ESTRA
Firebird,
£2.50 cass, joystick or keys
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O Cheap, simple, one-screen
collection game |
Everything
about this game is simple and bland -- graphics are
undetailed, uninteresting, and have as much colour as
a corpse. Sound isn't much better and aspirin played
an increasingly important part after much play.
You
must collect 24 pieces of a statue (one at a time) from
around the edge of the screen, and bring them back to
the centre where they're assembled. The pieces alternate
with small deadly dots and care is needed to extract
them.
Two
different types of guardian float around the screen
in an attempt to kill you. The first type is a couple
of diamond-shaped thingies that simply bounce around
the screen in predictable patterns, but are still difficult
to avoid.
The
second is a sort of small blob with a claw that homes
in on you every so often -- especially if you stay still
for too long. Contact with one end kills you, with the
other end kills it.
The
statue of Estra the Snake God is being built
in the box in the screen centre. The diamonds,
bug and dots are the guardians out to get you.
The horseshoe-shaped object must be entered
when your energy supply needs replacing.
You
are given a time limit in which to complete the screen,
in the form of energy. This can be replenished, though,
by moving into a re-energiser that hangs around on screen.
Occasionally the small dots around the edge of the screen
move towards the centre. Should any of them the centre
without you intercepting them first, then a life will
be lost. Each time one of your five lives is lost, the
bonus for completing a screen goes down.
If
all of the pieces are assembled, then you receive a
bonus depending on the number of lives remaining and
move on to a slightly harder version of the same screen.
Yawn.
GP
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