Game Review: Soul of a Robot (ZX Spectrum, Mastertronic)

Controls and Playability

The game can be played with both keyboard and joystick.  Should you decide to use a joystick, note that due to the number of actions that your robot can perform, you also need to use the keyboard at times too.  As an example, when changing your leaping distance, you need to press the W key to increase and decrease the distance (of which there are five displayed as an increasing or decreasing bar).

The responsiveness of the controls is good, and the games moves at a fair pace.  The exception to this though is it is very slow when repeatedly pressing E for vertical taking off).  It can take a short while to get used to the leaping distances, but I like it.  This adds to the challenge of the game and is obviously designed this way.  Unlike most games where the leap or jump is always the same distance, this brings a nice mixture to the gameplay itself as you need to plan along the way.

A couple of nice parts of the playability are when you walk from one platform to another, you don’t fall through the small gaps.  Your robot automatically does a leap over them which are defined by the power you have given them.  I found that generally, this being on the lowest setting was better.

When collecting objects, you don’t have to travel all the way over to get them.  Pressing the pick-up key works straight away.  Both are nice touches to the gameplay.  Falling from a tall height results in losing a life.

Psyche Energy and a Real Joystick Wall-Denter

You start the game with five live and have energy (known as called Psyche, of which you start with 300 units).  This is used up each time by 1 unit each time you press the E key.  Use all of your Psyche and its game over.  I don’t have an issue with this as that’s part of the strategy of knowing when to use it.

Now sadly, onto the extremely bad part of the game. Picking up an object can sometimes result in instant death without any warning whatsoever (which I really do despise!!!)  Yes, Soul of a Robot can be a real joystick wall-denter in this respect.  The only way to learn is to play the game repeatedly and either remember where this happens or perhaps draw a map along the way.  Anyway, it’s bad enough doing that a few screens in but is especially more frustrating when you get quite a way into the game just to be told that you have touched a deadly object.  Yes, game over folks and it’s back to the main menu screen to start all over again.

Graphics

To begin with, Soul of a Robot has an extremely good loading screen.  It has plenty of detail and colour which is what you’d like to to see before playing the game.  Quality is the word here, I feel.

The game has plenty of screens and many are detailed (which can be especially noticeable along the sides of the maze walls), static in nature and often looking like aliens.  There are also some bare screens too but given the size and scale of the game, this is fully understandable.

The main robot character looks neat (although when taking off vertically, does look a bit odd when flapping and taking off).  Hitting a ledge (or robotic protector) can result in you doing a 45 degree spin which is rather amusing.

With all the animated aliens moving around the screen, there is very little colour clash to be noticed at all (even when they bounce of your robot).  With the very little colour clash that there is, I feel it could have been easily avoided.  Sometimes, for example, moving lines cross static platforms resulting in a temporary-blocks briefly appearing.

Sound Effects Only

Unlike Nonterraqueous, Soul of a Robot doesn’t play a tune once the game has loaded.  This is a pity as I feel it could have easily had something at least on the menu section to listen.

In this respect, it is sound effects only.  These consist of tapping noises (when walking) and a puck style of noise when leaping.

Answers On a Postcard Please…

Now this is really confusing.  Codemasters released a game called Terra Cognita.  You may well be asking, why do am I mentioning this on website dedicated to Mastertronic?  Well, on the back of the inlay card for Terra Cognita, it mentions that it is a sequel to NonTerraqueous from Stephen Curtis.  Also, at the end of the game, a sequel Nonterraqueous 5.  Say, what?!

Dear readers, now we’re in the 21^st Century, forget the postcard, but should you happen to know the reason for that game being described as a sequel to Nonterraqueous on the Codemasters label, we’d love you to comment below please.  We’re rather intrigued here, thank you.

* * *

You know what we think but why not share your thoughts on this game! Let us know what you think of it in the comments below, or add your own score using the slider in the summary box at the top of the review!

Please follow and like us: