Game Review: Voyage into the Unknown (ZX Spectrum, Mastertronic)

So, (Quite Literally) How Do I Begin The Game?

The opening screen has a flashing message with “Awaiting launch procedure” and “Launch computer one”.  This sounds alright, but hold on, nothing seems to happen!  Being somewhat confused, I started pressing random keys.  Just in-case I’d missed anything obvious, I re-read the inlay instructions which state:

Following the logical course of switching on the engines, powering up and applying ignition, you barely have time to strap yourself in before the ‘g’ forces thrust you harder into your seat.

It’s not obvious but it turns out that pressing E, P and I in that order allows you to take-off.

So Why Those Particular Keys to Start?

The reason why those keys are used is because “E” is for starting your engines, “P” is for powering them on and “I” is for switching on the ignition for enable take-off.  Hardly ‘g’ force at that pace!

An alternative that I found was that as the game is written in BASIC, I found that you can press BREAK on the keyboard and use the CONTINUE command (which skipped that part!) 

Presentation

So, when you do finally take-off, you’ll see a few white squares appear and then it goes dark and shows a drawing of planet Earth and its population after The Great War.  Pressing C goes to the main screen where very slowly, it starts to draw itself out with lines and circles.  A fuel countdown is put in the centre of the three green circles.

On the central right-hand side of the screen, there is a very small red rectangular area known as the Graphics Window.   This is your viewing and navigation window into space.  Essentially this part of the game is played within 10 squares wide and 3 squares in height, so a tiny proportion of the screen. There is a dialogue box at the top tells you where you are, what is visible or if you can teleport to areas.

Keyboard Configuration

Some of the keys seem rather strange indeed.  The cursor key controls with 0 to fire the Beta ray seem sensible enough).  Strangely though, the keys K, L and W operates your robotic arm whilst the F key operates your personal laser gun.

Playability

The game is essentially, moving around what I’d describe as a maze in space, seen through the tiny graphics window. It is slow, frustrating and you can easily lose your one life, without being really able to what killed you properly.

Apart from being able to move left and right and moving up and down through screens which hardly change on planets, that’s about it.

The Graphics

You do see a spaceship within the rectangle when staring in space.  After then though, the graphics are essentially a few slowly drawn circles, lines, user defined graphics and animated twirling lines.

When on a planet’s surface, you’ll see your robotic arm (which really doesn’t look like an arm at all, but badly drawn grabber!) which can be opened and closed. The planet surface screens are mainly barren landscapes and apart from your robotic arm moving side to side, nothing else ever appears to move on them.

The loading screen is the standard Mastertronic logo (as per many early Mastertronic releases).

Not even a Beep!

There is nothing to mention here as there is no sound or opening tune whatsoever.

On A Final Note

The only nice effect is a short use of the outside border on the screen.  Rather than the whole border changing colour in one go, it moves coloured areas down what is mainly a white border in a slightly animated way.

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