Where an arcade classic is given the 9210 makeover, with suprisingly effective results...

View to a Kill

Symbianware loudly proclaimed this app as "the first real arcade style game for the 9210." WIth a long and glorious history on a multitude of platforms, from the 10p per play Arcades to the 50p per tape ZX Spectrum, this game has been evrywhere. It's even been successful on Palm OS ferchrissake. So I guess what they said is true.

But remember, this is not Lode Runner. The lawyers said so. It's Pit Runner, and you'd be a fool (and a communist) to think otherwise.

Nobody Does It Better

Pit Runner is a typical day in the life of your International Man of Mystery, assigned to go deep into a cave to rescue little bits of gold / magic footballs / keys to unlock the universe / broken defusing device for the nuclear bomb under Russia... oh you get the idea. So as you jump up and down platform levels, via ladders, rope swings and the like, you have a trusty, ehrm, electric shovel, to defend yourself from the enemy agents trying to touch (and kill) you. All jolly good fun. Think of the end of the episode of "The Man From Uncle" called "The Spy With My Face" and you're pretty close.

Impressions

"Fnar fnar fnar."

(I don't think that means imressions of Sid James, it means impressions of the game, -Rafe)

Sorry Boss. Hand on heart I love Lode Runner (Wrong meeting... The Faceless Lawyers).

Ahem. Hand on heart I love the Pit Runner concept. It nicely blends arcade reactions to a bit of strategy. The computer controlled enemies have spot on AI. Some of them will just chase you making them easy to avoid. Some of them will run ahead and try and cut you off. Again, easy to avoid. It's when you have two or three of each type on one level that it gets... interesting. And did I mention the fact that the enemy can pick up the stones / footballs / etc so you have to bury them (by tempting them into a hole dug by the burnomatic electric shovel) so they'll drop them? Thought not.

And after you collect all the pieces of the Mikado, you'll have to get to the exit door for the next level. Nothing is easy in this game.

Never Say Never Again

Pit Runner, as with a lot of games on the 9210, suffers a major problem, which is the Nokia Style Guide for games. This is a document that lays out how Nokia would like games to look and run on their machine. If everyone follows it, then every game is laid out the same, acts the same, and the user never gets confused.

Pity it sucks.

I just don't like it. You loose the 9210 GUI look and feel, the side bars, the title bars... I think the Programmers should ditch it and create either apps that look like the apps on the 9210; much like Vexed (Hoi! No free plugs for your own stuff!! -Rafe), or create their own GUI that fits the design of their game.

Now Symbianware can relax, because they're not losing point over following the Style Guide (much as I want to...) They're going to lose points because when you're navigating the Front End, there are points where you break away from the lovely cave entrance picture and nice menu's to bog standard dialogs on a white background to choose level packs.

Oops.

It pulls you out of the game enviroment, if only for a moment, and it is very unsettling to this hardened gamer. I'm not sure how they didn't spot this one in testing, or whether it's just sloppy programming.

I hate to say it, but the latter might be true. The first time I ran the game it came back with the delightful error message that the selected level pack didn't exist, and it forced me to choose one from a plain dialog box before it would continue. I would have thought that something a bit more elegant would have happened on a first run, perhaps with the default intro levels being selected.

Die Another Day

Pit Runner does what it need to do, and does it well (but not stunningly. Well above average yes, but not spectacularly). It's a little dulled at the edges, but Symbianware are learning (a lot of the mistakes present here are cured in Astronix, the release after this one). I just hope they go back and sort out the little niggles in this app.

The game is not one everybody will take to, and if you haven't played Lode (cough... -Faceless Lawyers) Pit Runner (grrr) then the demo is almost 100% required before purchase.

If you are an, ehrm... Pit Runner freak then everything you need is here, so no hesitations, straight to Handango methinks. Now, here's Rafe with the weather...

Scores

I'm going to give Pit Runner 81%.It's not quite the "must have" app that would give it the 90%+ Megagame Award, but neither are the few flaws enough to spoil the game. A good solid "recommended" from Ewan on this one.

Occurrences of Bill Hicks in this review: 3