Antiriad : The Sacred Armour Of

Copyright : Palace Software | Reviewed by : Bill

Antiriad is one of those games you start to play and you never quit no matter how hard it is. And i believe there are many good reasons to hook you on your screen: from the excellent graphics, smooth animation, nice scenery to the interesting plot this game is a nice little gem from the past.

According to the plot you are Tal and you have a simple task: find the Armour of Antiriad - which as you can guess is an anti-radiation suit- and use its powers to destroy the alien invaders. Yous start your adventure naked. There are two different starting points chosen in random, but finding the suit isn?t very hard - it is located just a few screens away from either point. The hard part is to survive because the screens are infested with aliens that attack you on sight and your only weapon are just rocks you can throw at them! And if you exit a screen and you re-enter at a different time the aliens respawn. So it is vital to find the armour as soon as possible.

During your play you will notice the big strange graphic panel that occupies the lower third of the screen. It is grayed out and it seems inoperable - until you find the armour. Just stand in front of the armour and turn Tal as if he was looking at you ....and you are immediately transported into the armour! The panel flashes and it lights up indicating that the armour is powered.

Now the game becomes more interesting. The panel has many readings - energy and radiation levels for example - but there are also four slots to the right which seem empty. Your next goal is to find these 4 missing pieces of the armour and make it more powerful. You must also find and collect energy cells for the power needs of the armour-it is easy to find them because it is the only thing that doesn?t attack you. There are plently of them scattered among the game screens.

The most vital pieces of the armour are its laser gun - of course!- and the anti-gravity boots which enable you to fly! After you find the boots you can navigate vertically and ascend through high radio-active areas towards your ultimate goal: find the time-bomb and place it to the central reactor to get rid of the aliens.

Antiriad is a platform game but it has a more "adventure" feel to it. It?s biggest advantage is that it has a small learning curve and makes you wonder "what next?" all the time. It is not very big or difficult and once you get used to the controls beating it is just a matter of time.

Graphics

Graphics are excellent - big sprites, smooth animation and nice colours

Sound

Sound consists from a very nice intro tune and a lot of different sound effects

Gameplay

Gameplay is very well balanced, not too hard or extremely easy either