After Virgin's purchase of the Rabbit Software label
last year, they have finally decided to release some
titles on it. Using Rabbit as their budget software
division, one of Virgin's first releases is Zyto,
a 'Scramble' derivative.
Being
the right little urban terrorist that you are, your
aim is to destroy a six-level subterranean city using
a space ship with a wheeled buggy as a base. The idea
is to collect six pieces of bomb, one on each level,
and take them with the buggy to level 0. Once you get
to level 0, the six bomb sections must be assembled
in the same order in which they were collected. Once
assembled the bomb detonates, stripping the city's outer
defences and allowing you to force it into submission
by shooting the inner defences.
The
ship has two modes of travel. Initially you are mounted
upon a buggy able to move left and right over Zyto's
mountainous terrain. When moving over a hill or dell,
the buggy does its best to keep level by extending and
retracting the telescopic legs on which its wheels are
mounted. It isn't indestructible, however, and clumsy
handling may well destroy it.
To
get over such problems you use the aerial section of
the craft, taking off from the back of the buggy, to
fly over Zyto. In this flying mode you can collect blocks
scattered about the landscape simply by flying the ship
through one. To drop a block, press fire. Skilfully
placed, these small platforms can be used as bridges
for the buggy. Fire also activates the gun, though there's
only limited ammunition. The fuel allowance is also
limited and quickly drains away as you zoom about the
planet. Both fuel and ammunition are replenished by
redocking with the buggy.
Obviously,
Zyto's inhabitants aren't enormously happy with your
vandalistic intentions on their city, so they send out
a few nasties (or nicies, depending whether you're a
human or a Zyton) after you. The majority are airborne
and only become a problem on your forays into the sky,
but on the ground there's a particularly nasty buggy-destroying
robot wheel. Spinning over the ground, you have to destroy
it before it gets you.
The
six levels of the city are interconnected by holes in
the ground and in the roofs of the caverns that house
Zyto. If your buggy falls through a hole unprotected,
it is destroyed but if you have collected a parachute,
then a gentle landing is assured.
On
the lower levels electrical discharges scatter across
the land barring your way. These charges need to be
vanquished by turning off all the blocks on a control
panel, which is made up from blocks of varying patterns.
A block can be turned off by flying through it at full
speed and, once you have done this, all similarly patterned
blocks are also turned off. The blocks are toggle-switched
so they can be reactivated if you travel through them
again.
The
game is presented with a horizontally scrolling section
on the top of the screen and a status panel on the lower
part. The world is wrap round, so if you travel far
enough to the left or right, like Magellan, you find
your ship back in the same place. The status panel gives
details of fuel and ammunition supplies plus the time
you have left to complete the mission.
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