BAT

Copyright : UBISoft | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Earth, 22nd century.

You are about to embark on an exciting and dangerous adventure. The Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters has selected you as their special agent. Your mission, to find and destroy Vrangor, the evil genius who is threatening the people of the planet Selenia.

A point and click adventure from the French masterminds behind Zombi.

Graphics

One word: Stunning. Load this game up, and take a long hard look at both the title screen and the in-game screen shots and then remember that you?re playing this on a CPC (or a CPC emulator if you?re being pedantic!). I doubt that I have ever seen more impressive visuals on the machine.

As well as the actual in game screenshots, the menu system used for control also looks good and is large enough not to be fickly. It might not be as super polished as some of the other games out there and the graphics are a little rough around the edges but this adds to the atmosphere of the game in my opinion. If you want to see just how good a job UBI Soft have done with the Amstrad version, compare the graphics with those found in the C64 game.

The sheer balls of trying to cram the 16-bit game and its distinctive visuals, which looked mightily impressive on the Amiga too, on to the Amstrad would deserve respect but to do so and manage to keep it so close to the original is incredible.

Sound

None. Something had to give way I suppose and if its a choice between a nice title tune and the graphics, the visuals win hands down everytime!!!

Gameplay

A kind of mix between the plot of Blade Runner and Totall Recall, BAT has an intriguing plot at its core, supplemented by a very deep manual that provides all sorts of background details and a novella which lays out the scenario or so Ive been told, Ive never actually clapped eyes on it personally - which does make the game an even more tricky puzzler than it has to be. Although some, slight headway can be made into the game, it will take a herculean effort to make real inroads.

Although a popular genre at the time, the point and click adventure is a bit of a rarity on the CPC due to the severe hardware restrictions involved, as such BAT is a bit of a novelty and UBI Soft cannot be faulted for the job they`ve done in squeezing so much in to the CPC.

The icon format can be a little confusing at first but is easy to grasp and is actually a pretty effective control method that allows quick movement throughout Terrapolis as well as all the other traditional staples of an adventure game such as examining objects, talking to other characters and using items.

The whole thing looks fantastic and it is great fun to wander around the area, I only wish I knew what was going on. The game seems to be very tough but without the full information to hand I can`t judge whether that is an intentional difficulty level or the result of minimising on screen instructions and cramming them into the manual!

If anyone does have the manual for BAT then please get in touch via the CPC Zone forum as it could prove to be an invaluable resource in opening up this masterful looking game to a wider audience, your humble reviewer included!