TF01
3,MICROCOSM
4,by Psygnosis
MICROCOSM, Psygnosis, £44.99

Ratings:

Graphics    -  9/10
Sound       -  8/10
Playability -  4/10
Lastability -  3/10
Innovation  -  9/10

Overall - 56%

                           Marcus Priddey
                          ----------------

I remember the days, when I were a lad (to be read with an "up north"
accent) when I was playing games on  my old rubber keyed 48k Spectrum
and occasionally a game would  come  along  and  make me think "WOW!"
such as Arc of Yesod where you  had speech ONCE immediately after you
had waited five minutes for  the  thing  to  load  from tape or Mikie
where you had a rendition of "A Hard Days Night."

Now, a trifle decade later, when your old faithful 8 bit computer has
been gathering dust in the attic for  years  it is amazing to see how
far games have progressed. Now  we  have  32 bit machines which loads
games in seconds from CD, of all media. And as for speech. Well...

Upon loading up  Microcosm  you  are  presented  with  a  five minute
"movie" with  some  stunning  animation  and  video  footage combined
complete with loads of  speech  and  effects.  Not  only that, but it
plays each time you  start  a  new  game!  Wow  indeed. There are two
options here by the way. If you  press the red button on your control
pad, as it says  in  the  accompanying  booklet,  you  get the normal
cutdown version with speech etc, but if you press the green, although
you lose the speech, you do  get  a  full screen version of the intro
and it does look rather impressive.

After the intro, you are thrown straight  into the action and boy, is
the action thick and fast. This  short  section  is to get you to the
main pod where you get select your various missions some of which are
quite tough, whereas others are near nigh well impossible!

Throughout the various stages are  little snippets of animation which
give your aching fingers a break  for  a  pico-second and a chance to
admire the game some more.

As you may have  gathered,  Microcosm  is  a  shoot-em-up and quite a
violent mindless one it is as well.  It  is also very annoying as you
can quite easily get caught in  a  loop  and  if you've been around a
path  and  have  already  blasted   everything,  you  have  to  blast
everything again.

Basically, the story behind  it  is  that  you  have been shrunk, and
injected into someones body who happens to  be the head of a powerful
corporation and his rival has  taken  it  upon himself to inject some
controls so he can destroy  the  corporation  from the "inside" as it
were. It is your job to hunt  down these controls (the various end of
level baddies) and destroy them.

Now there are five levels in all.  Four  of these can be completed in
any order you please, but must be completed before you can proceed to
the fifth and final level, The Brain's right hemisphere, and face the
final guardian, "Grey M".

Now whilst this game is visually  and aurally very impressive indeed,
it does suffer from some very  major  drawbacks.  First, it IS just a
mindless blast so the playability  factor  is  very  low. Also, it is
very, very tough indeed and this combined  with the lack of save game
makes  this  one  extremely  difficult   game  to  complete,  without
resorting to cheats. It is  due  to  these  two drawbacks that I very
rarely play this game anymore. I bought it in April '94 and I've only
played it a handful of times  since.  Fortunately, it is now released
with the CD32 so as  a  freebie  you  won't particularly mind but, if
like me you shell out £44.95 you might be sorely disappointed.

One word of warning though - it  may  be just me, but I wouldn't play
this game for overly long or have the  sound too loud as you may find
you have splitting headache  when  you  do  turn it off. Fortunately,
there is a medical warning  at  the  back of the instruction booklet.
Follow this when playing any sort of  game on whatever system you may
have.

Graphics    - 10/10
Sound       -  8/10
Playability -  5/10
Lastability -  4/10
Innovation  -  8/10

Overall - 54%


                             Sven Harvey
                            -------------

Well this finally arrived (it  was  supposed  to  be bundled with the
CDTV!) and WHAT A MAJOR DISSAPOINTMENT! The graphics are great in the
animations (but why  couldn't  they  get  it  full  screen with sound
effects? Millenium can do it!) but  not  so  hot in the game (hey the
CD32 CAN DO BETTER as you  would  have  seen with Novastorm which now
won't make it out). The sound is  great and atmospheric but the games
major flaw is the actual gameplay.

To be honest it's crap. You  fly  into  the screen and shoot, a major
step forward in gameplay.. NOT! But  it  could  have been fun, but no
this just doesn't  cut  it.  Spooling  animation  off  the  CD (which
believe me doesn't tax the  CD32  in  any  way, the drive light isn't
even on that much!) is new but  the gameplay is Space Harrier and not
a good version. The control system is  okay but is a little too quick
to get accurate shots off and  you  can  very easily get caught in an
endless loop of the same tunnel thanks  to bad level design. Hey nice
idea, ok graphics but where is the game?  I couldn't find it. It is a
little more interactive than Space Ace and Dragons Lair but not much.
I suppose it's a must have because it hasn't been done before and the
CD32 version makes all the other versions (including the CDi, 3DO, PC
CD-ROM and FM Towns versions) look really bad but if you want to play
a game spend the £45 (it ain't great value) somewheres else.. you can
buy 4 other games for that!

Graphics    -  8/10
Sound       -  8/10
Playability -  2/10
Lastability -  1/10
Innovation  -  9/10

Overall - 58%