THE Golden Tribe of Bacula have overrun the twin planet Mu and taken captive the beautiful Princess Sheta
The 40ft high Flavians of Flatulence have kidnapped the sister of the High Lord Tebbo of the planet creationscheme. Only you can save the universe by getting on your bike and destroying everything in sight.
This will convince the Flavians that you are indeed a force to be reckoned with and that they will apologise, return your sister and probably offer to repaint your house as well.
No matter how it is described, the polot boils down to the "switch off your brain and shoot" variety, with the currently in vogue optional extra weapons. Two players can play together, one driving a car, the other flying a hoverplane. When only one person is playing, he or she alternates between the car and plane on different levels.
You travel up a series of raods, through jungles and across deserts towards something the resident aliens take offence at your seeing. Since flying around the locals is not offered as an option, your only recourse of action is to explain matters to them with a subtle blend of diplomacy and deadly bombs.
As it always does, the dual player option adds to the enjoyment of the game. However in Last Duel this is only achieved by having two separate games being played on the same screen at once with little cooperation or competition. Later on both players fly almost identical ships with the inevitable "Aargh! Which one is me?!" problems.
At the end of every level there is the customary larger than the average creatre to kill. This can take the form of several barely-
Once these have been dispatched you are treated to a well drawn scantily-
The graphics are reasonably good, if a little slow. The car looks like a Sumo wrestler with a bun on his head, but otherwise everything is unremarkable, with the possible exception of the organic-
With vertical scrolling routines lifted directly from LED Storm, this game seems to have been knocked up pretty quickly. The gameplay is workmanlike, if not entirely exciting. There are a couple of annoying bugs and thoughtless omissions, such as your spaceship not actually exploding when hit by enemy fire, just reappearing moments later at a different place on the screen.
At the end of the day we have nothing new: Fight your way up the fortified landscape, shoot all and sundry. The different levels certianly bring variety. Staying interested long enough to seem them is another matter.
This is really good fun. It's not so much the brill graphics - they're nicely detailed but confined to a pretty small area anyway - or they really good sound; it's just got bags of playability, especially in two-player mode. In fact, the only thing wrong with it is that it's a bit too easy - none of us have ever played the obscure arcade original, so we can't give you a conversion factor, but I wouldn't have thought it was this simple... Still, if you're an Amiga owner who likes a cross between dodging, racing and blasting, you could do a lot worse. Check it out.
What a great little shoot 'em up this is! The sound and graphics are very well done: brilliant detail with loads of colour and some clear and atmospheric FX and music, even if the tunes are a bit 'poppy' for my tastes! The control is very precise so that it's never the computer's fault that you crashed into the wall - and the extra weapons are very powerful indeed, just as they should be; none of this 'pea shooter Mk II' rubbish! My only qualm is that it's a bit on the easy side - I managed to finish it in an afternoon's frantic blasting - but it's still fun to play even after you've finished it. Fans of the arcade original and shoot 'em up fans in general should check it out; it's not at all bad!
