Rocket Ranger - Cinemaware RRP œ9.99
  (Joystick-controlled action strategy for ST, Amiga and PC)

              Reviewed on ST by Alan Beer

The date is 28th May 1940 and some objects have just appeared from
nowhere into my laboratory.  On reading a note I found with them
it seems that this stuff has been sent back one hundred years
through time by a group of freedom-loving scientists.  Apparently
the Nazis won the Second World War and the Earth is now dominated
by Hitler's Third Reich fascist puppets.  The scientists are now
prisoners and are forced to work for the Nazis at a Nazi weapons
research facility developing new weapons for the Nazi conquest of
space.  One of the projects is an experimental time machine.
Fortunately the Nazis are not aware that it works. Unfortunately
it hasn't been perfected for human travel yet, but we can send
inanimate objects.

Hopefully you should have received a large device which is a
rocket backpack and some smaller objects; a secret decoder wheel
(which prevents any unauthorised use of your rocket pack), a
Radium pistol and a wrist monitor.

In 1940 the German technology suddenly leaped ahead several
decades perhaps through the discovery of Lunarium.  We know the
Germans have several key bases around the world in your time.  You
must find these bases and destroy their sources of power.  We have
not chosen you randomly for this mission.  We discovered that you
went to school with Jane Barnstorff, the daughter of America's top
scientist Otto Barnstorff, and it seems he's somehow linked to the
source of the Nazi's new found power.

We have learned from an old family diary that the Nazis are soon
to kidnap Otto and Jane, his daughter, and take them to Germany in
a Zeppelin.

Using the rocket pack and other items you may be able to save them
from the Nazis, so our fate is now in your hands and in fact our
own lives may no longer exist in the altered world if you succeed.


It's a small price to pay if you can change history and bring
peace to the world.

Well, that's basically the story and I know it's an old game but
it's been re-released on a budget label and if the computer press
reports are anything to go by, there are a lot more computer
owners around this year who may be looking for something like this.
It's now on budget label and I'll say now the copy I've played is
the original (oops, showing my age now!) and the budget copy will
differ slightly.  For a start the box is smaller (not that that
matters much) and as far as I know there are only two disks
instead of three with the original.  Also in the box you obviously
get your manuals and a secret decoder wheel (grid reference is
used in the budget game) which is to prevent you from passing
around pirate copies as you need to use it all the way through the
game.  But let's start at the beginning.

The aim of the game is that, as Rocket Ranger, you must stop the
Nazis taking over the entire planet (about 26 countries).  To do
this you must find five secretly located rocket labs and get parts
to build your own rocket ship.  Then obtain enough Lunarium to fly
your rocket ship to the moon. Simple?

The whole of the game is controlled with the joystick and with
menus.

When you first load the game you get the usual intros and credit
screens which you can skip by pressing the esc key.  The next
screen you see is that of Ft. Dix in New Jersey which is where
you're based.  From here you are faced with the following choices.
War room, fuel depot, rocket lab and take off.  In the war room
you can contact five agents that have been assigned to you.  This
will involve agents transferring to other countries, changing
their orders which means you order your agent to infiltrate or
organise a resistance.  Also you can change your agent's cover
which is low profile or high profile.  This changes the speed at
which your agent carries out his mission with the higher risk of
being caught and executed with the high profile choice.  The

agents will report if they have infiltrated the country or been
caught by the Nazis (ouch!).

Once you have finished messing about in the war room and you have
decided which country to fly too, it's now time for some action.
Exit the war room back to the Ft. Dix menu (don't bother with the
rocket lab just yet as you don't really need it until later on).
Go to the fuel depot to fuel up your rocket pack.  Exit and go to
take off.

On choosing take off you must first select your destination and
load the appropriate amount of fuel from your rocket tank to the
chamber.  This is where the secret decoder wheel comes into use.
Once this is done the automatic navigation system kicks in.  Now
at this point if you have entered the wrong amount of fuel into
the chamber and didn't change it before taking off you're in
trouble as you will fall from the skies to your 'game over'. On
arrival at your destination you will be faced with one of a number
of hostile Nazi forces depending on what country you land in.
Let's say you arrive at one of the rocket factories; you will be
faced with a Nazi guard.  Viewing yourself from behind you must
punch his lights out.  Once this is done the rocket part is sent
back to base automatically. You do not need to go back to base. If
you know where to go next you can go straight there saving fuel
and time.  Other types of hostile forces come in the form of
ME-109 fighter planes.  In this section you must shoot down the
squadron while avoiding their fire in your path (this is a bit
like Space Harrier).  At the Lunarium bases you're outside the
base and you have to take out the gunners guarding it (and I don't
mean to the pub either!).  All this is viewed from behind you.  If
all that's not enough you still have to save Jane and Otto.

You have three attempts at this.  The first is over the Atlantic
where you must attempt to board the Nazi Zeppelin.  If you don't
do this you will have to fly against a ME-109 squadron to reach
the bomb factory in Germany which is where they will be held next.
If that is unsuccessful it's off to the desert base to rescue them
before they are taken to the moon.  And at the end of the day you
still have to go to the moon and destroy the Lunarium source. Phew!

Visually Rocket Ranger is a treat, the graphics are colourful and
the animation is fairly smooth.  As to the sound!  A vast majority
of it is music which is played with the in-between screens eg as
you are flying to one of the countries, and when you land.  Let's
say you land in the jungle you get that jungle drum beat type
music which sets a nice atmosphere to the game. The rest of the
effects are made up of gun shots, the sound of your rocket pack
and explosions, none of which are anything to write home about but
they do the job.

The gameplay can be a bit slow at times but this is mostly down to
the game accessing the disks to load more data for almost every
screen (also if you have a second disk drive Rocket Ranger will
use it ).  But the fact that I've had this game since the first
time around and I'm still playing it must tell you something!
(Probably that I'm crap ).  The only real moan I have is that
there is no save option which when you consider that this is not
the type of game you can play for half an hour, coupled with the
fact that each time you start again the rocket factories, Lunarium
bases and so on are all in different countries can be a bit off
putting.  Also the fighter planes and gunners get faster and the
Nazi guards get tougher each time you meet them.

This is not an easy game but it is an enjoyable one with a nice
variety of action and for less than a tenner it's one of the
better budget games on the market.  One last note if you are a
member of Special Reserve you can get a copy of Rocket Ranger for
œ2.99 (on the ST).  At that price you can't go wrong, can you?