Amaurote

Mastertronic, 1987

Written by Chris Owen, HTML'd by Arnt Gulbrandsen.

Controls

Keyboard

Aim of the game

The city of Amaurote has been invaded by huge, aggressive insects who have built colonies in each of the city's 25 sectors. As the only uninjured army Officer left after the invasion (that'll teach you for hiding!) the job falls to you to destroy all the insect colonies.

Game play

an Arachnus 4 armoured walker, a radar scanner, a two-way radio, 30 bouncing bombs and $5,000,000 to buy new equipment. You also have a map to guide you.

THE CITY: You can tackle the colonies in any order you wish. Each district of Amaurote is represented by a small disc and as you move your Arachnus across the map the name of each district will appear at the top of the screen. Select which district you wish to tackle first by moving the Arachnus to the correct disc and pressing fire. If you manage to destroy all the insects in that district you will be returned to the map.

THE INSECTS: There are three types of insects, all equally mean!

The Queen -: being the most important, she is your main target. You'll have your work cut out fighting your way through her guards though. She gives orders to the drones and produces more insects; every time you manage to kill one she will produce another within a short time.
Scouts -: these fly around looking for food and intruders, i.e. you! If they spot you they will tell the queen - and that means trouble!
Drones -: the most common and the most stupid. They are dumb but they never give up. Their job is to collect food for the Queen and defend the colony from intruders.

BOMBS: Your supply of bouncing bombs is limited and should be used with great care. Pressing fire will launch a bomb in the direction you last moved. The bomb will bounce in that direction unless it hits either an insect or a building - except that you're not supposed to demolish the city!

Only two things cannot be destroyed by the bombs: the perimeter fence and the Queen. To get rid of her, you need a "supa-bomb". These can be requested, one at a time, over the radio. They're very expensive and very dangerous!

Once a bomb has been launched you cannot launch another one until that one has exploded. The number showing how many bombs you have left will flash red whilst a bomb is active, even if it is off screen.

THE RADIO: Your Commanding Officer has supplied you with a radio. Activating it will reveal a menu with the following options:

REQUEST BOMBS
SUPA BOMB
REPAIR
RESCUE (quit)

Bombs are airlifted into the city and you can use your scanner to locate them. If extensive damage is caused to your Arachnus 4 you may have to purchase a new one. Although you have $5,000,000 with you, your costs may be high so try not to overspend.

THE SCANNER: You can program the scanner to find the nearest insect, the Queen and airlifted bombs. The operate just select the required mode and follow the arrows.

Comments

"An amazing achievement ... highly playable and addictive."

Rating

92% (CRASH #40, May 1987)

Now

The graphics are still impressive, being amongst the best I've ever seen on a Spectrum game, but the game itself is a little too hard. The 128K music is great though!

Keys

Up/Right   	- Y to P
Up/Left    	- Q to T
Down/Right 	- H to L
Down/Left  	- A to G
Fire  	   	- B to M, SPACE
Radio 		- CAPS SHIFT
Change Colours  - V

Scanner modes:

Nearest Insect  - Z
Queen 		- X
Bombs 		- C

Nettverksgruppa, 5/10-94, sinclair@nvg.ntnu.no