Back in 1989 I caught the Rick Dangerous fever. I had found this game titled Caverns of Kalt, in one of those unfamous italian pirated tapes that I used to buy at the newsagents. It was pretty good. For a while, every morning I was looking forward to come back to school to play Caverns, solve the puzzle of the spot where I was stuck and go further in the game. It was one of the best Speccy trip in a while. Rick Dangerous is a spoof of Indiana Jones, and it fact it starts as the first movie, with a rolling boulder running after you. Overall, it's structured as a platformer, but a special one, with, inside the same level, split screens and scrolling sections, filled with insidious traps, cunning mechanisms and poisonous bolts out of stone mouths that litter the four levels, set in the Amazon, in Egypt, in a Nazi fortress and, the final one, in a futuristic environment. The graphics are pleasantly cartoonish, with no colour clash, detailed and moving very well. Playability is supreme, with the first two levels being one of the smoothest and most enjoyable gaming experiences on the Speccy and beyond. With only a 81% from Crash and78% from Your Sinclair, I think Rick Dangerous was rather underappreciated.
5/5
[07/04/2019]
Highly entertaining platform game mimicking Indiana Jones.
[14/02/2009]
This is not Indiana Jones. This is just a tribute.
The game starts with our intrepid hero, who is not Indy, being pursued by a giant boulder. Having successfully outrun the boulder you find yourself in what can only be described as a temple of erm... gloom. Mr Dangerous or Dicky to his friends must overcome all manor of nasty traps. The first you'll know of these is when you've landed on a spike or been hit by a poison dart etc. You then need to remember where the trap is so you can avoid it next time. Dicky is equipped with a six shooter and some sticks of dynamite (but sadly no whip). And he'll need these to fend off the natives who have the temerity to protect their treasures. The background graphics can make spotting enemies and traps harder than need be and I wonder why they weren't left blank? If you don't mind the trial and error nature of the gameplay then Rick Dangerous is a lot of fun and easily better than any off the official Indy games.
