Roland on the Run

Copyright : Epicsoft | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Roland and his fellow captives at Amsoft decide to escape from the clutches of their masters and catch the 16:45 freight train from Brentwood station. After many hours cooped-up in this uncomfortable means of transport, they decide to try and jump out on the back of passing lorries that are travelling on a busy road close to the railway line in a small village near Guildford. Unfortunately, their final hideouts are on the other side of the road. They must jump from the back of these lorries to the back of these lorries to the ones passing in the opposite direction and then jump on to the hideouts.

Graphics

As with all the Roland titles, nobody can accuse the programmers of skimping on the colours. Roland on the Run is very colourful and on first glance looks like a brightly coloured, cheerful little arcade game, marred slightly by the blocky nature of the characters. It would be easy, therefore, to be too tough on the graphics but there are one or two nice touches that should be complimented on. The background of hills and mountains scrolls very well against the skyline and is a neat little touch which a number of other more advanced games have missed out upon. When you crank up the speed of the train the scenery really starts to fly by and there is a real sense of urgent speed about the game which is fantastically well implemented.

Sound

The game is dominated by the noise of the train engine that is both loud and overpowering. When stationery, the Amstrad gives out a white noise sound that is very irritating and the only way to get rid of this is to either turn the volume down or make the train go at a high speed (even then it still clicks frustratingly). A bit of a let down when you look at some of its peers.

Gameplay

Like a demented version of Frogger, Roland on the Run requires the patience of a saint and cat like reflexes to try and develop high scores. Quickly becoming repetitive, the task of moving your identical white stick men from train to hideout via two rows of trucks in neither mentally taxing nor stimulating and with up to 255 lives to play with, you wont really care if the man you?re controlling makes the leap or plummets to his death theres plenty more where he came from.

The selection of who is next to jump is also confusing and frustrating meaning you could spend a few seconds preparing to time a jump and then pressing the button only to discover that control has switched to someone else with no warning and he?s now roadkill on a dual carriage way somewhere in Essex. Another irritant is that control is always favoured to the train and second row of trucks meaning you could fill up the first row of trucks and be left waiting ages for someone to control on the second to make the next jump and continue the exodus from the train.

Repetitive, dull and un-rewarding Roland on the Run is a letdown and probably the worst in the Roland series