Indigo
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A Jump'n'Run by Stephane Belin
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Well, what to say, it feels a bit strange atm, to write down
some lines for a diskmag again, especially not having a running
Atari machine build up, but since I leeched INDIGO lately from
DHS, I came back into the mood to make the things again I did so
often in the past, reviews, harhar...
Anyway, I was quite surprised about the screenshots and the
short info about that game on the DHS board, as it reminded me
somehow to "Magic Pockets" and "Gods" a little bit, famous
releases by the Bitmap Brothers and the info that the game was
done to be published by Psygnosis, made me anxious to check it
out as it gives the impression to be of some better quality
then... so will it be a real cute xmas present for the Atarians
then?!
There isn't much of a story in here, a usual jump'n'run game,
conquer the levels, try to avoid contact with the badies,
collect things and search the exit, things you did in hundred
games before. So where is the trick then? INDIGO comes along
with quite nice styled grafix, cute animated badies and hero,
good looking level and background grafix (even though that they
remind in parts a bit to its obviously idols by the Bitmap
Brothers) and neat chip musix. It uses some kind of raster stuff
for the background colors. The controls are realised good and
easy, there are goodies to collect like extra-lifes and
smartbombs... To leave a level you need to collect a special
number of keys displayed on the screen in a special time limit.
Some keys are laying around in the levels, other you get only by
killing some of your enemies. This goes through a jumping attack
onto their heads, using smartbombs or the possibility to shot
rugby balls in later levels. If the stage is cleared (if you can
call it so), you just have to find the exit to go on.
So far so good... but after all those good points a few bad ones
have to be added too, such as the simple and awful chip fx
(poing, meup, blip), the unfairness to die by the smallest
contact with your enemies (especially if your jumping attack
didn't work out correctly), the too static background grafix (a
static waterfall doesn't looks like one) and the fact that you
can't clear the levels really. Some badies don't react on your
jumping attack (such as the mad cars in level one) or appearing
in "cleared" parts of the levels again. Later level designs seem
to be very fast very tricky, but that's surely a matter of taste
and your skills in playing jump'n'run games.
So what at all?! Just let it make short: INDIGO isn't a real
killer game, but without any question one of the better digged
out so far never released antics we saw over the last years and
some kind of fresh food for the joystick sportmen around, as
releases of this game genre are quite seldom nowadays on Atari.
It features a cool set of grafix, very nice chipmusix (and the
best, those were never used before and done for the game
itself!) and a quite easy gameplay. Unfortunately it missed a
bit some very own taste and touch, that would push it much
higher in the scores, but anyway, any jump'n'run lover and
gambler using an Atari ST nowadays should grab and play it, as
it is worth a try!
Scores
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Pixels/Design ... 8o% ... cute drawn, partly nice animated,
rastered backgrounds
Musix/FX ........ 7o% ... very nice chip tunes, awfully
loosy special fx
Playability ..... 9o% ... except for the strange jump attack
very easy to play
Motivation ...... 85% ... different level designs pushing
you further...
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Overall Score ... 81% ... well, just grab and play it!
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moondog of .tSCc. for Alive, 12/2oo5
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