Game Review: RIP (Vic 20, Mastertronic)

One thing I loved about Mastertronic growing up was that – for the most part – they were pretty consistent in terms of quality for their games for the Vic 20. While games on other formats were somewhat hit-and-miss, you were guaranteed to get good value for money with a Vic 20 title, and almost everything ran on an unexpanded machine. But amongst all the good games, some stood out from the rest like RIP…

RIP – Rest In Peace

RIP – or Rest In Peace according to the initial loading screen – is an action packed arcade game written by the Vic 20 legend that is Mark Srebalius, author of Rockman and Phantom Attack. Your King has given you the task to seek out the 20 Chalices Of Truth that are located deep within the Crypts Of Darkess. Sounds spooky, doesn’t it? Armed with your trusty Staff Of Light as your only means of defence against the creatures within, you have to find them all and return them safely back to the King.

Basically, it’s a 20 screen shoot em-em-up and all you need to do is collect each Chalice and explore the maze of screens to collect them all. Either avoid or destroy all of the creatures on each screen using your staff to shoot, but beware as they shoot back as well. They’re not particularly bright though as they have a tendency to shoot each other making your task a little easier.

Gameplay

Gameplay is frantic from start to finish as the creatures respawn each time you enter a new room. Chalices are positioned randomly and you start each game in a random location so no two games ever play the same way. The number of creatures in each room is also randomised adding an extra level of chaos to the proceedings.

All of this combines to make for a frantic, addictive shoot-em-up that doesn’t let up for a second. Add the maze exploration element to the arcade action blends perfectly and the variety in the level design stops the game from being repetitive, whether it’s just background visuals you can use for cover or a maze you need to navigate.

Mark Srebalius Does It Again!

When it came to the Vic 20, programmer Mark Srebalius seemed to be able to do no wrong. I’ve already mentioned his two other games that he developed for Mastertronic (that we are aware of) and both are deservedly highly praised by fans and critics alike. It’s not just because they’re incredibly playable titles in their own right, but each is a technical marvel.

Each of his games managed to push the unexpanded Vic 20 beyond its limits and I think it’s safe to say that he was one of the best programers to have worked on the system back in the 1980s. While we’ve seen some stunning contemporary games released on the Vic 20 in recent years, I can’t think of anything in that time period that came close.

Longevity

What really makes RIP work for me is its long term appeal. I mentioned previously the randomised elements of the game and this really makes a huge difference to what is essentially a linear game. In theory, this should be the sort of game that you’ll play enough times until you master and complete it but that’s not the case.

With everything randomised, from the start location, attack patterns, position of the chalices, number of creatures you encounter and even the tile patterns and colours used for the background graphics, every single playthough looks and feels as fresh as the first time you load it up.

Smart Loading

Just like so many games for the unexpanded Vic 20, RIP starts off with a small loader before the main game. As well as providing a title screen and brief information on starting the game, this serves a more important function used by a lot of developers. To maximise the amount of memory available for the game itself, this loader initialises all of the graphics for the game freeing up that data in the main load.

In addition, by asking players whether they want to to use joystick or keyboard (which the player can redefine), it removes the need to have both control routines as part of the game code. That might not seem important, but that small amount of code makes a big difference when you’ve only got a small amount of space to work with!

Graphics and Sound

I’ll start with the sound and throughout the game plays a short 5 or 6 second except from Chopin’s Funeral March. This uses a single sound channel and frankly grates very quickly. With no option to turn the music off it will soon have you reaching for the volume control. Which is a pity because this is accompanied by some fantastic explosive sound effects and you blast away and explore the rooms. Strip the music out and it would have been superb.

The graphics, however, are a completely different story. I’ve said before how impressed I’ve been by the work of Mark Srebalius in his other games and RIP is no different. Everything moves at a blinding pace, no matter how many creatures or bullets (or whatever you want to call them) are on the screen at one time and as with all of his other Vic 20 games, all of the creatures are full animated and wonderfully detailed. The tiles for the backgrounds change for each room and each time you leave and re-enter each room and it makes the entire game a delight to look at.

Not Quite Perfect…

The more I played RIP, the more I wanted to give this one of our very rare perfect ten scores on the site. Unfortunately it just missed the mark for a couple of minor reasons and I had to be brutal about it. First, as I mentioned earlier, the music was absolutely awful and with no way to turn it off and just have sound effects it became irritating within a matter of moments.

The other issue affected the gameplay. Sometimes when you enter a room the chalice appears inside one of the background pictures and is impossible to reach as you can see in the screenshot above.This is easily resolved by leaving the room and returning to it, but this causes all of the creatures to respawn. As I said, it’s only a minor thing but I’d presume there either wasn’t enough space in the code to add a check for this or it was just a simple oversight.

Overall

RIP is one of, if not the best Vic 20 game released by Mastertronic. It oozes charm and playability and will have you glued to the screen for hours every time you load it up. Forget the original £1.99 price tag – this could have easily been a full price release. It certainly deserved to sell far more copies than it but this is an essential game for the Vic.

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