Spherical logo

RAINBOW ARTS £19.99 JOYSTICK

Remember Solomon's Key? If you do, this is a lot like it; if you do not, well, the aim of this 'influenced' game is to ensure that a ball runs down to a certain part of the screen by building blocks over holes in another set of blocks that already cover the screen.

There are ghosts to avoid, magic potions to collect and some 200 different levels to complete. There is even a simultaneous two-player mode which you may find useful because on a lot of the screens you have little time to think about where the ball will roll once it starts or whether it will fall down the wrong holes. The laws of gravity are obeyed here, so if the ball lands on the floor there is no way of making it roll uphill to the exit again (unless you are lucky enough to discover a gravitation switch, which will simply reverse the gravity).

The control is awkward, but the game is fun to play and although it is unoriginal, it is quite a mental exercise. With 200 screens to complete it is liable to keep you busy for some while.


Spherical logo

Rainbow Arts
Amiga

One swift glance at Rainbow Arts' latest release will tell you that this is a somewhat belated 16 bit clone of the old 64 game from US Gold, Solomon's Key.

The game is played across a series of screens, each individual level in which a little wizard has to move around collecting jewels and directing a magic orb into a stone to complete the screen.

Despite being small the graphics are quite neat and colourful and the game is certainly playable in a throwaway kind of sense.