Game Review: S.O.S. (Commodore 64, Mastertronic)

Many isometric 3D arcade adventures suffer a fatal flaw in that you constantly are needing to locate some form of energy pill or power up to remain alive, making the game a frantic memory test and often too frustrating. Indeed, the programmer Geoff Foley had produced the game Cylu previously, which was one of many which that had the same mechanics. Here, curiously, the title screen refers to the game as The Game With No Name (well before the different game GWNN on the Commodore 16 and Plus/4 was eventually released). Even more confusing is that while the Commodore 64 version has the catalogue number of IC 0160, the ZX Spectrum one is not IS 0160 as you may expect, but IS 0161.

The plot, effectively, is that the robot called Biomech 1 (or Sydney, to his friends) is lost in the ruins of a city on the planet Alpha Five. His creator, the Scientist Foley, has been threatened with the end of his career if Sydney does not come home in one piece. Sydney must find the radio that was in the plane when it crashed. This will allow the expedition to locate and collect him. The city is not quite ruined though, as there are droid robots that patrol the city and these must be avoided. To stay intact, Sydney needs to solve the problems by using the objects found. So, if you need to get past a ticket barrier, you need a ticket. To get a ticket, you must locate the vending machine and use any coins found to purchase the ticket. There are also daylight and darkness hours on Alpha Five too, where it goes pitch black, unless you locate an object to help.

Sending Out an S.O.S.

On the title screen you are introduced to some of the icons of objects and what potentially they may do in the game. These include flags and flag poles, floppy disks and computer terminals, coins, the vending machine, fence cutters, a watering can, a metal detector (which in-game is a mine detector), weeds, fences, barriers, energy boxes, and a lamp, as well as the all-important radio, which is your goal. The piece of music that plays repeats often and is dull, and this also repeats during the game, with no easy way of turning it off – and you do need the sound effects during play on occasion. Once you know where these parts are, you can turn the sound off and back on the television as you need.

You start off in one part of the city, and this start screen is one you will come back to often, as each time you lose one of your lives, and you have three initially, you will always be put back to here, no matter how far you are in the map. That is not helpful really – even some form of point that you touch to be relocated to when you lose a life would have been much more sensible game design and much less frustrating. The other main aspect to note is the rotational tank style controls, where left and right turns Sydney, and up then goes in the direction Sydney is facing. That does take some getting used to, and a choice of control methods may have been a better option to have. There is also a mistake in the instructions too when using the joystick – when you do get the lamp, pressing down (instead of F7) toggles the lamp on and off, so useful to note.

Can’t You Hear Me? S.O.S.

Once you get used to moving around, you will see some of the initial elements of the game. The droid robots move in a fixed pattern, either in a circle or loop formation or back and forward along the same line. Working out the best way to avoid these helps considerably with you getting further, and you will also within close range of the start point find some energy, an extra life, a diskette, a computer, and a flag. All objects that can be used are done with a press of the fire button for action, for example picking up an object when facing, or using an inventoried item in the right place. So, using a diskette at a computer disables it, allowing you to get past. Using coins at the ticket machine gives you tickets, which you can use to open the barriers to get past. Locating the fence cutter means you can cut down fences to get past. So, in essence that single fire button action does work well.

The mine detector is a very useful item to have. When collected, if Sydney is facing a mine on the next square, a sound effect will warn you as well as a message on screen. This does result in the loss of one of your energy units, but better that than to lose a life, I think. You can then turn and take avoiding action and off you go. Putting the flag on a flagpole, or, when you find the watering can, water the plants, which are not animated and appear still, reveals “something happens” on screen and this is one of the game events unlocked. You often will not see what this is but it normally is either knocking down a brick wall so you can get past, or placing a platform on water so you can cross safely without drowning and losing one of your lives. Any contact with water is fatal, which is why you need to tread carefully.

Nothing Else Can Save Me, S.O.S.

As you progress through the game, there will be some back-tracking, mainly back to the ticket machine to get more tickets. You will also need to regularly find the diskettes too as often the computers will block the way you need. There are some red herrings though, so once you have started to make a map you will find it useful. There is an excellent map over at Spectrum Computing, scanned from the magazine Computer Gamer, which is helpful. The screen changes during the days and nights, with colours turning to grey and then pitch black. If you do not have the lamp, then you need to wait in a safe place away from the droid robots. If you have the lamp, you can press down on the joystick or F7 on keys to toggle this on and off, but be warned: using the lamp also uses energy too, at a quite quick rate, so it is up to you which way you may find it works best.

Sydney can lose a life by being eaten by a droid robot, walking onto water, walking into a mine, or also when you get later into the game, hitting a piece of swamp. Unlike the mines, you have no warning of where the swap pieces are, and inevitably you will walk into one, lose a life, and must retrace your steps some way as well. That can be quite frustrating with the swamp especially, and a playability tweak is needed here. If you do get further in, there are twenty-one events to unlock with “something happens” before the way to the radio is available and you can complete the game. It may be a considerable amount of time before it happens, and there is some longevity in the gameplay once you get into it, with one game I had lasting a good couple of hours as I progressed well. The score for me appears to be more of a percentage of completion, so as you unlock computers with disks, water plants and so on, the score increases, albeit slowly.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in S.O.S are reasonably well drawn, with objects being recognisable. As with many isometric games, it is not always easy to see all the objects, and there is little in the way of animation for the enemy droid robots. However, the effects of the day turning into night and back again is very well done with sensible use of the colour palette to be bright during the day and dark and grey at night, with a clear status display indicating all of what you have and easy to work out what you may need to do next. The music will drive you insane after around a minute, as it is just a few notes that loop endlessly. It would have been much better to toggle the music, leaving the sound effects alone, which at least are informative, especially for the mine warnings.

Final Thoughts

There is so much that you could really like about S.O.S. The map is of a reasonable size and being able to use objects to free up more of the map, and have some good freedom of movement, is welcomed, as is the lack of rushing around to constantly top up energy. The joystick response is good, and it does at least feel like you know which way you are facing, even with the rotational control method. What lets S.O.S. down is the lack of execution in a couple of issues. The main one is that when you lose a life, being relocated all the way back to the start can be very unfair, and especially when exploring the far regions of the game’s map. An option to change the control method would also help. It is a case of had those been improved and tweaked, the game would have been a good but enjoyable challenge to play. As it stands, it is worth checking out if you are a fan of isometric 3D arcade adventures and have the patience to last the course.

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