Mask Two

Copyright : Gremlin Graphics | Reviewed by : Patrick Furlong

his is the second game based on the MASK licence. You can choose one of three missions to play - Mission 1 has you on a mission to rescue the President of the Peaceful Nations Alliance (P.N.A - their version of the UN) and take him to sign a peace treaty. Mission 2 sees you going to the Middle East to destroy a VENOM base which will exploit oil resources. Mission 3 has VENOM using a stolen ruby to power a laser gun - your job is to return the ruby and destroy the gun. Before you start your selected mission, you are in the MASK energiser room deep in Bolder Hill where you get to choose your three-man team. Matt Trakker, MASK leader drives Thunderhawk, which is a car and an aircraft. Bruce Sato drives the Rhino ATV, which goes over land and sea. Alex Sector drives the Rhino rig which can only travel over land but can ram pink blocks. Brad Turner controls Condor, a motorbike which can turn into a mini helicopter. Dusty Hayes is in charge of Gator, a jeep which has a hovercraft feature. After you select your team, your mission begins. At any time during the level, you can change your machine, but be careful where you change it because if you change to Thunderhawk, Rhino and Condor over water, it will destroy your machine.

Graphics

I wasn?t too keen on the graphics in this game although the MASK elements were all reconisable. In the energiser room scene, when you place your cursor over one of the characters, you get a colourful picture of the person in question. These are very reconisable. MASK fans and viewers will reconise the Switchblade, Jackhammer and Vampire war machines in game while Thunderhawk, Rhino, Condor and Gator are all reconisable, even in their transformed modes. When it touches water, Gator transforms into a hovercraft - it might not have been possible for the designers to show it leaving the jeep mode. The PNA President looks like a digitized picture of the late Ronald Reegan. There are some graphical bugs at times - sometimes they are just minor, but sometimes they can be major, corrupting some sprites. There are traps in the various levels which can?t be seen.

Sound

The energiser room scene features the same title music as featured in the first MASK game and again, this is very good. In-game effects are limited to guns and annoying beeps. Whenever you die, you get an annoying sound. There are occasional sound bugs, more noticeable when you lose a level or at the end of a level.

Gameplay

This was the first MASK game I played and at the time, I liked it despite the lack of a proper pause function. Instead, you had to hold down the H key to pause it - not much good if you have to leave for any reason. Thank goodness for a Multiface in this case. Each level has it?s own difficulty levels - Mission 1 is the easiest while Mission 3 is the hardest - I?ve not completed it to this day. Mission 2 starts with a very tricky section to get out off - this has caused me to lose many times because at the bottom of the pit is water. Gator and Condor start each level with half damage and fuel. Whenever you get 100% damage or run out of fuel, your craft is no good. You can get repair kits and extra fuel throughout the level. The bugs which can see you end up in the enviroment ruins things - you can?t get out of it and so you keep going and going until you run out of fuel.

There are some very good ideas in this licence, but the bugs and sound ruin things a little.