• Completed
& Reviewed by Neil Collins
ISS: Incredible Shrinking Sphere by Electric Dreams
is a 3D isometric action / puzzle game. In true Electric
Dreams style - it looks fantastic, but underneath it's a
dull game that's way too hard to enjoy. The aim is to
find your way out of each of the mazes while battling
the various nasties that attack you on sight. You can
collect all kinds of special items including missiles,
shields and the ability to shrink/grow the sphere. Floor
tiles can also be deadly or affect your shiny little
ball, so you need inch perfect control to navigate the
tough levels. It's great to look at, it's very fast and
has great sound and animation. Unfortunately I found it
much too hard to progress very far so I needed to use
cheats in order to see the later levels. This game
scored highly in Zzap64, but I think the reviewers got
sucked in by the aesthetics and not the game play itself
(or the Electronic Dreams rep waved a handful of cash at
them). C64 gamers seem to have mixed reactions about
this one but you should fire it up and judge for
yourself. You may get a lot more out of it than I did.
The final battle is
complete!
Your mum turns up...
...and picks you up
and takes you home ;-)
The End.
HOW WAS IT COMPLETED?:
I used a trained version and worked my way through the
levels. It's just a case of finding the right path
through the tricky levels to the ending point.
SO WHAT HAPPENS?:
You battle a final guardian before the end sequence
starts. A weird looking machine comes onto the screen
and picks the sphere up before lifting it up off the
screen. A message is then displayed which reads 'WELL
DONE! YOUR PROMOTION UP THE RANKS OF THE SPHERE CORPS
ELITE IS ASSURED!'. A spooky little tune plays while
this is displayed. Following that another message
appears which reads 'URGENT MESSAGE. A FURTHER TEAM
OF SEISMIC ENGINEERS ARE TRAPPED AT AN UNKNOWN LOCATION
WITHIN THE SANGFALMADORE RUN! DO YOU WISH TO ATTEMPT A
RESCUE Y-N'. It's basically a cheeky way of asking
you if you want to play the game again from the
beginning.
I.S.S.
