Flashback

Platform adventure from US Gold. Reviewed by Rob Gibson.

Note: This review was originally written for the Illusions disc magazine well before Acorn Arcade was born, so we make no guarantees that this game will work on more recent machines. Many thanks to Richard Goodwin, Phil Coleman and Rob Gibson for allowing us to reproduce this review on the site.

What can you say about Flashback? It really has to be seen to be believed. Anyone who went to the last Spring show in Harrogate would probably have already done so, as it was one of the major attractions of the Acorn stand, bettered only by the Risc PC on the other side.

Somebody out there doesn't like Conrad

The first thing you notice about Flashback is the brilliant animation of the main character, Conrad. This is due to a process called rotascoping, where you take video footage and draw over it. So, Conrad walks with a swagger, runs, skids to a halt, wobbles on the edge of a drop, leaps on to ledges and hauls himself up, pulls a gun out of his jacket, somersaults, bounces off solid objects etc. and it's all done in the most cool way imaginable. You could almost imagine that it's real, with less of the willing suspension of disbelief that you have to employ with most games. It's especially cool when he pulls out his gun, standing in a two-handed firing stance like something out of the movies, then when you want him to walk he pulls the gun close to him and inches forward. Press down and he crouches, gun held up near his face. Gunshots that don't hit anything with cause sparks and a small puff of smoke to appear on the scenery at the opposite end of the screen.

Conrad blowing away some mutant - but remember kiddies, playing with guns isn't cool.

Oh yeah, the actual game. Well, it's a sort of platform game with plenty of puzzles to solve, with a fair sprinkling of gunfighting thrown in for good measure. The emphasis is more on thinking than action, which is shown by the fact that there's no scrolling involved - the locations are based on a 'room' system, with some kind of hardship (or hardships) to negotiate in each of the 'rooms', although to start with you are deep in a jungle. So, unlike some platform games where you wander around for ages with very little to do, you have to be ready all the time here. There's hardly time to admire the view, which would be a shame as the scenery is as well drawn as the main character - all of the scenes have a lot of background detail, which I suppose is one advantage of having a non-scrolling system. Also included are various animations when you pick up certain items or do certain important tasks, which are done in a sort of cinemascope format using vector graphics; these include a large intro sequence showing a thrilling chase scene. There's also some atmospheric music included, some of which will start up whenever you're about to walk into danger.

Oh dear. Guess I shouldn't have stepped on that.

Conclusion

Quite frankly one of the best games I've seen on any platform.