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Of all the spectrums in all the world, Imagine's new Movie had to walk into ours. Settle into your back row seats, forget the Pearl and Deans and read Gwyn Hughes's review of this gangsters and gumshoe megagame. Play it, Sam...

Call Mike Hammer, call Sam Spade.... but when you want the best you call me - Jake Monkey-Wrench. I tool around and get the job done.
The voice on the phone said, "Jake, I've got a problem. I'm the Ed." "That's some problem." I agreed. Ignoring me, he continued, "I want you to find a cassette tape. It contains enough evidence to send Mr Big down the river for a very long time." Pausing only to wonder why the Ed should want to send a gangster on a boat tour, I asked, "Tell me where I might find it." "That's the problem," he told me, "It's hidden in a computer game!"
And so it was. I sat in my East Side office, in front of a computer monitor, the whole of New York to search and I'd never have to leave the building. Luckily the city was no stranger to me - the same 3D view that seems to turn up everywhere nowadays. However, I was pleased to find that I could choose between up/down, left/right movement or rotation and forward techniques. And what was this - 'IQ On'? A neat touch means that if I walk into an object the computer can take control and guide me past it.
10.32 pm: I'd found a gun and I was going to need it. In the very next room some hood began taking pot shots at me but I was quick on the draw. I transferred to the icon menu and fired, filling him full of holes and he faded away. No room to be trigger happy though - the city may be a jungle but not everyone's an animal. Soon after I'd plugged the punk another slouched figure approached. I stopped but his speech bubble appeared. But what did he mean by, "I'll see you later"?
1.03 am: I'd lost count of how many rooms and alleys my nicely animated figure had trudged down, but there were lots, filled with hazards of the most unexpected types, like animated suits of armour. Something strange was afoot. I'd had to use my wits to push the furniture around and shift objects and I wasn't sure I was getting anywhere. Than I met her - the dame.
The Ed had warned me that there were two sisters tied up in the case - identical twins but while one was good, real good, the other was evil incarnate! I hoped I'd made the right choice as I followed her. Perhaps she could lead me to the gang boss....
1.07 am: You win some, lose some. Like a kid, I'd followed her straight into a trap. I'd dodged the bouncing bombs, the suits of armour and the low down rats who'd hoped to fill me full of lead. But I'd always been a sucker for a frail and now I'd paid the price. This game is as cool as a trench coat and as atmospheric as a misty street. Here's looking at a VDU, sweetheart!

Verdict: 9/10
Review by Gwyn Hughes
£7.95

Movie
MARLOWE stood and stared out of the dirty window. It was hot in the office and his long raincoat and matching snap-brim brought out the sweat.

As if on cue he turned and walked to his desk. He found nothing there to give him a clue to the location of the cassette tape which would lead to the biggest gangster bust N.Y. had ever seen.

The girl must be somewhere, and her evil sister not far behind. If he picked right the girl would take him to the cassette, if wrong her sister would lead him to his death.

Hands in pockets, he walked out into the alleys and mean streets of gangster city.

You're the director of this screen play but the executive producers at Imagine dictate the script. Movie uses similar perspective graphics to those in Knight Lore, from Ultimate, and Fairlight, from The Edge. The concept, however, has not been tackled before in such an original manner and the graphics successfully create a seedy, sleazy, atmosphere.

One departure from the traditional Ultimate approach to 3D arcade adventures is the ability to converse with characters in the game. The detective in Movie can talk to gangsters, parrots and mysterious women. Press the speak icon and a balloon will appear at your detective's mouth. Type in a question, such as 'Do you want the money?' and the listener will reply using the same type of speech balloon.

The balloons extend the Ultimate technique and give the game a comic book feel. Usually, only the good guys will talk to you, although the evil twin sister may say a word or two.

You control your private eye through the icons at the bottom of the screen, using a spy glass as a cursor. They are easy to understand and with them you can manipulate objects, speak, shoot, and hold or abort the game.

In the beginning the detective has no clues or means of defence. He must find them in the maze of rooms and streets. Initially you should not be looking for the lady with the answers. Your first task should be to find weapons.

