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Skateball |
Copyright/Publisher: UBI Soft, Programmed By: Tim McCarthy, Graphics By: Bruno Kortulewski,
Music By: Holger Knipping & Adam Bulkaz, Release Year: 1990, Genre: Number Of Players: 1-2
Picture two huge guys racing across an ice rink, knocking each other over as they
try to knock a into the other's net and you have Skateball - a more violent,
futuristic version of ice hockey.
Play against a human or computer opponent, selecting three players for your
team (each has different characteristics). Apart from the goalie, onle one player
at a time plays for each team.
The others are needed for when he gets 'bumped off' by falling down a hole
or smashing into a spiky ball or any of the other numerous death traps.
The ice rink scrolls horizontally, and a radar scanner shows the whole rink
and the positions of the players. When a team has scored five goals it's onto
the next of 99 progressively more dangerous levels. Lose all three men and the
game's over, five bonus goals going to your opponent.
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STU |
The simple go-for-goal action in Skateball is initially appealing but
ultimately over-simple. Two-player games are most fun but tend to end very
quickly as it's too easy for the players to die.
With one-player games, the main incentive to play on being to see the later
levels which are littered with torturous traps.
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PHIL |
I remember playing this on the Spectrum (aaargh!) ages agon so it was quite
a surprise that the 64 version has taken so long to appear. Unfortunately it
hasn't really been worth the wait.
Although retaining a little of the Speccy game's simple playability, it is
ruined by some pretty basic graphics: simply animted sprites, bland backgrounds
and a far-too-small radar scanner.
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