Rainbow Arts
£8.99 cass, £12.99 disk

Babam-balooma-showap-diwop has nothing to do with this: it's a rolly ball game much in the mould of Bounder, Incredible Shrinking Sphere and Mad Balls. You are the ball which must escape from 32 tortuous mazes that threaten to destroy it. Well the mazes don't, but some of the obstacles in its path have a damn good try. Magnets, energy barriers, bombs, bottomless pits, doors et al, all gang up to ensure a right balls up.

But programmers are nice people really - scattered around each level are useful, and indeed essential objects. Keys to open doors, bombs, eyes (to see more of the level map), spikes (to get a grip on ice), diamonds and money are found lying on the ground. Money is essential to purchase goods from the 'shopping centers': icons set into the floors of the maze. Roll over them with the right change and pick up the goods, or if cash levels are low sacrifice some precious energy to get the goods. Whatever happens, get a move on: the mazes are all tough.

I've always had a soft spot for this game type, and although Rock 'n' Roll isn't stunningly special I like it. The going is certainly challenging. Even with the handy objects the obstacles are nasty to negotiate and only careful planning has you succesfully whizzing around the maze in search of the exit. Satisfying for maze freaks.

MARK [79%]

Rock 'N Roll is a weird game. It's a bit like rolling a marble down a maze of tubes, holes and gates, - but this marble has a brain - yours! The different icons you need to collect to remove different gates and allow you to go over certain types of shading confuse you at first, well, they did me, but you soon get used to them (after reading the instructions!). It's a pity more of the screen hasn't been used for the play area. Only a square in the middle gives a view of the maze, the rest is there purely for presentation - what a cop out. Presentation is of a good standard, until you find out the game is a multi-load, even in 128K mode. Tunes and fancy effects throughout make up for this though. All the graphics are small but clear, let down somewhat by the monochrome used in the play area.
NICK [79%]

Rainbow Arts
£8.99 cass/£12.99 disk
Reviewer: Robin Alway

Games starring cute ball-like creatures have always seemed to go down Marks-And-Sparks-Chicken-Baguette-like with Speccy owners (ie. pretty well), not to mention reviewers who've got book loads of double entendres out of them. No doubt conscious of this. Rainbow Arts has finally caught up with the decrepit ball game bandwagon, kicked the band off and jumped back on with Rock 'N' Roll, a very ballsy game indeed.

The ball in question is nameless and looks like an old fashioned leather footie. Still, it rolls with beautiful panache and elegance under your control, through 32 large, viewed-from-above maze-like levels in order to find the magic chalice, rescue the ball princess and free fellow spherical compatriots from slavery. Or something like that!

Needless to say each of these levels is absolutely heaving with no end of nasty things, all out to puncture your ball's bladder once and for all! There are one-way arrows, crumbling bits of floor, acid pools, some attractive magnets, ice and bottomless voids which you'd do well to, erm, avoid.

Bladder deflation is prevented with the help of those incredibly handy objects that are always strewn all over the floor in computer games. For instance, there are parachutes to save your leather when you fall off a precipice, spikes that help you on ice and a repair kit so you can get over interrupted paths, to name but most of them. These have to be bought for varying amounts of greenbacks, supplies of which are also dotted across the landscape, or in emergencies traded for precious energy.

Course, you can't just roll your way around each level without so much of a by-your-leave. In fact even a by-your-leave wouldn't let you roll around unhindered through the four different types of door that block your progress. Collecting the right key would however, and it's this to-ing and fro-ing trying to find keys and taking existence endangering risks that makes up most of the gameplay.

Graphics are never as important in these type of games as in most others, but even so the visuals in Rock N' Roll are a bit dodgy and, worse still, a disgusting yellowy colour throughout. Presentation's pretty tatty too and when compared to big budget arcade licences this looks like a pretty unprofessional product altogether. The animation of the ball's nicely done though, with a realistic feeling of momentum and the soundtrack's pretty groovy into the bargain which might just make up for it.

All in all, there seems to be just enough action to keep the variety of puzzle elements together, but if pressed I'd file this in my officially endorsed Shakin' Stevens Suspension Filing Cabinet™ under P for Puzzle rather than A for Arcade, which certainly makes a challenge. Then again, after experiencing the annoying habit the game has of either sending you right back to the start of the game or reinflating you in a position that's impossible to escape from maybe there's a more suitable word in the F section. Like Frustrating.

If frustrating is how you like them though this will give great value for money with 32 huge levels. Tight time limits on later stages and the promise of secret passageways and special bonuses help to keep you chained to your Speccy. Unfortunately there's no Save Game option, so solving the whole darn thing is going to take a veritable marathon playing session. But, heck, you're YS readers, you're up to it!

Label: Rainbow Arts
Author: Imagitec
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

Rock'n'r-ooo-ooo-ll - HUH! Rock 'n' roll! Gary Glitter's camp classic turned into a computer game? No such luck, matey. Rock'n'Roll is Rainbow Arts' latest offering, and now that they're out on their own rather than going through US Gold, you'd expect something a bit special. Wee-ee-eee-lll... I wouldn't go that far. Good, it is. Special? Rather depends on whether you have any more appetite for rolly-ball games.

You might remember a spate of these a couple of years ago. First there was the original classic Marble Madness, the conversion of the coin-op which set new standards for sound and animation. The main attraction was the way the ball interacted with the 3-D landscape. Then there was Spindizzy, where the part of the ball was played by a top; then Bobby Bearing, where it was played by a ball bearing. And there were several budget imitations. So what does Rock'n'Roll add to the games on that list? Not much. actually it's a bit of a step backwards 'cos it's in 2D.

The central playing area (which is pretty small and monochromatic) scrolls around to show you a series of mazes in a top-down view; a sort of Marble Gauntlet. Through the mazes you steer your animated marble, which is subject to quite convincing inertia effects and which spins nicely. Mind you, it doesn't have the skateboard, sports cap, ghetto-blaster, sunglasses and chewing-gum I was expecting from the title screen.

At the bottom of the screen you'll see the inevitable timer, score count, energy level, and the number of objects collected. These objects such as eyes, keys, shields, energy tokens and diamonds lie around the maze; the most important objects are the keys, without which you can't get through the barriers which block your way to the higher levels (which load sequentially from tape or disc). Each barrier is marked with a number - the higher the number, the more keys you'll need to open the door. At one stage on Level One you find a whole series of keys and doors, and the trick, I suppose, is to know at what stage to stop and turn around. There are also flickering energy barriers and creaking crushers through which you have to dash with exact timing, and black holes which you must avoid at all costs. If you take the plunge into a black hole, you have the option to restart from the same point or go back to the start of the level.

If you seem to have picked up all the objects in one area, and can't find any way out to another, you have to look for a spherical transporter pad. Transporters zap you from one zone to another; sometimes you have to jump through one, collect a key, then jump back again to open a door. Of course, you can't just wander around as you please; one-way arrows prevent you from taking the easy routes around the mazes, and slippy slidey bits make you go out of control, just as you come up to a black ho-ho-hole!

Rock'n'Roll has some good points, but it's not exactly over powering in its originality.