Cauldron 2

Copyright : Palace Software | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Cauldron 2 is (obviously) the sequel to Palace softwares earlier Cauldron but it follows much the same story as the original. Items or ingredients have been scattered about the mysterious world and you being the only person stupid enough to get involed have to go out there and find them all, the only thing is that nobody knows that these ingredients are!

Graphics

Cauldron 2 looks great and once again pulls the pants of the ZX Spectrum down and gives it a slap on the arse. Colours are nice and bright while still keeping the atmosphere of the game dark and evil looking, Palace have a good history of making games look superb and keeping the quality running nicely along side it.

The game itself resembles Wizball, for those not familiar with this title yet, you had control of a tiny ball that bounced about the screen picking up items. In this case the ball is replaced with a pumpkin but the idea is much the same. There are no major glitches in the game and it runs at a great speed all the way though, another great Palace game we think.

Sound

Sound is again on top form with some nice and dark introduction music to welcome you to Cauldron 2 which then of course switches off and plenty of sound comes your way. There are enough sounds for the game to be playable but we felt in some rooms it would have been better of such an item had this sound and another item had that one but all in all it?s a long way from being a bad job.

Gameplay

Those that have played Cauldron 1 will probably love the sequel despite it being much the same idea. There are a few major differences though as the original takes place mostly outside and you control the witch while in Cauldron 2 you control the bouncing pumpkin and spend most of the time indoors. It can still be picked up and played quite easily though.

On the other hand if you didn?t get along with the original game then a) you should have probably stopped reading this review already and b) it certainly won?t do much for you and can probably be avoided.

Personally I think Palace have pulled out another piece of class CPC software and done us all proud with our own version of the game - certainly annoys some ZX spectrum users!