Because the background colours and the character colours are the same, weapons blend into the scenery. Your gun, which is only two rooms from your office, will probably go unnoticed the first few times you enter the location. Walk through the blue reception and you will find it on a juke box in the yellow room.

Picking up objects can be irritating. You may have to try several times before you get the correct angle, either head-on or central to the object. Any deviation in angle, even by millimeters, and the object will refuse to be lifted.

On some occasions objects will be out of reach, on top of a sack of packing cases or perched on an old wireless set. To get them down you must use one of the objects you already have and use the throw option. Bags and guns can be rescued in that way with no trouble, but if you aim to knock a bomb from the top of four packing cases you will be in for an explosive time.

The weapons are not easy to use, as the gangsters which you come up against shoot on sight. For that reason you should enter each room with extreme caution. Move the detective to one side of the doorway before entering. The gangsters tend to shoot towards the centre of We doorway and you get no second chance if you're shot - it's back to the beginning and, with no Save option to allow you to choose the place of your reincarnation, you'll have to start collecting objects again.

Bombs are no more efficient than guns. They have a very localised effect and you can be in the same room with victims when it explodes.

The problem is to get the victims directly over the bomb. To do that you should wait for the gangsters to get near you, throw the bomb and then punch them. They will back away into the path of the bomb.

Alternatively, you can lob the bomb indiscriminately when you enter a room. Be wary, though, as the bomb only travels a short distance and most gangsters tend to be in the middle, or far side of the room.

Once armed you must find a bag, a bomb and a wad of money. They can all be found in the same places on each play of the game.

Although you are free to get the objects in any order the most sensible - and shortest - way is to pick up the bag after the gun, then the money and then try and find a bomb.


To find the bag you must first leave your off ice building, walk up or down a back street to a dead end and enter a music hall. You can go into the auditorium. The bag is somewhere in there, together with a nasty-looking gangster and a harmless good guy.

On the way back from the manager's office take a peek into the white room. The mystery girl may be in there.

Collecting the money is a more difficult affair and one in which you will encounter a Mafia hit man who, if you are not quick on your reflexes, always gets his man. To avoid him walk to the right of the doorway then, gritting your teeth, enter and head straight towards the mobster. His fire will have no effect and you'll be able to turn left into the next room.

The route to the money takes you through six narrow alleys, each a different colour. Once through the alleys a quick jaunt through two offices, an empty room and a small room will bring you to the spondula, lying on the floor of yet another office.

The money is obviously for bribery and you don't have to look hard to find a likely candidate. You may be wondering why some gangsters make no attempt to kill you, but seem to want you to stay and talk.

In this way you might get some cryptic information, including a clue to help you in your search for the cassette.

Bombs are found in bars and storerooms - balanced on tables or crates. Once you have collected the money a bomb will be useful and you'll find one in the same building as the bank notes - in a bar protected by two heavies.

Gangsters you can destroy with bombs and bullets, but there are other obstacles which will get between you and the incriminating tope. When I first played the game I thought it was a straight detective story faithful to the spirit of Dashiell Hammet or Raymond Chandler. Soon, however, I walked into an audition for Poltergeist with articles of furniture, suits of armour, balls and dogs flying around rooms. Those are aimed - literally - at the arcade player.

They all have different methods of movement and timing. Knights move their counterparts on a chessboard - at right angles - while dogs swoop from the ceiling and balls roll up and down rooms horizontally, vertically but never diagonally. Some rooms contain more than one type of obstacle and a few have immovable crates to further complicate matters. All of the rooms have a solution.



Even the parrot can blow speech bubbles

Unfortunately, the mystery girl is not so easy to locate or, dare I say it, control. The program dumps the girl anywhere on the map when the program begins but there are some places in which I would advise you to look first.

The white room in the music hall is a favourite haunt. I found her there several times. She can also be found in an office in the building marked by potted plants, down the alley leading from your building.

On first impressions her character is animated smoothly and well. Imagine probably blames her high-heeled shoes for the strut with which she walks, though after a time it seems mechanical and irritating to watch.

