Para Assault Course

Copyright : Zeppelin Games | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

The most deadly killing machines in the world (apart from the Marinesâ?¦ And the SASâ?¦), the paratrooper is a well honed machine developed through hours and hours of assault course work. Have you got what it takes to become part of the third most deadly armed force in the Western World (although the Foreign Legion arenâ??t bad eitherâ?¦)

Graphics

All the Reds, Yellows and Greens you could ask for as Zeppelin continue their well established tradition of porting straight over from the Spectrum to the Amstrad. All the regular pitfalls of the software house are here â?? poor colour scheme, dodgy scrolling, poorly defined and blocky sprites. You wonâ??t see anything cutting edge or original in this gameâ??s graphics although it should be pointed out that the graphics are clear throughout and it is easy to work out whatâ??s going on, even at speed.

The player controlled character moves jerkily and unrealistically â?? one second heâ??s too slow, the next heâ??s bombing along the course. His jumps are wildly exaggerated and as for when he falls over? Letâ??s just say big butch paratrooper is not the first thought that springs to mind.

Sound

From what I could make out the only sound was a splurge to indicate the start of the time trial. Very poor indeed.

Gameplay

Like itâ??s follow-up, Para Academy, Para Assault course is an old fashioned joystick waggler where time is off the essence and your ability to make razor sharp decisions can be the difference between success and failure. Unfortunately, the game hampers this ability with some bad character movement (as mentioned above) that seriously affects your ability to time and perfect moves the way you have to in this type of game.

More often than not youâ??ll find yourself smashing in to walls not because you havenâ??t jumped but rather youâ??ve left it too late to jump for the computer to react â?? very frustrating! Another irritation is when you have to jump from rounded fence to rounded fence (I think- itâ??s hard to tell what itâ??s supposed to beâ?¦) â?? you have to jump when your back foot is on the very last pixel or itâ??s back to the start of the obstacle. The other major source of annoyance is the slopes â?? now I would expect a paratrooper to run up a sloped hill like that, jump off, land on his feet and get going again ASAP. Not in this game. When running up the slope, you have to slow down to an absolute crawl when going over the edge or else your trooper goes into a spasm and collapses on the floor. Not realistic and frankly stupid.

Para Assault Course is not the worst game in the Zeppelin collection but itâ??s still a painfully average experience with no innovation and far too many irritating points to make you want to come back for more. Avoid.