REVIEW

AT 1,17; "ANOTHER DRINK, REVEREND?"

Reviewer: Aliena
Developer: R Tape
Genre: Shoot-Em-Up
Platform: Spectrum 48K
Language: BASIC

The story of this game actually begins in late 1988 when a young Davey Hughes saw some kids playing a demo of Kempston-destroying classic R-Type in his local Boots. He saved up for weeks to buy it and eventually handed over his £9.99 to the shop assistant and walked out of the shop with his head held high.

Unfortunately the kids from the shop had preempted his purchase and were laying in wait outside Woolworths where they set upon him and relieved him of his prize. (Where are you going with this? Ed.)

When he arrived home he was unable to bring himself to explain where his pocket money had gone. Instead Davey crept up to his room and knocked up a passable copy of the game in Spectrum BASIC. It worked - just - and since then he has been known as R Tape as a tenuous reminder of his deceit. Only now, after years of therapy, is he ready to show that game to the rest of the world...

Another drink, Reverend? - presumably in reference to the years spent confessing his sins to local clergymen - is R Tape's supposed masterpiece of deception and, after a quick loading screen (hastily added to present at this year's competition) it's straight into battle.

The first thing I noticed is that the main player UDG doesn't resemble the iconic R-9a "Arrowhead" space fighter as closely as expected. This was probably a shrewd move back in '88 to keep the lawyers at the Irem Corporation at bay, however, I don't really like the replacement graphic.

There's also a curious aesthetic decision to extend the scrolling landscape graphics to the edges of the screen but not the magenta borders at the top and bottom. No doubt this is a programming trick that saves space in 'Memory' (or something - Ed,) but it just looks odd to me.

R Tape's alien waves are also not as varied or imaginative as those in the original game, however, they serve their purpose and after shooting a few of them you'll face your first boss battle. Unfortunately, once again, these are hardly the screen-bursting foes of old.

Those well versed in the language of BASIC should examine the code in which you can clearly see that it's supposed to take 4 hits to defeat the boss, however, the collision detection is a little unforgiving. As a result I find you just have to get up close and keep firing until one of you gives up and dies.

After successfully killing the 'boss' it's onto the next level where the game continues in much the same vein but on a different 'planet.'

There are 4 'planets' to fight through in total, all with the same boss to defeat each time, but at least it won't take you long. If you're unlucky enough to collide with a baddie, however, then the game crashes and you'll need to press R to RUN the program again and start off from the beginning.

Unfortunately I really can't recommend this and I don't know how R Tape pulled the wool over the world's eyes for so long. It's just a shame that R-Type itself is denied distribution on WoS otherwise we'd all be able to see how it should've been done.

BREAKING LEGAL NEWS: Someone has suggested that this game was inspired less by R-Type and more by this Chronosoft title from 2012. Luckily this photo of R Tape from 1988 provides irrefutable time-locked proof to the contrary.

[ Top of Page ]