Is she supposed to lead you to the cassette tape? That's hard to believe when she can't even negotiate a plant pot standing in a doorway. She kept getting stuck in the leaves and even with help couldn't unravel herself.

Her evil sister puts in the odd appearance but there is no physical way of telling them apart. You could try talking to her - if nothing else it might get her moving.

If you ask her the right question she might also betray herself. When she says 'I hate you' you will get the feeling that all is not quite right. If, however, you insist on following her she will waste your time and then lead you into the arms of the Boss's hit men.

Success in Movie is measured by two ratings. The first is a percentage score based on the number of locations you have visited. Moving around from location to location is easy and you are likely to end up with a hefty number of points.

The other score which ranges from 0.00 to 0.99 is calculated on the number of special objects you have, the number of clues you have taken advantage of, and the puzzles solved.

If your score is 0.15 and you have the gun, bomb, money and password - which amongst other things will help you get into some guarded rooms - you'll be doing well. It took me several hours of play to get that far.

Movie's graphics may not be better than Ultimate's and, compared to Fairlight, they're a little creaky, but the novel plot makes it a winner.

The seedy atmosphere, together with the innovative bubble speech makes the long hours which you'll have to put in to crack the puzzle well worthwhile. It's a story worthy of the movies.

Publisher Imagine
Programmer Dusko Dimitrijevic
Price £7.95 Memory 48K
Joystick Kempston
*****

John Gilbert

Early in 1985, Dusko Dimitrijevic invested in a one way plane ticket from Yugoslavia to this country. Confident that he could sell two computer games he had written to Bug Byte and thus fund his trip home, he arrived in Liverpool to discover that Bug Byte were no more. Dusko had a problem.

Fortunately, he managed to track down one of the directors of Bug Byte, who advised him to see Ocean. Ocean bought the games from Dusko, and used them as promotional freebies. Before he went home, the Yugoslavian programmer spent a little time with Ocean's programmers, picking up tips and hints on programming and getting a feel for the type of games Ocean wanted.

Six months passed, and then M.O.V.I.E. arrived in Ocean's offices. The game was snapped up, and appears on the Imagine label. Dusko Dimitrijevic should be able to afford return tickets in future...

M.O.V.I.E. is based on a New York gangster theme, and puts you in the shoes of a Philip Marlowe character. You're a private detective who's been hired to recover an audio tape from a gangster's HQ. First, you have to find a girl, who will lead you to the mob's base - but to make life that bit more difficult she has a dead ringer, a twin sister no less. The bad sister spells trouble, with a capital T. The first major task in the game is to find the right girl, then it's a matter of following her and protecting her arm on the way to the Boss's hideout.

Set in New York, the game begins with your character in an office in the Big Apple. Suddenly, business becomes brisk. It's time to leave, and take a closer look at the neighbourhood. Along the bottom of the screen there's a row of icons used to control the trenchcoated private dick. Pressing the fire button puts the icon selecting cursor under the control of joystick and keyboard - another press on fire selects an icon. At the start of the game the cursor rests over the Move icon - a footprint - and it's possible to move in four directions around the room you're in. All the locations are monochromatic, presented in the three dimensional view that has become familiar with Ultimate's releases, and games such as Fairlight and Sweevo.

Some of the objects found in locations can be shoved around - like chairs and tables. Others can be picked up and dropped using the appropriate icon, or even thrown. As you follow the girl, she'll ask you do things for her, or fetch things, like a whisky. Bottles and bags come in handy when your guide needs bribing!

High on the list of priorities for any self respecting gumshoe is a gun. Once you've found one, the Gun icon comes into play, and a row of bullets appears above it. Each time a shot is fired a bullet disappears from the display. At last - you can waste people - but once the ammo runs out, all you can do is hurl the weapon at a baddie's head. It's time to find another gun.

The playing area encompasses several buildings, interlinked by streets in which dustbins and packing cases as well as the odd telephone booth can be found. The mob realise what you are up to, and heavies lurk in some locations waiting to give you a bad time. Some just punch - and using the Punch icon, you can fight back - while others pack a mean shooter. Getting too close to a bullet spells curtains, and your trenchcoated figure dissolves before the game returns to the start screen.

