Super Pipeline 2

Copyright : Amsoft | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

You play Foreman Fred. His job is to defend the pipeline and get any leaks fixed fast. The leaks can only be fixed by a workman and he needs to be taken to the leak before he?ll start.

The pipeline runs through many hostile lands populated by evil insects and terrible tools. You have the only gun, so the workmen look to you for protection.

Graphics

Chunky mode 0 graphics that are both colourful and appealing. Although not the most detailed of sprites that leaving you guessing as to what they are supposed to be for the most part, they are varied enough to help you easily distinguish between them. Fred and his boys are also some of the ugliest characters to grace a computer game (certainly as heroes anyway!) but we?ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they meant it.

A nice touch is the little set piece that plays out at the bottom of the screen each time you complete a level with your rebellious workers often being lured away by the call of the pub or a well endowed female!

Sound

While sound effects are limited to your gunshots, the music in this title steals the show as far as the sound is concerned. A nice little tune plays throughout the menu and loops after a minute or so. Restarting when you begin a new game, the tune continues throughout only to be replaced with another, shorter tune, when Fred bites the big one, happily starting off again when play resumes.

Gameplay

Without wanting to get too political: you can tell that this game was written during Thatcher?s Britain can?t you! Unionised plumbers who?ll ignore a leak unless the foreman orders them to fix it!

Don?t ask why a walking screwdriver can suddenly burst a hole in a pipe or why you?re equipped with a gun to shoot what looks like ice cream cones, or even why you are forced at times to sacrifice one of your employees to a lobster to save your own skin (bet it never mentioned THAT on the Y.T.S. form?)

Stripping away the bizarre plot reveals a strong gameplay hook that at times requires a mixture of avoiding baddies and at others finding a good vantage spot to try and pick them off on their way into the screen.

Although far from complex or difficult, Super Pipeline 2 is good fun thanks to this fine blend of strategy and panic sprinting around the screen when the going begins to get tough.

The sixteen levels are laid out in a varied enough fashion to provide a bit of a challenge although once you get the general vibe of how best to deal with the enemy it can become a bit repetitive.

All in all a nice, fun, arcade action in the traditional sense and one that you will probably have missed from the first time around. Download it and give it a go now if you haven?t already done so.