C64 Review of Stormlord from Issue 51
|
After repeatedly dazzling Commodore owners with his macho, well ‘ard flickscreen shoot-’em-up designs Raffaele Cecco has now gone all soppy (or pervy) with this romantic tale of mythic adventure. An evil Queen has imprisoned all the fairies in the land and only the Stormlord can rescue them — by jumping on top of them! Needless to say all the fairies are female and distinctly lacking clothing, so that’s not bad but actually getting to them in the first place is never easy.
The game is made up of four levels, each with five fairies to rescue before time runs out. The smoothly-scrolling landscapes which contain the spellbound fairies have a wide variety of monsters, from swooping dragons to vicious pawns, and lots of traps. To rescue one fairy, for example, you need an umbrella to survive acid rain. Working out how to use the various objects is fairly easy, but getting the order right, blasting all the baddies and not running out of time isn’t.
At the end of each level there’s a bonus section where Stormlord receives the gratitude of the fairies, who fly overhead while the gruff hero blows kisses at them. If a kiss touches one of the fairies she drops a single tear. Collect ten tears and you get an extra life.
This review was typed in/OCRed by Iain
|
|
 |
|
|
ZzapBack
|
In the spirit of ZzapBack, you can have your say about how the game reviewed above, stands up in the cold light of today. Has it aged
badly or is it still worth a few plays? Read other peoples thoughts and post your own.
The current ZzapBack rating is : 73%
Check out the most recent ZzapBack comments.
|
|
|
|
|
Rate It!
|
Login or Register at the forums if you want to be able to edit your comments
|
|
 |
|
|
|
CraigGrannell - 13 Apr 2005
|
I never really 'got' Raffaele Cecco's games. They all seemed very pretty—and the C64 versions had the advantage of excellent soundtracks, too—but they were so damned difficult. Still, there was a decent challenge here, if nothing particularly new. With that in mind, most of the ratings were spot on, although I'd drop hookability and overall slightly, probably to low 70s.
Rating : 71%
|
|
 |
|
|
Iain - 13 Apr 2005
|
I will never forget Phil's comments about this game, "Any game containing nude women gets my vote!" and you have to agree with him.
The graphics are excellent, apart from the lack of animation on the main character (just noticed the rating says the opposite to this, but when he jumps, there's no animation) but the game is very hard and very unforgiving. The collison detection is exact!
Rating : 76%
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Stuart Wynne
|
|
Nick Jones has done another, first-class conversion of a Rat Cecco design. The graphics are all really attractive, and the in-game music is good as well. The adventure elements are relatively easy to work out, but doing them in the correct order and beating the tough arcade sections makes completing level one really satisfying. The other levels are even tougher, but repeatedly playing through level one to get to them becomes irritating. Nevertheless it’s been a while since such well-presented arcade adventure has appeared, and while there’s nothing new here it’s all very playable.
|
|
 |
|
|
Phil King
|
|
Any game containing nude women gets my vote! Raf Cecco’s fab arcade adventure has been converted to the 64 in great style, retaining all the compulsive playability of the original. Collecting fairies might seem a simple idea, but working out how to get to them requires some thought. And what better reward for your troubles than the neat bonus round, complete with even more naked fairies! But it’s not just the saucy sprites which impress — the scenery is attractive and the hero excellently animated. My only worry is that with only four levels, experienced games players might complete it too quickly, but they’ll sure have fun doing it!
|
|
|
|
|
Robin Hogg
|
|
I honestly thought Cybernoid was dead good but the sequel [sic - was] sadly more of the same (well, we can’t win them all). Stormlord is a lot different of course and enjoyable with it but it’s all too slow moving to keep you at it and mistakes are mercilessly punished — a toughie this one. The preview game I saw a while back looked excellent and with the coming of the final game that view still stands. Shaded backdrops galore, well detailed sprites abound (I Iuurve the top-heavy fairies) and an excellent if unoriginal and heavy soundtrack (bits of Ghosts’ N’ Goblins in there methinks?). Professionally implemented but not one for the Cybernoid crowd.
|
|
|
|
|
Ratings
|
PRESENTATION 88%
The game is perfectly polished and the control method is simple enough.
GRAPHICS 89%
The main character’s animation is very smooth as he explores the attractive scenery.
SOUND 82%
Plenty of little jingles throughout and a good title tune.
HOOKABILITY 79%
Easy to get into and infuriatingly addictive.
LASTABILITY 78%
Challenging enough to keep you playing for weeks.
OVERALL 80%
A typical Hewson release: superb presentation and very playable.
|
|
|
|
|
|
