Rommel 3-D

The Good
The premise of the game is simple- it is a souped up Battle Zone on a Dragon 32. At the time of release the Dragon and Tandy family already had the hugely successful Rommel's Revenge, a damn near perfect interpretation of the original Battle Zone, sold by Design Design. It sold well and really it was one of a number of games that marked the xenith of the Dragon as a games machine, a far cry from the meagre fayre of the early years. Rommel -3D was pitched as being "simply better", and on a superficial level it obviously was- at least the equal graphically, with additional complexity compared to both Battle Zone on the Atari and Rommel's Revenge from which it obviously was going to be compared to. Rommel 3-D certainly had pedigree, having been developed in the US by Michtron who had a history of excellent games and released in the UK by Microdeal, who by now had developed a very discerning eye and were releasing a series of equally excellent original titles. Graphically and sound wise the game did not disappoint, smooth scrolling at impressive speeds and a series of nice touches in terms of enemies meant the game was more involved than its competition, if not necessarily more involving.

The Bad
This is one game where all the ingredients are there, the decent sound, the fine graphics by the system's standards of the day, the excellent collision detection and good use of the hi-res PMODEs with their limited colour palettes etc. but the final product just does not taste right. Battle Zone games are supposed to be tense, atmospheric affairs, but the lightning speed of the game means tension is replaced by a more frenetic feeling- and the feeling of a being in a tank is lost- it feels more like a space dog fight at times, and if the ground opened up to reveal a volcano rocket base armed with laser torpedoes and a Death Star above it would not have been out of place. Clearly for some this would have been an upgrade, but for me I think it feels like someone tried to improve on a game by making it superficially better in several respects, rather than thinking about what made the original so good. In the end the thought processes that lead to the game are rather like deciding that Manic Miner needs lasers or Knight Lore needs bombs to liven it up; it just misses the point, and slightly messes up the game play. Perhaps if the game started more slowly and speeded up gradually it would have been a classic, but as it is it fails to grab.

The Bottom Line
A brave attempt at improving on a classic, worthy, diverting with some nice touches, but ultimately not very satisfying.