Note: This is the Atari XL computer series review.
One may argue that to make a successful game it needs to have great graphics, sounds and full of action. Well, it may be the case with most games however some just don’t quite cut the mustard. Drol, programmed by Aik Beng and published by Broderbund has all that formula, great graphics, sounds and tonnes of action. However, the game just feels boring and frustrated at the same time. There’s too much mess and mucking around in this game that, frankly, makes it even hard for me to write this review.
So the premise is, you play this robot (I think it’s a robot) armed with a jetpack that fires bullets (?). Its goal is to save the mother and her nameless boy and girl from the witch doctor. Both boy and girl has a pet crocodile / lizard respectively that you need to save them too. There are three levels to pass and once that’s all said and done, its rinse and repeat. Does it ends it’s anyone’s guess. I frankly couldn’t care less after when I saved the mother first time round, I simply ended the game.
The son appears in level one and the daughter in level two. The mother, who’s tied up right at the end of the dungeon (?) appears in level 3. Yet, once you have collected the entire family (including the pets) there is a nice cut scene where, at the end and like a billion other games before this, the witch doctor yells something in the lines of ‘this is not the end’. For me, it was the end as there wasn’t much going for as it just repeats itself with more crap on the screen.
The crap I’m referring to is, from somewhere, there’s a barrage of missiles aiming for you ranging from knifes to axes and so on. Thankfully, the hero (that robot thingy) fires his missiles very fast – i.e. when you press the trigger is one shot and depress fires another. Just button spam until the cows come home however height plays a part as well. So my suggestion here is move that robot up / down and button spam. Yet it’s not as easy as it sounds as you have other crap to worry about like honking vacuum cleaners (that you cannot shoot at all), enemies like jumping scorpions that shoots missiles at you and that witch doctor that makes a cameo appearance among many others.
Other enemies like the flying bird of some description turns into a cooked turkey once you kill it is pretty neat however, just like a fad, the ‘laughing factor’ dies very fast. To assist you saving the kids, the boy is chasing a helicopter and the girl, a balloon. Shoot both the balloon / helicopter and the kids will slow down to a grinding halt thus making it easier for you to save them. Unfortunately there’s no tricks to save the crocodile / lizard – just hope you find them sooner than later.
Each screen is your typical platform type where it’s divided into four levels. Naturally the lowest level will be the hardest and the top, the easiest – meaning there’s less crap firing at you at the highest point. So, to save the mother, she’s located at the bottom far right – yes, literally right at the end. Yet there’s a neat feature where you have a radar on the top of the screen that elicits all the crap aiming for you however, it does not show the location of the children / animals.
Visually the game looks impressive – very detailed, crisp with smooth animations. I never encountered a frame rate drop so this is a sure sign of great programming. All in high resolution my only grip here is, my copy of Drol is all black / white. I think there’s a colour version but, I think you need to hack it to get the colour and besides, I believe the game won’t be as smooth as in black / white. The sound quality is awesome to say the least – everything from the jumping sounds from the enemies to even when the hero explodes, it’s just wonderful to hear. Kudos goes to the opening musical score as it’s one of the best I have ever heard up to that point (1983). It even challenges M.U.L.E. as, for me, they are both equally great – worth a listen to.
By the time when Drol was released, I was getting really tired of platform games – actually platforms, mazes and shoot ‘em up games. There were way too many in the market with very little variation. When I first looked at Drol, I had hopes as it does look like a very pretty, fast paced game with great sounds to boot. However, once I have saved the mother and the game cycles over and over again, the fun factor died just like a lead balloon. And to top it off, the game was pretty hard when venturing on the bottom level, I had little motivation to go on. On the contrary what the witch doctor said about ‘this is not over yet’ (or whatever the line), for me it is.