Game:

Quazatron (1986)

Category:

Review

Duration: 47:29

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INTRODUCTION (From the manual):
You control KLP-2 (Klepto), a droid assigned to deactivate the hostile alien droids of Quazatron, which basically means destroy all the robots on each level. This can be done by laser fire, by pushing them to destruction, by ramming them or by grappling with them using your experimental Grapple Device. This allows you to dismantle the droid and use their parts to increase your own power and facilities.

You can fire your weapons by using the fire button or by pressing W to activate autofire. Weapons fire in the direction KLP-2 is facing. There are many different weapons which can be taken from enemy droids. The weapons can only be used while KLP-2 is moving.

To grapple and enemy droid, make KLP-2 stop moving and press fire until the yellow message at the bottom left shows GRAPPLE and the G light flashes. Then you can ram the enemy droid to dismantle it. To turn off GRAPPLE mode, press fire again while stationary. To successfully grapple you must overcome the enemy droid's security circuit. The idea is to turn as many lights your colour as possible by shooting the pulses at them.

REVIEW:
You are KLP-2 - a robot that has to destroy all the other hostile alien droids on every level to set the city Quazatron free again. The easy way to do this is to shoot them, but to do this you will need some better weapons, and you will need to take these from the other droids. This is done by holding down fire button until “G” flashes on the bottom of the screen. This will mean that you have enabled your Grapple Device and you will then hook up to the other droids circuit system when you touch them. This will start a battle where you and the enemy droid will try to shot down the other ones circuit system.

When entering the circuit battles there will always be a yellow and a blue system, where one of them usually is easier to win than the other, and within a time limit you are free to choose if you want the yellow or the blue circuit. You have to get the main part of the circuits turned into your color before the time runs out. The more color you have got, the less damage there will be on the parts from the other droid, and you can collect these parts when the battle is won.

The parts in your robot will not last forever so you will have to do regular battles against the other droids. You can also recharge your power unit at special energy points but in the length it will burn out and have to be replaced. Your energy is shown by the rotation speed of the head of KLP-2, the faster the better. The alien droids are classified from A-1 (the best and toughest) to X-9 (the lowest and weakest). The higher classes have the best parts.
When you have defeated the last enemy droid on a level the light will go out and everything will be dark blue. Some levels will be split in a low and a high part, and when you have finished the one section, you will have to leave and come back another way, to get access to the part of the screen you are missing. There are eight different levels and they have different places with lifts you can use to switch between them. You can use all of the lifts whenever you want.

This is a port of the 2D game Paradroid for the C64, and it is absolutely magnificent! The game has been changed into an isometric scrolling world in three colors with bright and clear graphics. The circuit battling system is the same, and there was no need for changing that, because it is absolutely brilliant. Everything works great and everything controls great. This is one of the best looking and best playable isometric games for the Spectrum. Where many of the isometric games has a lot of wandering around while nothing happens, this is not the coincidence here, this game has a lot of action. The only thing it was missing was an in game AY soundtrack …and a very good one has been added to this version by Alex Nikiforov!

There is no ending for this game. When you have completed it you are told you have set Quazatron free and now must set Beepatron free. There is only eight levels and Beepatron has the same levels, but with changed colors and patterns. This walkthrough ends when Quazatron is set free and the game loops.

The game was published by Hewson Consultants Ltd in 1986.

Rating:
Original 48k version: 95%
Unofficial 128k version: 99%

If you do not have Beta Disk / TR-dos this version can also run on ZX Spectrum Next and emulators. The game can run on a standard ZX Spectrum 128k with tape recorder if someone changes the loading routine to tape format.

48k tape: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/games/q/Quazatron.tap.zip
128k Beta Disk / TR-dos: https://vtrd.in/gamez/q/QUAZ_AN.zip