Crystal Castles

Copyright : Andromeda | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Described by Julian Rignall as "When I first saw Crystal Castles, it?s shockwaves nearly knocked me off my feet - that was long ago. I cannot conceive that you will every buy it in a shop. It?s like a state of manic hysteria on diamond plateaus in deep space - some things are beyond description."

That was what he thought but what did we think of the CPC version?

Graphics

Crystal Castles is a fairly basic game by its very nature, a set of 3D maps are drawn on the screen and our hero is added along with the bad guys and the various diamonds he must pick up along the journey. This is a game whose graphical elements vary from level to level and can be seen in various different lights, for example if you look at screen grab 1 below you will notice the poor colour usage, badly drawn characters and that is before we even get started on the slow state of gameplay and very bad control system.

Now look at screen grab 2 and the game looks almost passable, colours have leveled out a little bit and if you where playing the game you would notice a slight difference in speed.

The major sad thing about this classic title is the poor rate at which the game is played on the CPC, you simply cannot get around the maps fast enough and the animation leaves a lot to be desired.

Sound

Sound is extremely bad for such a classic, I honestly cannot remember how the game played in the arcades but am pretty positive the sound was much better than the CPC conversion. All we are left with is the buzzing sound of diamonds being collected, the awful high pitched beep when you space-jump over the bad guys and the tiny piece of music when you die.

As you can probably tell, it?s not impressive at all.

Gameplay

Those that have ever played the Atari 2600 classic Q-Bert will instantly recognise the type of game Crystal Castles fits into. All you have to do is get around the 3D maps and collect the diamonds without being eaten or pushed off the edge by the bad guys, kind of like a 3D pacman without the speed.

The major problems here are the frame rate and awful control system. There is always a set of diamonds that you cannot get to in time and before you manage to turn the corner some nasty alien creature takes away your life.

Yes I?m affraid that although this is an arcade classic adored by many the CPC conversion wasn?t given much love and falls flat on its bottom.