Tetra Quest (Microdeal 1988: Programming - Paul Frewin, Graphics - Chris Kew, Music - Paul Shields)

It's a shoot 'em up from Microdeal, which in general means it's going to be average at best and absolutely dire at worst. The plotline is inconceivably dire, something about some intergalatic olympic games rubbish and how some special thingymewhatsits have been half inched by snooty sods who were pissed they weren't invited to take part. You control a ship which is attached to a grid like system of rails. Enemies appear through a portal type affair and try and run into you, though they seem to be attached to the same rails as you are. There are various switches to be triggered to get to all parts of the level and teleports can help too. The enemies AI is pretty limited, and they randomly run along the rails trying to run into you. At the side of the screen is a test tube which seems to fill up depending on how many enemies you've killed or how many bonus items you've collected. Once in a while you need to transform into the 'Pheonix', which allows you some freedom from the grid. To be fair this is probably one of the better examples of Microdeals craft. The music is actually pretty good for a chip tune. The graphics are reasonable and the controls, though oversensitive on the odd occasion are reasonable enough.

Zogging Hell Rating: 5/10

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