Producer: Virgin Games
Retail Price: £9.95
Author: Sentient Software

Falcon, agent of that future organisation TIME - Temporal Investigative Monitoring Executive - is out to clip the wings of a rebellious Time Lord intent upon meddling with precious time artefacts in this game based upon the popular Falcon book series.

Falcon's mission begins from his headquarters, the Eiger Vault, where his timecraft Falcon's Wing awaits. Inside the ship a control panel displays databases on the artefacts, on the inhabitants of the eight different time zones where they're kept, and on the renegade Lord.

On leaving the Falcon's Wing, which is immediately disguised. Falcon can rove and jetpack his way through 70 flick screens.

Programmed Cydroids shoot at our faithful agent, reducing his stamina - and when he's no strength left he returns to his craft. His stamina is restored by activating the ship's Auto-Doc system.

Falcon's weapon is a rapid response laser gun; he can also find Power Of Will tokens to protect himself and Thinkstrike discs which immobilise enemies. And there are useful items to be picked up.

But Falcon's time is limited; and he must complete three missions quickly to vanquish the Time Lord, though even Falcon can never kill this enemy...

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q/A up/down, O/P left/right, SPACE to fire
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Use of colour: varied and often attractive
Graphics: interesting backgrounds, but poor sprites and animation
Sound: below average
Skill levels: one
Screens: 70 flick screens, and display screens on the ship

Falcon isn't much fun at first, but it grew on me little by little. Still, after a while I didn't want to play it any more. The graphics are average: some of the timezone backgrounds are attractive and the bas-relief works well, but the main character is poorly animated.
MIKE

With features like time machines, time zones and a renegade Time Lord, this sounds like a good Dr Who story. But though some backdrops and the facilities aboard the Falcon's Wing are good, and whizzing through databases and time-zone choice lists on a head-up display are brilliant, the game doesn't grab me.
MARK

I wasn't impressed with the title screen - no nice graphics or tunes - and Falcon is tedious. True, as soon as the game begins you get into the action with baddies shooting at you; but there's nothing to catch the players attention. And once you've visited each time zone and seen all the graphics (reminiscent of poor games from a few years back) there's little of interest. I liked the Falcon's Wings databanks, but the information could well have been put in the inlay. A disappointing, very dated and poorly-presented game.
ROBIN

Virgin
£9.95

You know those Fighting Fantasy books that are all the rage at the moment? Well, Falcon - The Renegade Lord is based on one of these. This leads me to just one question - how can you fit all the stuff from the books into a wee little 48K Speccy? Well, Virgin has certainly had a bash!

The game consists of around eight time zones, totalling around 70 screens. You are Falcon, an agent for TIME (Temporal Investigative and Monitoring Executive), a man who, just like all other heroes, is totally perfect in every way. Your job, most of the time, is to patrol the time lanes to ensure that no nasty little baddies pop out of nowhere and muck about with events in history (just think if they'd appeared in 1066 and shot Harold with a submachine gun!)

In this whizzo game you're pitted against another member of TIME, but this time he's a renegade time lord, and can't be killed. Don't let this gave you delusions about your own immortality though - you can still kick the bucket. This nasty little renegade has an annoying habit of borrowing things out of one zone and leaving them in another. Your misson, should you decide to accept it (and I hasten to add that if you don't, you're dog meat) is to blast off into unknown time zones, remember where you've parked your craft (cos it blends in with the landscape), and blow away anything that moves (yippee!)

There are two sections - inside and outside your ship. Outside is basically one big shoot 'em up, where you're helped by little T's end little P's that float around the place. The P's make you invincible for a while, and the T's freeze any nasties in the immediate area. You're also equipped with a jetpack, but I found that on several levels it decided to go on strike, leaving me stuck on terra firma, being chased by a Dalek with a duck's head (and no, I haven't gone quackers!)

The inside of the ship is a different kettle of fish altogether. You're faced with the control panel, and (with the help of a squitty little alien spider called Able) you're able to get across to the main computer CAIN (as in Cain and Able - geddit?)

CAIN is a really useful gadget to have around the house, as it can warp you to another time zone, heal all your wounds and tell you about the ship, the time zones and the baddies. There are three missions in all, and all must be completed to finish the game. The only problem, to my mind anyway, is that you're not given enough time - four minutes for a mission ain't long enough!

On my first impression, I found Falcon rather over-priced. Check it out before you buy would be my advice. The sounds non-existant, the graphics are average, the gameplay poor and the addictiveness likewise. I'd stick to the books if I were you - they're cheaper and more enjoyable.

Label: Virgin
Author: Sentient Software
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Jack Daniel

It's nice to know that MI6 aren't the only people to have hassle with their positive vetting. You see, T.I.M.E. (Temporal Investigative and Monitoring Executive) have got a renegade Time Lord on their hands - and not only does that mean shorter lunch hours, but the disruption of the whole Space-Time continuum. Bad news, John. Good guys to the rescue.

Actually, what is happening is that this impish Time Lord is taking artefacts from one Time Zone and putting them elsewhere, which natch, could cause big problems. I mean, imagine King Harold and William the Conquerer having telephones. They could have called the whole thing off at half time, and then where would we be. David Steele as Prime Minister I expect.

Anyway, back at Falcon, it is your sworn duty to seek out these anomalies and set history to rights by returning them to their correct Time Zones. Lucky you have a rapid response laser gun to blow away any natives with and a Jet Pack to make the carnage just that little bit more unfair, together with a trusty Time Machine to take you round the eight Time Zones that exist.

You start off in a room in the Time Lord HQ, the Eigervault. Your time machine dematerialises before your very eyes, and you must run around this particular level, zapping and rampaging robot, to find it again. No need to worry, actually. It's only five flip screen rooms away.

The single complication is the time limit you are up against. During the play testing. Virgin obviously found it was too easy, and the only thing they could do at that late stage was to alter the time.

Playing real-time, you have only four minutes. Sure, you get some extra time when you complete a mission, but it still makes it a push. Some might think this challenging. I suspect the more discerning reader would simply find it annoying.

Falcon isn't complicated enough to make it as an arcade adventure. The zapping isn't compulsive enough to make it a decent zapper. The design isn't pretty enough to make it worth just looking at on the telly. In fact Falcon falls between almost every stool imaginable.

Being not-completely-awful, it's possible that a much small relative might find Falcon of interest. It's certainly easy enough. But for the hardened gamer, there is nothing here whatsoever.