62. Terramex

(Various Home, Teque Software Ltd, 1987)
What. The hell.
Terramex, or to give it it's alternate title: Cosmic Relief: Prof. Renegade To The Rescue, is a surreal arcade adventure that was available on many home formats from the Amiga and Atari ST to the humble Spectrum and C64.
A meteorite is on a collision course with Earth, the only hope is getting to an elusive scientist, Professor Renegade, then helping him create a state of the art defence system (a giant pinball flipper) to prevent Armageddon. As the upcoming doomsday concerns all continents, The world sends forth is finest explorers to track down the Professors location and inform him of the situation.

The player picks from one of five massively racist stereotypes and proceeds to explore the desert, the clouds and a labyrinth of underground caverns screen by screen. Able to carry four items at a time, problem solving and pixel perfect jumping is the order of the day. Not only is the chosen explorer up against the clock, he also only has three lives with which to complete his expedition. Every one of those lives will be needed, as Terramex features a plethora of deadly creatures, Indiana Jones style booby traps, collapsing bridges and every other threat the terrain can throw at you but hey, all for a good cause right? RIGHT?

Terramex is a great action adventure, it has a very Monty Pythonesque sense of humour and comes across like a more twisted version of a Dizzy game. It's also rock-hard and unfortunately a lot of deaths may come from trial and error, requiring you to make sure you have the right items with you when you handle the situation next time around. Your three lives have to get you through the whole game, so every one of them is incredibly precious, to lose one because you are unprepared for the unknown is a little unfair. The game also came with a map and a guide to all the collectable items, perhaps to redress the balance a little.
Other than that though, Terramex is a cool game, with decent graphics and smooth animation. There's also a neat little tune that accompanies your adventures and the slapstick sense of humour helps move the game along nicely.

Terramex wasn't easy to come by, I hunted high and low on it's release and eventually I was able to pick it up from a car boot sale of all places. Despite it's questionable habit of throwing you curve-balls, Terramex's heart is in the right place, it's a challenging, action packed adventure and one of the few games which has the audacity to keep a smile on your face whilst it's kicking you in the balls.

Now get going, youve got a planet to save.