S.O.L.O. & Exo-tical
- AlWo73
- 19 minutes ago
- 5 min read
You've been sent into outer space...
S.O.L.O.
(Roolandoo, 2021)
Where would the modern Spectrum scene be without programmers from mainland Europe, or sometimes even further afield? During the commercial golden age I don't think any of us gave much thought to what was happening overseas, so overflowing was our cup of software for so long. Yes, cup of software. But recently most of the really good retro gaming fare has been international in flavour, particularly from Russia of course. Hopefully we can experience more of that in the near future, you never know.
So it's a big thank you to the likes of Angel Colaso, author of both of today's featured games kiddies, for keeping the (far from) home fires burning, keeping the faith, keeping it real and keeping young and beautiful. He's known as Roolandoo at weekends, and has also created Bufonada (well received by this site a while back) and La Reliquia amongst others. Good to know.
First up chronologically is S.O.L.O. which should be called just that, not "Solo" owing to its many associated dots. A bit like Brad Pitt's classic psychological horror movie should really be pronounced "Sesevenen" as a result of its own stylised numerical mis-step. Any others? I always call Lemmy's lot "Motuuurrrhhhead" for a similar umlauty reason, but also partly because my hero is Colin Robinson. Noice.
You play a droidy fellow called Slot One Level One oddly, so no wonder he gets acronymed to sound cooler. Here comes the moody voice over as befits any sci-fi experience. "The year is 2433, location Planet Tartessos." which presumably is intended to sound like tartare sauce. "Cowardly humans suddenly bottle it and flee the planet en masse. To where we don't know. They callously abandon hundreds of poor robot folk in their haste, leaving them under the sole tutelage" (such a good word, wonder what it means) "of an A.I." (booooooo!) "Called Isac." Which rang a bell or two somewhere.
The bots have mostly gone doolally due to inhaling too much of the local Ether (the shameless junkies) and are of course trying to kill poor S.O.L.O. who has a hunch he should try to escape the planet by hook or by crook. Happily he has his very own upgrade slot, which gives him powers like zapping and flying. The shame is they can only be used one at a time, so choosing which one to use and when is key.
As are keys. Each little screen needs a door unlocking to get to the next one. So each is a mini puzzle of its own with some platforming thrown in. Things get off to a cracking start with a larvly spacey tune by the peerless McmM, which carries on throughout gameplay. And the graphics are super neat and colourful, with some cute animation on your bot (arf!) who rightfully has a permanently worried look on his face.
The storyline progresses as you work through the levels. You know the drill. You find a rocket, it's lacking several key parts. You get the parts, oh no it's out of fuel. Life is rarely straightforward in games is it, so it's a good job we love struggling so! Imagine finding something that worked properly first time.... inconceivable! Anyway, it might be nothing massively novel, but S.OL.O. sure is a fun game to dabble in, with top presentation all round.
EXO-TICAL
(Roolandoo, 2023)
Two years later came Exo-tical. So that must be 2435, right? Here's voiceover guy once more, maybe try a Matt Berry impression this time round... "Earth is dying..." Bummer. "The planet Ero-tical, sorry Exo-tical, is humanity's last last chance." That was deliberate by the way. "You must fly our last spaceship" (bound to be a total piece of space junk then) "and save our world by finding an infinite power source from an extinct civilisation, hidden in a submerged temple. Which is guarded by three great breasts." Blimey. Oh wait...
So the game is afoot and off you tootle into level 1, the Caustic Beach. Which looks surprisingly colourful and lovely actually, though best give the lava a miss generally. And the inhabitants who as always lack social etiquette and take it in turns to try to do you in. But you do at least have a pow-pow gun on the ship which can see off some of the local fauna at least. But your mightiest ally is nothing other than...
An egg! Each level boasts one of these potent ovoids which when dropped acts like a grenade. That's a pretty funky egg, and no mistake. Trouble is, once you've found the egg and started to carry it to a place you quite fancy blowing up, it's so heavy and volatile that you can't successfully fire at enemies while holding it. So you have to find safe places to stash it inbetween fighting off the baddies, which brings an unusual element into play. You'll definitely forget you've got the egg and shoot and destroy yourself more than a few times, or I did at least.
Each level has one feature I like and one I don't. Firstly you have a little shoot em up interlude which is itself hellafun and breaks things up nicely. Sadly in order to get to that bit, one must defeat the end of level big beastie. It took me so very long to best the first one, a Nessie lookalike, and I began to think I couldn't manage it. And the one at the end of level 2? I can't even lay a paw on that tentacular abomination...
Like S.O.L.O., everything looks and sounds great in Exo-tical. Lovely tunes, smooth graphics, bags of colour, all the Colaso hallmarks are here. My only reservation is the difficulty level. It seems a fair bit harder than S.O.L.O., and often demands extreme precision of its player, something I am only fleetingly capable of displaying. As such, things can get rather frustrating and playability suffers. But despite this, we can hopefully look forward to more quality offerings from Roolandooooo in future years. He's ace at space.
SPACED OUT RATINGS
S.O.L.O. 84%
EXO-TICAL 82%
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