Bedlam

Copyright : US Gold | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Bedlam is another game that we?ve never seen before the world of emulation, designed by US Gold we can only assume that the game didn?t make it into the mass market. Aliens are once again up to the old "we are going to take over your planet" thing and have decided to destroy everything that stands in the way, you of course decide to get in the nearest spaceship and kick some Alien butt, and why not? you only live once and if Captain Kirk can do it then why can?t you?

Graphics

Bedlam is as good as many shoot-em-up games of this style managed to get on the CPC, coming close to the likes of Galactic Plague by Amsoft and Classic Axiens we have to admit that this low budget game looks very nice indeed. Crossing the design elements of Uridium on the C64 with the graphical style of Galactic Plauge (large and varied graphics) it certainly looks far from being duff. Detail levels aren?t overly high but it does put a lot of bigger software houses to shame, Cascade for one could take learn a thing of two from McSPEE and in our opinion should have stopped coding games from the moment they released the 50 games pack with BASIC coding errors. Anyway, enough slagging off Cascade, this is certainly a very nice looking game from such an unknown software house.

Sound

There isn?t any theme music to the game but then again we don?t expect this from unknown software houses, many larger developers also neglected the whole theme music aspect of games creation in the shoot-em-up range so why should US Gold have bothered? the in-game effects are also a little on the basic side but there is still plenty of action to give your tiny little OHM speaker a run for it?s money, not the kind of game you would want to play without sound but after a while it?s not something you would miss if you did.

Gameplay

Gameplay is much the same as every other shoot-em-up, blow everything up that comes towards you and try to avoid hitting objects or bullets on the way. Bedlam is certainly not an easy title with some highly difficult attack waves from the very start of the game and the awful starting point (middle left of the screen) but once you get used to everything and learn the directions of each attack wave it?s pretty simple, it seems nothing in the game is random and can be seen as both a good thing and a bad thing for that reason.
Casual shoot-em-up games players will get more fun out of this game than those who are well and truly into the whole space shoot-em-up range of games and as such can probably be avoided by enthusiasts. If you fancy a quick blast then it might be worth checking out, it?s not ground breaking by any stretch but it?s simple enough to provide you with some great gameplay and once you get used to things a fairly addictive beast to boot.
Give it a shot and judge for yourselves.