Review by Zeus on 04 Nov 2017 (Rating: 1)
Rik the Roadie is one of those games that sits below the average score of 3 on World of Spectrum, meaning it'll never ever appear as a random game on Sinclair Randomseek, and for your sake that's a good thing.
You are the roadie of Alternative Rock the greatest rock band nobody has heard of (at least that's what I'm calling them anyway), and you must help them with their career by doing a number of tasks for them, note I said a number of tasks. You see many have only played the driving part of the game (me included) but there is much more of the game that hasn't been seen yet by many. This is because the game's first part which has you driving your van on the road and avoiding other vehicles doesn't seem to give you enough time to finish it and as such very few players have ever seen beyond this part of the game.
Well allow me, the mighty Zeus, to take you on a journey that you'll never forget, as we go beyond the neverseen regions of Rik the Roadie, long forgotten about in the midst of gaming history, with the aid of an infinite time poke, because it's truly the only way possible.
What can be said about the driving part? It's no wonder I have to use a poke for it. You have to drive 200m in six minutes whilst avoiding other vehicles along the way (or allong if you go by the game's on-screen text). You lose time if you hit a vehicle and there are occasions where contact is UNAVOIDABLE, yes, you are completely and totally destined to hit a vehicle because there are four vehicles lined up side by side taking up the screen's width and you CANNOT and WILL NOT avoid it. No wonder many haven't seen beyond this part.
However, because we have infinite time we can now go beyond this part and see what else lurks inside Rik the Roadie. Well first things first you have to stop the lights for a bonus, in which after that is level 2! Now YOR's review describes the text you read before level 1 which notes of the lack of apostrophes and misspellings, so allow me to give you what greets you on level 2.
*clears throat*
Use the joystick to move Rik's (hello apostrophe!) feet left and right to carry in the heavy equipment. Dont (goodbye apostrophe!) drop any or you will lose (spelt correctly) time repairing it!!! I'm going to take a hunch and say these descriptions were written by different people.
So basically we have Rik carrying some equipment and we need to get him from one side of the screen to the other without dropping it. Sounds simple right? But oh no, given this game at times wouldn't let you past vehicles on purpose on level 1 there is bound to be a catch on level 2, and know and behold there is, because we have endurance, and if that runs out you drop the equipment. And the game reads that you "droped" the equipment when you do so I'm guessing person 1 with his poor grammar took over and wrote that part.
Now, the game tells you that you have to use left and right to move Rik (which is O and P by the way) what it doesn't tell you it you also need to press them in a rhythm, ideally press the button of the foot that takes the lead, so if his right foot is out press P, left foot out O, and be pretty quick about it because your endurance goes down really fast and so you don't have a lot of time getting the equipment to the other side.
After successfully getting the third piece of equipment across we have more bonus lights and then it's time for level 3, yes there's more of this shit.
This time we have to set the volume controls so the meters peek in the yellow (I think it means peak but anyway). If you allow them into the red the fuses blow and time is lost (so they've done away with lose and loose it appears). I should also mention that the "tune" during the game is still playing and is absolutely dreadful. But I'm playing this on mute so no headache for me then.
Now back to this shit, and we have volume controls to play with, and the one thing missing from the description was controls. But we have four volume meters and we have to stop them at yellow, but to be honest I'm of no help at all, because the one time I did this it ended randomly with 1 and 3 on red and it gave me this message
Well done you have made it!!!! Alternative Rock are on the ladder to stardom thanks to you...Rik the Roadie!!!!
And then we are "rewarded" with Alternative Rock playing (or rather standing still) as the colour changes. The one thing to note is the band are called Alternative Rock, which of course is because of Alternative Software, but Alternative Rock is a thing and here we have a band with a singer, a keyboardist and a drummer, now the main instrument of Alternative Rock is a guitar, the game's loading screen has a guitarist (well it's actually a broom but who's judging) but there's isn't even a single guitar on show with Alternative Rock. So they aren't much of a rock band are they?
And after that, that's it! We made it! And we now go to what I think is the best part for me, the ridiculous high score table or "The Top of the Pops" at the end, as it really is a piece of work. We have Eurythmics at the top with 90000000 points, scoring that many points is almost impossible even with infinite time. In order to achieve such a score with infinite time you probably have to move a few steps on level 2 and keep dropping the equipment and even that will take some time!
The high score table lists many bands and singers such as the aforementioned Eurythmics, Status Quo, Queen, Level 42, Europe and Bon Jovi, as well as Club Nouveau, OMD and Donna Summer, which isn't really fitting for a rock influenced game but who am I to judge?
We also have "Madona", Bruce Willis for some reason, "Banarnarama", "Kim Wild" which is a simple error to make in fairness, as is "Jean Michel Jarr" which I'll give the benefit of the doubt too since it probably didn't all fit but if so why even attempt to put him in it in the first place?
There's also Vangelis (which begins to take the piss a bit) "Stein Way" (which is actually Steinway and isn't even a band to begin with), Weather Girls (in which now they really are taking the piss) The Smurfs (which brings piss-taking to a whole new level altogether) "K.C. + Sunshine" (which, yeah I know), "Def Lepard", "Iorn Maiden", Fat Larrys Band, (which sounds ridiculous but they exist so fair enough, also no apostrophe again), Maggie Thatcher (can you hear me?), Wet Wet Wet followed by Drip Drip Drip (eh?), Des O'Conner (which makes this high score table beyond a joke now at this point), Pete and Richard, Richard and Mark, Ken and Mike, Andy and Lois, Chris and Andy (staff?), The Popcorn ? (that's how it's written anyway) and Alternative Rock (you) at the bottom where you'll always reside, even after finishing the game.
And there you have it, Rik the Roadie in its entirety and boy do I regret it? This is undoubtably one of the most unplayable games ever to be released. The fact that this was even published to begin with is just a complete mindfuck. On evidence it's no wonder most players only saw the first level, because it's very difficult to complete and then the rest of the game is shite anyway so even if you managed to finish it legitimately you were in no way rewarded for it.
The whole game is just a total piss stain. The graphics are horrible, the music (if you can call it that) is so bad you'll most likely need to overdose on ibuprofen to cure the headache you'll get from it and the gameplay itself is ridiculous.
Yes it was cheap, but come on this was still a waste of money if you bought it.
