots going on, don't expect an action-packed game - it's a proper animated graphics adventure. HeroQuest brings a great roleplaying tradition to your screen in early June.
Label: Gremlin
Memory: 128K
Price: £11.99, £15.99 Disk
Reviewer: Alan Dykes
The talons of the seven enchanted falcons thygaamor couldn't drag me away from Hero-quest once I started getting into it. Garth the dwarf, Steve the elf, Andrea the barbarian and Alan the wizard collected more loot than Esther Rantzen, more weapons than George Bush and got lost more times than Richard Branson's balloons in this vast and involved fantasy role playing game from Gremlin.
The scene is et as a quest for a new breed of hero to carry on the fight against Morcar, the Lord of Chaos who at this very moment is plotting to return and subject the empire to a reign of darkness. Only by completing the fourteen different missions available will you truly prove your worth.
There is a choice of four characters, Wizard, Dwarf, Elf and mighty Barbarian, and the evil Morcar is played (rather well), by the computer. Control is by keyboard or Kempston interface and is four directional with all choices and actions being made by moving an arrow around the screen, placing it over whatever symbols you want to use and pressing the space bar (or fire button).
Each mission has a map (accessible at any time), with all known characters, objects and rooms shown, but you must keep looking because there are lots of Orks, Goblins, Warriors and other creatures to find and kick around, not to mention hidden enemies, treasure, spells, weapons etc...
The beauty of it all is that once you've been through a maze and collected your arms, armour, spells and money you can the carry on into the next quest with all of these intact. You can thus create and save your very own character to use in later quests.
Heroquest's graphics aren't anything to tell the person who sits next to you in maths class about, but they do show everything clearly. Nice pictures of your enemy appear during fights but not the fight itself. There is no sound but this is not a problem as it would ruin the atmosphere to have stomping feet and wailing Orcs bleeping at you.
And there it is, Heroquest is a long game with a valuable save option, lots of challenge and imagination and heaps of fantasy language the instruction booklet. Control is a little frustrating until you re used to using that lizard's gullet of an arrow to point at everything, but for R.P.G. fans or anyone interested in a good fantasy it's a reet rivitin' S.U. Gold.
GARTH:
As a fan of the board game, I found its computer counterpart captured most of the best elements of the board game - and actually can work out much faster in use. I did find the graphics a little on the distracting side and would definitely like to know why a 2.5% increase in VAT has put an extra 1.00 on the price and not 28p. Let's just hope that if all the software companies are going to subject us to ANOTHER price increase, that the spend the extra revenue on developing even better games. Having got that off my chest let's get back to Hero-quest and say that, given the price of the boardgame, Hero-quest still represents good value for fans of the genre. (And let's all blow a big raspberry to Norman Lamont and his 2.5% VAT increase. Bllarrrrrrrpwh!).
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