Cholo

Copyright : Firebird | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

The surface of Cholo smoulders and glows, no oceans, no trees, no life... only post nuclear fallout and instant sun tan. The days pass slowly in the confines of the bunkers and shelters beneath Cholos ravaged surface.

You pass away your pointless life, working at a terminal and listening to the comittee reports from Cholo topside. One piece of software is very popular : "EAT" a computer game guiding robots and roving eyes in and around a shattered city, a city similar to the ones that scatter the surface - maybe too similar.

Could you really be in contact with topside? and if so where is the lethal radiation which is reported in the official comittee bulletins?

Graphics

Cholo is an isometric 3D shoot and explore game in which you guide those robots mentioned in the introduction to find out just how much of the truth is being told. In terms of graphics the game looks pretty much like most other 3D games of this time, everything is made up of lines without textures and objects are formed out of well known shapes, this helped generate a virtual reality type environment and certainly did a good job back in the day.

When we compared this game to the ZX Spectrum version the only major differences in the Amstrad released and that of the Spectrum is that the colours are much better and slightly more varied on our beloved machine, the game also runs at a slightly faster but still fairly slow speed.

Sound

As for sound, well there isn?t a lot we can tell you. Once the game has loaded you are only ever going to hear the same bleep until you hit the fire button, once in the game you?re still not getting your moneys worth. The only semi worth while sound is that of your weapons when you fire at an oncoming enemy.

Gameplay

The introduction pretty much sums the idea of the game up, you are to guide the robots via the "EAT" software to discover the hidden truths about Cholo and see exactly what the comittee have been hiding all these years. Obviously this isn?t going to be as easy as it sounds and you are soon stopped in your tracks and forced to open fire.

The game is in the ever popular 3D engine that many of us grew to love and hate over the period of these wonderful machines and those that have ever played titles such as Star Wars will easily feel at home with Cholo. Although the controls are often a little "sticky" and it doesn?t run at the best speed there has been a fair amount of effort put into the appearance of the game and if you are going to play it then there is no better than the CPC release.

Certainly worth checking out.