Gyroscope puts you in a similar surrealistic
situation to the arcade classic Marble Madness.
The basic gameplay is very simple -- you take control
of a gyroscope with the task of getting from the starting
post at the top of the course to the finishing post
at the bottom within the allotted time. Each time the
gyroscope topples, a life is lost. The course is very
strange, presented in a surrealistic 3D effect featuring
tall geometric buildings, ramps and steep slopes, along
and around which you have to guide the gyroscope. The
course also provides a home for some rather strange
(and vaguely familiar) aliens, whose touch topples your
spinner.
There
are six courses, each taking up five screens. As you
make your way down a course, the screen scrolls vertically
with the gyroscope. The whole game is played against
a clock, which ticks off the time relentlessly as you
try to complete each quintet of screens. Completing
a course earns you a bonus related to the amount of
time remaining on the clock.
Escher
on the small screen -- the gyroscope
is all set to fall into oblivion due to the arrows
on the floor pushing it in that direction.
You
begin the game with five lives in store, and pick up
a bonus life for each 1,000 points scored. If you fail
to complete a screen course within the time limit, the
gyroscope topples when the count hits zero, a life is
lost, and you resume play from the spot you reached
at timeout with the clock reset to start a new run.
There
are some very thin catwalks between the buildings, and
here lies the main danger. If you stray too near the
edge of a construction or catwalk, your gyro becomes
unbalanced and totters over -- another life gone. When
this happens, the gyro is replaced at the place where
it died and thus time is lost as well as a life.
Control
of a gyroscope takes some getting used to -- once you
start moving in one direction it takes a while to slow
down. The beast accelerates down slopes, and constant
checks have to be made to ensure you're not going too
fast -- if there's a sharp turn at the bottom you could
find yourself in deep trouble and run out of road.
Inanimate
hazards on the course complicate matters further, and
include black holes (which make control of your gyro
rather difficult) and magnetic floors (which pull you
in certain directions, usually to the edge of a precipice).
The landscapes are very deviously created; starting
from relatively easy, they get more tricky very rapidly.
Some of the difficult courses contain thin catwalks,
horrendous slopes with tight corners, holes in the floor,
and combinations of all these with the aforementioned
hazards -- being a gyroscope isn't all just spinning
around.
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