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Pro ram'Phantom Prici: £7.95 (cassette), £9.95 (disc)
Supplier: Tynesoft, Addison Industrial Estate, Blaydon, Tyne and Wear, NEZ74TE. Tel: 097—414 4611
occurrences. So whenlpicked up my copy of
creepy
Tynesoft's latest game Phantom, shivers ran down
my spine. You are a professor of astro-physics who happens to be interested in psychic
phenomena and builtaportable nuclear accelerator, presumably in his garage. hole
in
a
spooky
phantoms. So with reactor in hand you are well prepared for the horrors that face you, or are you? On loading l was greeted by the control panel featuring score, reactor level, heart rate (in beats per minute) and an electrocardiograph (ECG), which resides on the bottom right of the screen. Now it appears that you only have one life and the BPM indicator increases every time a ghost comes into contact with you—once this reaches 100 your old ticker will give out. You arrive at Ye Olde Inn, and are metwithaplan view that looks more like a maze.
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reactor and if you empty it you are in deep trouble. New ones are scattered about the inn, but as discretion is the better part of valour, you can dodge the spooks instead. You have to battle your way round four screen levels of the inn, collecting keys and other items on your way. You eventually battle with a large and very nasty ghost. At this pointl realised that my heart rate did not go down in the move from one level to the next. lndeed it
when settled completed the Inn and moved on to the Dungeon where a completely different set of nasties decided to
only
I
have me for breakfast. With 64 different rooms and the mansion and castle to exorcise there is plenty to keep you on your toes — especially as the difficulty
and
quality of
used graphics throughout are first-rate coupled with a wonderful The
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background tune.. Character animation is superb both for spooks and your player cha-
is original and well worth buying for the sheer pleasure of playing it. So when it comes to the final conflict and you have rumbles in your attic or
racter. My only quibbleisthatthe spooks can get you without you being able to shoot them. This is not a major problem because if you are good enough you simply sidestep them.
“Who yer gonna call?” TyneSoft. Neil Fawcett —
Instead of rampaging around the screen hacking
gem): Wiggle/[Sty
and slashing your enemy, with Phantom you must use tactics to negotiate each screen. This evasive angle adds a very addictive quality
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