THE SPECTRUM GAMES DATABASE

THE RATS

PUBLISHER
Hodder & Stoughton

AUTHOR(S)

YEAR
October 1985

CATALOGUE NUMBER

CATEGORY
Adventure

DESCRIPTION

CONTROLS
Kempston.

INSTRUCTIONS

ORIGINAL INLAY CARD TEXT

HINTS/CHEATS

SEQUELS/PREQUELS

SCORES RECEIVED

REVIEWS

Review of _The Rats_ from Sinclair User No.43, October 1985

MAN'S WORST FEAR waits eagerly in the darkness. The scent of
human blood is overwhelming and the taste of cool, moist, rubbery
flesh is still remebered and savoured. The time is near for the
invasion of _The Rats_.  The game, from Hodder and Stoughton
which publishes the book of the same name, is an experience as
well as being a menu-driven adventure with a touch of strategy.
It loads in sections, the first being a demo program with a nice
line in cellar graphics. The sound is not too hot, but the
excellent and superbly fast animation sequence, in which a torch
scans a watery cellar to reveal hundreds of the plague carriers,
is one of the best I have seen.  Once the demo is over, or if you
break out of it, the main game is loaded from random routines on
the first side of the tape. Loading is confusing as the main
operating system of the game chooses the section to be included
within the program at random. Therefore, some of the code on the
tape does not load and, if you are a first time user, you may
think that the tape is faulty. It is not an error, the tape is
loading in the random encounters for the game.  Once the game is
running you had better be prepared for some fast action.  There
are two levels of play, over which the computer has total
control. The first level involves a number of scenarios which
deal with minor characters. As in James Herbert's book, those
people are expendable and can be scrificed for information about
the mutant rats.  Those scenarios are heralded by a warning
siren. The screen then splits into three windows, the largest of
which displays the action as text. The long window on the left
provides command options and the one at the bottom of the screen
is your command window. Making your character act is simple -
just construct a command sentence at the bottom of the screen
using the options provided. The effect creates a feeling of
tension as you do not know what options are available until a
specific menu is displayed.  If you are unlucky enough to meet
a rat, it can kill you in a number of ways. First it might rip
through the screen and bite you or, alternatively, it could try
to rip you through the text with its claws. Once an attack is
made, a human face, full of terror, is shown fallinf from the rip
in the page.  It is possible to escape your fate as one of the
minor characters. For instance, the little girl doing her paper
round would be better off if she did not go into the house across
the road, but then you would not discover the rats' secrets.  The
major characters, including Harris and Foskins, are just as
vulnerable to attacks as the minor characters. In some
situations, Harris must be mercenary and let the rats kill
friends in order to gain information about their habits. For
example, when he goes to capture a rat he must make sure that his
companions leads the way - the leader becomes a rat victim.  The
other part of the game is a contest between the rats and
Government forces. You are in charge and must allocate resources
on a giant map which shows the spread of the rats through London.
If they go over the boundaries you have lost the game, just as
if you have lost if one of the major characters is killed.  You
use icon menus to allocate forces and resources. Those go into
action on the part of the map which you have indicated with your
cursor.  At the same time you must specify the researxh into the
rats' behaviour.  _The Rats_ is a complex and brilliant game with
above average graphics - if minimal sound. I can recommend it
without reservation to those with strong stomachs.

                                   John Gilbert

Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton
Price: 7.95
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Kempston, programmable
Rating: ***** (out of 5, meaning: 24 carat. Buy it.), and awarded
a Sinclair User Classic.


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