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Review

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INTRODUCTION:
Many years ago the army of dark forces has crossed the border of the Land of Winds. Most of the population have been killed, others have escaped to northern lands. Among them there was a girl named Jane. Soon she gave birth to a son, Alexander. Jane told him the sad story. And when he became an adult, he went to the native land to free his country.

GAMEPLAY:
The game consists of a prologue and 9 levels. The task of each level is to reach the exit, except for level 4, where the player has to find and kill all enemies, and level 9, where it is necessary to destroy all eggs of the evil.

The main character is resisted by various representatives of dark forces. Some can be killed, but there are also immortal: never look at the Hovering Death!

Two attempts are given for passing of each level. In case of the second failure it is necessary to pass the previous level again.

At any moment it is possible to look at the map of level, having pressed the map key. All objects in the map, including enemies, are shown as dots. The blinking dot shows the player's position. Orientation can be determined by a compass: top of the map is the North.

Exit is also marked on the map, if it exists. Game process stops during display of the map, therefore the map can be used as pause.

REVIEW:
Originally this game was released in 1997 by Oleg Origin, but this is a pimped up version of the already updated, improved, faster and much more playable version released in 2016. The game is made for a standard ZX Spectrum 48k, which is absolutely impressive considering that it features an intro with several pictures and 9 huge levels, and it is not even multiload. So you just load this first person shooter into the ram of your old rubber key Spectrum from 1982 and play!

You play as Alexander and as the intro tells, you have to free your country from the army of dark forces. As you start you have a trident as weapon, and you also have a gun, but no ammo. So you have to find some bullets before you can use the gun, and if/when you run out of bullets you will automatically use the trident again until you find more bullets. Besides bullets you can find health and armors.

This game really shows the power of the old Z80 processor, it can easily handle a game like this. It is actually running surprisingly fast, and there can be many enemies on the screen at once without any slowdown. It runs really well and it is easy to manoeuvre around because you have a map you can use as much as you want. When you look at the map you have to pay attention of inaccessible rooms, and when you walk past, see if it is a blue or a white door that gives access, because you have to find a blue and a white key for these doors in most of the levels.

The aim of the game is to reach level 9 where you have to destroy the 6 eggs of evil. When you destroy the sixth egg you have completed your mission and the game. The eggs can be found and destroyed in random order.

Even if it only is a 48k game there has been room for a lot of cool effects like gunfire, blood from enemies, a flying dragon in the sky, acid rain, Grim Reaper (the Hovering Death) popping up random places (Avoid! …Avoid! …Avoid!!!), sea effects, flaming skulls on enemies, and some nice changings in the environment as you proceed. Level 5 where you are on “The Bridge of Doom” is pretty cool, showing off a lot of effects.

This is amazing, all this in 48 kb of ram on a computer from 1982, and it is highly playable! Imagine this game as one of the release titles for the ZX Spectrum 48k back in 1982/83…

The only let down is the beeper fx, some of these are very simple, and AY support for 128k users would have been really great.

Compared to the 2016 version the Redux version has new loading screen, new intro pictures. Pimped up status display, enemies, hand and weapons. Almost everything got an overhaul, and now you can also select between Normal and Easy game modes.

The upcoming physical release will also contain a second game: The Dark - Lost Pages.

The Redux version was made by Oleg Origin / Zosya Entertainment in 2021.

Rating = 99%.

Download here: https://www.zosya.net/