Blobz - Review

Apex is one of the new independent software houses born after Commodore crises and the deriving stall of games market on the Amiga. After they have sold some simple games written in AMOS and AMOS Professional, now they have decided to produce and distribute internationally a new game written for the event in BlitzBasic2. The new game is called Blobz. Just after the game is loaded, a brief textual intro appears, where the author thanks to his team and Apex itself for publishing his work. After that, the menu screen appears allowing you to start a new game.

The uncontable options remind closely the mighty Worms by Team17. Actually, the game is a mix between Worms and the old but gold Lemmings from Psygnosis.

Goal of the game is to end successfully all missions you are required for, varying from level to level. One mission is considered successfully ended when you save a certain amount of Blobz.

Using the mouse, you have to select one function and apply it to a Blobz you are controlling with a new mouse click.

Every level is made by a 960x200 screen that can be examined entirely dragging the mouse to the screen's sides.

Immediately, the game will take you, and it is not very easy.

At the bottom of your screen, you'll have a serie of selectable icons rapresenting the tools you can use to end the actual level. Differently from Worms or Lemmings, tools showed can be two, four, twenty... it's up to the task you have to complete. Sometimes, to end a mission, you'll have to spend some time thinking how to solve problems of the situation: very often you'll ask to yourself "What the hell is that thing for?". From this point of view, Blobz reminds very closely Bill's Tomato from Psygnosis.

If all this stuff isn't enough to get you locked to your Amiga for a few time, let's say that the game is rounded by good tunes, samples and voices.

Technically, Blobz results to be a very good game. Graphics aren't poor like somebody could imagine at a first sight, tunes are pretty and, very important, during the game you'll notice some special effects added by the author: a parallax dividing the game level from the background, and a texture working like a ceiling and changes its colours accordingly with screen movements.

The raytraced Blobz taking you during option choosing is very nice.

Over all, we think Blobz is a very good game. This time Apex reached the point, and they have just announced Blobz II. Game needs AGA chipset and 1.5 Mb of Ram to work properely. Contact Apex for further info at: 

	Apex Systems
	8,Gosling Gate Road, Goldthorpe
	Rotherham, South Yorkshire,S63 9LU
Main Page 


  Written By: Luca Ferraris e-mail: ferraris.luca@educ.di.unito.it
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