This article was originally scheduled for the issue following the death of 
Princess Dianabut we withdrew it to avoid offending anyone and it never 
quite found its way back into the magazine!

Joe Connor
==========================================================================

Roadkill

Shiuming Lai

As the author of this STe game says, who cares about a plot? Nevertheless, 
it has one, plus a warning of its violent content. It's a racing game, 
where the primary objective is to mow down as many pedestrians as possible 
- extremely poor taste you might think, but then it's no different to 
blasting seven shades of pixels out of some aliens. What's more, the 
implementation is so humorous it had at least one reviewer in 
uncontrollable fits of laughter.

You choose one of four drivers, each with his own unique car (or 
bulldozer/steam-roller, in two cases), then it's straight down to business 
on a horizontally scrolling playfield. The cars have different qualities 
to enhance gameplay, like resistance to damage from some of the obstacles, 
and acceleration.

The most immediately striking thing is the amateurish look of the 
background scenery, followed by the very, very coarse scrolling. This is 
momentarily forgotten as limbs fly all over the screen, leaving big trails 
of blood and making satisfying squelching noises, while musical 
accompaniment is courtesy of Mad Max, Tao and TriMod, all famous names 
from the ST demo scene. A suitably upbeat tune is mixed with sampled 
screams and crashes as you plough through the courses, and an editor is 
included for making new tracks because you'll finish the supplied four in 
no time.

That's really all there is to it, a silly bit of mindless fun. Apart from 
the rough edges in presentation, it does show a little thought in the game 
design and is worth a few plays. I'd certainly like a beefed up version 
with more depth and better graphics.

** Scores **
Graphics: 55%
Sound: 70%
Gameplay: 58%

** Images and captions **
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** IN_GAME.GIF **
Mirrors-signal-manoeuvre, splat...

Clip Art
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