Reviews

An anti-matter plant is about to go critical and you've got to dash to the rescue aboard your hovercraft in order to save the planet. Although graphically very impressive with its multi-directional scrolling and Dune-themed, complete with sandworms, desert-scapes this game just isn't very well balanced.

For the first few sectors you've got to inch forward at a crawl, simply because moving at full speed doesn't leave you with enough reaction time to avoid anything that's in your path - particularly irritating when you come across mines that will kill you instantly - and you'll also come under fire from various directions. Not to worry though, as the early enemies can't hurt you much and even if your hovercraft is destroyed, you'll still get to wander around with a handy jet pack to find another one.

The game basically turns on whether, by luck or skill, you can shoot out a tower and nip through a gap whilst a forcefield is down. Fluff it and lose your hovercraft and, on this level, you'll get swamped by aliens before you can find another one. This all makes it rather frustrating and rather spoils what was a promising game otherwise. Still, at least the title music is nice.

I was wandering aimlessly through a desert when a very beautiful big worm coming out of a Dune ate me like I was the most delicious food in the universe. When I read the instructions things got a little better, and I understood I have to go right all the way, in my Super Desert Fox thingie, avoiding obstacles and aliens through various zones, until you reach some base you have to penetrate or something. It's quite playable, I quite like the graphics and the presentation, the option and information screens have their own distinctive and appreciable look.

Critical Mass is a cool game . . . but I don´t know why ! !

4 out of 5 .

Another nice game from Durell (publisher of a bunch of good games) where you have to pilot a ship/overcraft/whatever in a desert inspired by Frank Herbert's Dune, with giant worms included. Just move forward to progress in the game, shooting and avoiding rocks (what is difficult to do). If you lose all the energy because of the hits, your ship explodes in a visually cool way and using only a safety jet-pac, you must find a base to get a new ship, avoiding those dangerous worms.

Quite a cool game.

Durell's games have always been hit and miss for me. While they look superb for their time their games never really played the best for me and this is one such example. While this indeed looks great the gameplay did nothing for me, which I appreciate is a fault with me and not the game, but this has been a problem in other Durell games and so much so that I am beginning to notice a pattern emerging. From memory the lone exception has been Saboteur, that game doesn't look quite as nice as this but plays really well. On gameplay alone this easily gets a 2, but I feel this game doesn't deserve that based on how it looks and I accept I have been too harsh on some of my reviews in the past and that simply comes down to being an old, miserable, senile git more than anything. It looks nice but it did absolutely nothing to amuse me and make me want to play it again.