As an aid to communication, the Speech icon allows conversation by inflating a speech bubble above the figure of the Private Investigator. Type in what you have to say, and consider it said. The other characters in the game won't accept direct orders but can be friendly and sometimes downright helpful after a bit of verbal. (Don't be tempted to make improper suggestions to the mini-skirted girls - they reject your advances.) Some of the doors are guarded, and you'll need to pop the password into a speech bubble to get through. It's possible to guess some of the passwords, but persuading the girl or other characters to let you have passwords is an important part of the game.

As you collect useful items, they appear in an area of the screen above the icons. A cursor points at your latest acquisition and if you want to throw something, make sure the cursor (controlled by its own icon) is pointing at the right missile. Sometimes you need to lob objects at things in a room so they can be moved within reach. The zigzag Throw icon sends missiles bouncing round the room, and a little practice is needed before throwing becomes accurate. Lobbing a bomb is very satisfying - when it comes to rest it explodes into the words "Bom" and wastes anyone in the vicinity!

At the end of the game (or after quitting with the A icon), two scores are presented. One score indicates the number of rooms visited as a percentage of the total number of locations in the game. The other, on a scale from 0.00 to 0.99, indicates how many tasks you have completed during play. It ain't easy being a shamus, Mac...

Producer: Imagine
Price: £7.95
Author: Dusko Dimitrijevic



Out in one of the Alleys which link buildings in M.O.V.I.E., following the moll. The garbage men don't appear to be collecting this week.

CRITICISM
"There's lots of fun to be had exploring the locations in M.O.V.I.E. - nearly two hundred in all - and the detail in some rooms is very pleasing. Clocks tick and tape recorder spools whirl. The animation on the girls is really neat: they wiggle along enticing you to follow very convincingly. The icon control system is straightforward enough, but it can get a bit tricky at times when you need to enter a location which contains a gun-toting baddie - you have to flip from Move to Gun icon very quickly to get a shot in. The girls begin in a random location, so each time you play the game is a little different. Overall a great game, with lots of atmosphere. It's a shame there's not more sound, though. Should keep anyone busy for quite a while, solving the puzzles it contains."

"WOW! Great graphics, the same viewpoint as in Knight Lore, Alien 8 and Fairlight, but with 'real' objects with which you can identify, like armchairs, crates, TV's etc. They're not just fantasy objects. The game is quite original, presenting a fair challenge. The graphics far surpass the other game elements. I won't do the obvious thing, and say they are 'filmic', but excellent they are. Sound is a bit sparse, little beyond footsteps, and maybe the use of colour should have been a bit more adventurous. For me, M.O.V.I.E. keeps Imagine, of Yie Ar Kung Fu and Mikie fame, well up at the Ultimate level."

"I decided to don my raincoat and CRASH hat for this one. 'Brilliant' was the first word that came to mind as I entered a very posh American type tower-block office, a quick look out of the window and I thought I'd better dash, so I ran out of the room and promptly bumped into a very suspicious looking coffee table. I proceeded and found an un-fingerprinted gun - might come in useful, I thought. I was right... Imagine's first step into the monochromatic world is a success - in my mind anyway. M.O.V.I.E. is the most enthralling game I've every played. The scenario is a classic one, and one that I've never seen implemented before in a proper arcade/adventure game. (Mugsy was strategy, before Ed starts getting letters.) Everything's fabulous - the graphics are amazingly detailed and realistic, the game goes at a very sinister pace, a cursor with inertia and a parrot that repeats everything that you say. Stop watching those old gangster movies and jump in to one via your Spectrum and a copy of M.O.V.I.E., game of the year so far, for me. Now leave me alone and let me get back to finding this twin sister."



A comfy living room, not far from your office in M.O.V.I.E. Look closely - there's a gun here, ready for the taking...

COMMENTS
Control keys: 1 to 0 fire, Q to P up, A to ENTER down, Caps X V N Symbol Shift left, Z C B M SPACE right
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: responsive, once you get the hang of it
Use of colour: monochromatic locations
Graphics: detailed, and well animated. No wait between screens for rooms to be drawn
Sound: o