Captain Dynamo

Copyright : Codemasters | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Captain Dynamo has been forced out of retirement one last time to return the stolen diamond hoard from the mad professor Austen Von Flyswatter.

Take back the diamond collection before the crazed loon makes his escape to the moon.

Graphics

Purple? Green? Do my eyes deceive me or do we have another Spectrum port in our midst? Noâ?¦ in a word.

An obvious Speccie port, Captain Dynamo bears all the hallmarks of our 8-bit cousin â?? garish colour schemes, black borders around sprites and graphicsâ?¦ itâ??s all been said a thousand times before.

On the plus side, the Captain is very nicely animated and has some good attention to detail and although he moves a little slowly this is at least explained in the plot and is entirely forgivable for this reason.

The sparkle of the diamonds is a nice touch and Iâ??ve seen an awful lot worse released on the Amstrad than this.

Sound

Loud if lacklustre, the sound effects in this game are nothing to write home about. Pretty standard collect and death noises keep the game from being completely silent. A little disappointing from Codemasters who normally at least attempt a tune or a wider scale of spot effects.

Gameplay

A tricky platform game, Captain Dynamo offers hours of challenge before you can hope to complete the last of the six levels.

The various dangers and hazards are numerous and well placed meaning that the collection of the diamonds is often difficult and will pose quite a few problems for even hardened gamers.

This difficulty curve is well designed however as there is always the thought that with a little perseverance you can work out how to time the jumps perfectly. Luck, while always a factor, is not the only thing youâ??ll need to make progress in this game â?? itâ??ll take some serious skill.

Fortunately for your sanity you donâ??t have to collect every single diamond to progress to the next level but obviously itâ??s in your best interests to get as many as you can as quickly as you can.

A pretty good platformer, Captain Dynamo is a nice challenge that makes up for its lack of originality with some good level design and a healthy dose of gameplay.