Sam Coupe Scrapbook

The Games
- Review of Exodus

Information provided by: Steven Pick

At last!! A phrase which keeps cropping up all the time. I'm excited to report I now have a copy of Exodus after 2 issues of whining! Yehaaa! I have two disks, so I'll load up the intro first. Ha, ha, ha! Nice graphic of a woman giving a report from the scene of the action. Some narration. Ha, ha, ha! Nice graphic of who they are fighting with. Some narration. Ha, ha, ha! The machine has crashed. Ha, ha, ha. What?!!! Christ! Don't panic, Steve. Load up the second disk. (Puts disk in drive and hammers F9, praying for it to work). Noooo!! The screens corrupted! Quick, phone up someone... Dave Ledbury! (Sounds of Dave playing the $&@% thing on phone). What is that, Dave? 512k? Oh, no... Please excuse me while I get myself a 256k upgrade and modernise myself somewhat... ( 2 weeks of money saving and purchasing later...)

At last!! Ha, ha, hahahahaha!!! I have a 512k upgrade! Now to play the thing!

A while back, there was this really fabulous game called Smash TV. It came out on the good old Spectrum, as an arcade conversion, and from what I have played of it, it had me hooked! Fortunately, Exodus is having the same effect on me... Right, let's get our facts straight about the Coupe software scene - most of the games you can purchase either have something to do with tiles, balls or both. In other words, a puzzle game! Thankfully, this offering from the guys at Apex Developments is an incredible breath of fresh air! For a start, there is a plot (shock horror!) to this mindless shoot em up - presented in a rather nice-looking intro on a separate disk, but from what I remember of it, the baddies from B.U.T.T. are planning to kick yours, so you have to murder them completely!

Yes, this is a SAM game we are talking about!! You (or another player in simultaneous two player action) can play the parts of two chickens (or is it chicks?) powered to the gills with heavy artillery. Each level is set in a room (like Smash TV) with the exception that you can't move from room to room like in Smash, but stay in the same one while the action takes place. Ah, yes. The action. Saying that the action on this game is fast, furious and confusing is an understatement to say the least! From the word "go", you are bombarded by an assortment of weird and wonderful creatures - from carrots with koshs to the headless chicken brigade, the baddies set the pace for the game nicely. Once dead, some nasties drop extremely useful add-ons from total destruction, to one of the five crisp packets you need to obtain to exit one level to the next.

And to make the game complete, who can omit the end of level baddies from hell, which pop up on every fifth level. The one I tackled on my seventh go is Mecha-bunny, a direct relative to the end of level bad guy in Smash TV. There is even an arcade machine of said game in the introduction sequence!!! The graphics are simply gorgeous. Amazingly animated and full of life, they even boil down to the fact you can die over five different ways, from being swallowed by the ground, to a halo vapourising you! Note the two player option as well - not a case of actually co-operating, as most of the time, you will not have time to see how player 2 is doing in the fighting stakes! You won't even notice that the poor bugger has croaked it until you turn around to see that your mate has stopped wiggling his joystick (no innuendo intended!).

So, to cut a long story short - BUY THIS GAME! You, as a SAM owner, NEED THIS GAME! And because of the fact this has recieved undeserved poor PR, the game itself should be in the hands of every single puzzle-hating SAM owner. R ight, I'm off to kick Mechabunny's B.U.T.T....

Graphics - 93% Playability - 95%
Sound - 91% Lastability - 96%

Overall - 94%

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