|
WHIRLINURD
US
Gold/Sydney, £9.95
cass, £14.95
disk, joystick only
|
O
200 screen playing area collect-and-dodge game |
Welcome
to the world of Hamish Pupkin, Naples Yertz, Hooseby
Nurd and Melvin Lugby. These intrepid nurds all have
propellors screwed to their heads and are constantly
in search of food for their rumbling nurd-guts.
You
control one of the four nurd brothers and have to negotiate
50 rooms of obstacles, picking up food on the way. Each
room is about four screens large, the screen scrolling
to follow the action.
In
each room you have to collect four pieces of food --
nurds eat anything that doesn't glow -- before you can
move onto the next room. The rooms come in five levels
of ten, the last level only being accessible through
a codename gained from the previous four.
Whirlinurd
looks happily at an advancing
deadly snake.
You
control your nurd in two main ways, walking around and
flying using the propellors on his head. There are limitations
on the flying -- you can propel upwards from solid ground,
but as soon as you release the fire-button you drift
back down again -- your propellor can't be restarted
in mid-air. The only way you can reverse a downward
drift is by using a 'retroboost' jet, but you are limited
to just one of these per room (unless you find a 'blast
mat' which gives you another). This adds greatly to
the difficulty of dodging the various enemies.
Your
nurd initially appears in a 'synthetic water-aided ectoplasmic
sludge bubble', but after that he's in constant danger.
There are lots of glowing obstacles that, if touched,
will cause his head to fly away (under 'auxiliary nurd
power supply'!) or he may starve if you don't get him
to food in time.
You
can have up to four different nurds with three lives
each, an extra one being awarded after each completed
room. The fifth level is filled with the Ultimate Feasts
but it's incredibly tough even before then.
There's
a monotonous tune that plays during the game with the
occasional nice sound effect. The graphics are mostly
plain although the monsters and obstacles are detailed.
BW
|
