The Gold of the Aztecs

Bret Conrad is another one of those Vietnam vets with a slight psychological problem. Apparently when bullets fly ‘I kind of lose control’ – a bit of a drawback in a Special Forces commando.

Conrad’s quest is a flickscreen arcade adventure. He can walk, jump, make long somersaulting jumps, duck, climb ladders and ropes. He’s also armed with a Browning pistol, drawn with a short tap on the firebutton; you can then swing the gun in an arc. Other actions are accessed via the space bar: the icons at the bottom of the screen show the Gun option. Reload (usually automatic, but you might want to top up before nasty screens), Machete (hack at enemies at close range) and Pull Lever. There are also four special options which become available at certain places in the game.

The graphics are generally very good, but you’d expect that of a flickscreen game and everything acts as it it’s in treacle with even the bullets taking their time to move. Each screen was a puzzle requiring deft use of the icon system to beat. Gold provides the same feel of slow, but extremely tough and unforgiving gameplay which demands both careful thought and very fast reactions. Later levels provide plenty of graphic variety and fresh puzzles so it rewards persistence. Without a save game it would be much too frustrating.

Yeah, it’s worth a look for the excellent and highly varied graphics, good tunes and all-round gloss but you’ll need quite a bit of patience to stick with it.