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 ROTOX

 The genre of arcade-style games is heavily-influenced these days by the 
conservative decisions made at the big cartridge system companies -- Sega, 
Nintendo, and NEC. For the most part, side-scrolling platform games, 
horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-ups, and some pseudo-3D first-person 
perspective designs dominate the field. How refreshing, then, to see a top-
down, rotoscoped action game that makes use of solid-fill technology to create 
the playing area for each level. ROTOX is an ingenious and original design 
which functions as much as a puzzle adventure as it does a spaceships and 
robots shoot-'em-up. (This review is based on the Amiga version.)

 After the intro screens throw some large-scale animation and James-Bond style 
music at the player, the game begins. A document-based check serves as copy 
protection, and once passed, leads to the initiating cyborg drop. Rotox, half-
man, half-machine, has been placed in a series of ten increasingly difficult 
mazes to both test and train his abilities. The player controls Rotox from 
overhead via joystick.

 Each level consists of nine different but related maze puzzles. Each of the 
ten levels has a theme, and the manual includes a complete overview map of all 
levels to give the player some sense of what's in store. The "Auto City" 
level, for instance, consists of a series of cartoon-like vehicle pictures, 
which serve as the two-dimensional platform on top of which the player 
negotiates Rotox.

 The platforms Rotox has to deal with are all polygons, perched in space; walk 
Rotox off the edge of a platform and he dies (unless he has a special jet-pack 
with fuel; then he's in business!). Some polygons move, expanding, 
contracting, sliding back and forth, and rotating, and thus require careful 
anticipation of the right moment and the right distance to cross. 

 The platform designs alone would make for an interesting game. But of course 
the main project during play is to wipe out the endless waves of bad guys to 
get to the end. Enemy units are all bit-mapped sprites, and offer a touch of 
the hat to previous classic arcade games; the opening scene in level one, for 
instance, is a scaled-down encounter with Space Invaders. Defender-like snakes 
wiggle across the screen, and other recognizable sprites and sprite-patterns 
crop up as one progresses through the game. At least on the first few levels, 
the Ultimate Bad Guy is usually represented not by a single impossible sprite, 
but by massive clusters of enemy sprites which have to be defeated to gain 
access to a power-up of one sort or another. Some sprites serve as generators, 
issuing attacking creatures until they are destroyed. Certain sprites home in 
on the player instead of following a set pattern, which definitely ups the 
tension level during play.

 Surrounding the main action screen, instruments, maps and radar provide a 
rudimentary simulation-style interface. Charge indicators, weapons readiness, 
location of enemy sprites, and a zone completion marker help chart progress 
through the game. Rather than the usual number of limited lives, ROTOX 
provides an energy bar which depletes with each hit on or loss of a cyborg. 
There's enough margin in the energy bar to allow for quite a bit of play 
before having to start over, which does much to lower frustration levels.

 Enemy sprites can be eliminated either by walking into them or shooting them 
down. Three different kinds of improved weapons are available in the game, as 
well as the jet-pack, which allows crossing of the interstices between 
platform elements. Once a sector in a level is cleared, the screen flashes 
briefly to indicate that it's time to move on. Energy does not deplete with 
the passage of time, so the player can stop and plan the next move, based on 
what the radar indicates is out there. Getting from sector to sector is 
usually tricky; the route to completion is usually indirect. However, the 
player can choose to explore areas in any order and direction desired; no 
arbitrary obstacles are set up to lock play into The One True Path.

 The Amiga version comes complete with a musical soundtrack and a mass of wild 
sound effects. Some sounds are thrown in just for atmosphere, while others 
emanate from weapons and enemy sprites. The solid-fill animations move and 
rotate smoothly throughout, no matter how intense the action gets. The bit-
mapped graphics, while mostly small, are cleverly designed and grouped, and 
intelligently motivated. The game pegs itself at just the right level of 
challenge, and there's plenty to dig into once you get going.

 Problems? Well, the game comes on two floppy disks, and while it seems to 
recognize an external drive, unless drive DF0: is used to insert both disks, 
the game hangs (at least on my older-style A500 with 1MB of RAM and only 512K 
of CHIP RAM; the design may require more CHIP RAM and the newer machines to 
make use of extra drives). At least floppy-swapping is kept down to an 
absolute minimum; most of the actual game resides on one disk; the other 
contains the intro and ending animations. The endless waves of explosions, 
while fun (ROTOX reminds me of NY WARRIORS in that regard), do seem excessive 
after awhile. And the manual is fleshed out with yet another one of those 
mini-novellas that have virtually nothing to do with gameplay (this one's at 
least readable and amusing, though). Other than that, there's not much to 
complain about in the design.

 ROTOX comes on two uncopyable disks, and requires 512k of RAM to play. It 
will work on all A1000s, A500s, and A2000s. A single floppy drive and joystick 
are all that's needed to run the game. Further copy protection is added on top 
of the disk protection in the form of a manual look-up scheme. No hard disk 
installation is possible.

 Certainly not at the cutting edge of software design, ROTOX nevertheless 
introduces some new concepts in the way it effectively combines elements 
usually separated into different genres and styles of gaming. It's eminently 
playable as well. Definitely worth a look for those two reasons alone.

 ROTOX is published by U.S. Gold and distributed by Accolade.