Superhero
Superhero, Original game developed by Paul Machacek and Bernie Drummond. C64 conversion by Martin Ellis and published by Codemasters in 1988
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Player's Review
"AMAZING PLAYABILITY! Are you a SUPERHERO? Can you defeat the GUARDIANS with your magical returning Warhammer, Boots of Power, ESP and Teleportation Activators - You'd better be a SUPERHERO else you'll end up in the Dead- Zone!!!"
"The first thing you should do is to explore the complex and find the four magical gifts that Venus has hidden for you - these will endow you with supernatural powers... look for the POWER BOOTS which enable you to jump... the RETURNING WARHAMMER, for slaying the myriad monsters and ghouls in the corridors... a TRANS-DIMENSIONAL BAG which nullifies the mass and size of an object, allowing you to carry it easily... and a MYSTICAL HELMET which destines you to be showered with gifts from the watching gods."
Large isometric adventure that is sure to test your dexterity. As the instructions allude to, you need to firstly gear up which doesnt take too long as the needed items are all fairly close to each other. Then you need to make way to the guardian room. But in order to do that you need to take down the guardian walls that block your path. This is done by finding the Guardian heads in the rooms of this giant game. There are five heads to find but there are four possible rooms each one can be in so you may be searching a while. After finding each guardian you get to fight in the death zone for an unspecified amount of time. Survive without dying and earn an extra life. The game is split into two terrains with rooms where you can jump and outside where you can fire but not jump as well as collecting item drops for speed or esp activator. Taking the activator to an enabler will change the border colour indicating if you are facing the right way to a guardian. When approaching areas for four squares, you can also interact with a trader where you can buy keys or extra lives.
The game isn't a typical Spectrum conversion but you'll probably prefer it if it was. The Spectrum version isn't Fullscreen opting to use a half screen window instead which isn't the best look to begin with. The C64 takes that and stretches it full screen giving the game a very blocky look. This is great for speed, running at least twice as fast as the spectrum game but at a huge cost as the sides are completely cropped off! This is game breaking in the sense that you cant see items to collect or death blocks if they are in the corners!!
The overall presentation can be considered a low effort. The spectrum game makes it quite clear when you have found a needed item but on the C64, you may need to hit f4 and check the status screen. Enemies are a problem as well they can move in a way that you cant making them unreachable to your weapon fire. You may need to quickly move offscreen to get clear of them but you cant do that in the death zone. The collision detection is actually ok but the stiff movement may land you in trouble and lining up the tile jumps in rooms can be challenging.
Overall, this is a tragic conversion and its large size makes it difficult to enjoy. Because the guardians are placed in different rooms each time you play there is room for replay ability as no two plays are likely the same. Not good though of you are just trying to make it through. A freezer cartridge would be extremely helpful (saved once a level is started). The game is not the most stable and this is the forth attempt. The game has a tendency to crash on going into certain rooms and that's no fun at all. Initially I was going to show most rooms as I approached them but soon got fed up of that idea so what is left is the route after knowing where the guardians are in advance without the need to show checking all the rooms they could be in.
https://maps.speccy.cz/map.php?id=SuperHero I don't think I would have the stamina to make it through without this valuable map as well as the RZX playback as a rough idea of the route to take although guardian placement was completely different.
00:00:00 Title Music
00:00:35 Start / Collect Gear
00:12:19 Guardian 1
00:26:09 Guardian 2
00:36:33 Guardian 3
00:52:40 Guardian 4
01:08:28 Guardian 5
01:13:48 Final Room
"The first thing you should do is to explore the complex and find the four magical gifts that Venus has hidden for you - these will endow you with supernatural powers... look for the POWER BOOTS which enable you to jump... the RETURNING WARHAMMER, for slaying the myriad monsters and ghouls in the corridors... a TRANS-DIMENSIONAL BAG which nullifies the mass and size of an object, allowing you to carry it easily... and a MYSTICAL HELMET which destines you to be showered with gifts from the watching gods."
Large isometric adventure that is sure to test your dexterity. As the instructions allude to, you need to firstly gear up which doesnt take too long as the needed items are all fairly close to each other. Then you need to make way to the guardian room. But in order to do that you need to take down the guardian walls that block your path. This is done by finding the Guardian heads in the rooms of this giant game. There are five heads to find but there are four possible rooms each one can be in so you may be searching a while. After finding each guardian you get to fight in the death zone for an unspecified amount of time. Survive without dying and earn an extra life. The game is split into two terrains with rooms where you can jump and outside where you can fire but not jump as well as collecting item drops for speed or esp activator. Taking the activator to an enabler will change the border colour indicating if you are facing the right way to a guardian. When approaching areas for four squares, you can also interact with a trader where you can buy keys or extra lives.
The game isn't a typical Spectrum conversion but you'll probably prefer it if it was. The Spectrum version isn't Fullscreen opting to use a half screen window instead which isn't the best look to begin with. The C64 takes that and stretches it full screen giving the game a very blocky look. This is great for speed, running at least twice as fast as the spectrum game but at a huge cost as the sides are completely cropped off! This is game breaking in the sense that you cant see items to collect or death blocks if they are in the corners!!
The overall presentation can be considered a low effort. The spectrum game makes it quite clear when you have found a needed item but on the C64, you may need to hit f4 and check the status screen. Enemies are a problem as well they can move in a way that you cant making them unreachable to your weapon fire. You may need to quickly move offscreen to get clear of them but you cant do that in the death zone. The collision detection is actually ok but the stiff movement may land you in trouble and lining up the tile jumps in rooms can be challenging.
Overall, this is a tragic conversion and its large size makes it difficult to enjoy. Because the guardians are placed in different rooms each time you play there is room for replay ability as no two plays are likely the same. Not good though of you are just trying to make it through. A freezer cartridge would be extremely helpful (saved once a level is started). The game is not the most stable and this is the forth attempt. The game has a tendency to crash on going into certain rooms and that's no fun at all. Initially I was going to show most rooms as I approached them but soon got fed up of that idea so what is left is the route after knowing where the guardians are in advance without the need to show checking all the rooms they could be in.
https://maps.speccy.cz/map.php?id=SuperHero I don't think I would have the stamina to make it through without this valuable map as well as the RZX playback as a rough idea of the route to take although guardian placement was completely different.
00:00:00 Title Music
00:00:35 Start / Collect Gear
00:12:19 Guardian 1
00:26:09 Guardian 2
00:36:33 Guardian 3
00:52:40 Guardian 4
01:08:28 Guardian 5
01:13:48 Final Room
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