Producer: Mastertronic
Retail Price: £1.99
Author: Icon Design

The crime of the month, if not the century, is under way - criminals have made their headquarters in a deserted warehouse and filled it with computer equipment, and they're ready to paralyse the electronic security systems of four victim banks.

There's only one solution, so your police superiors have ordered you to destroy the warehouse and all the equipment it contains.

To do this, four plasma computers must be deactivated. The active (red) rotating plasma vent in each computer is its Achilles'heel, and should be taken out by a well-directed shot.

But the computers are protected by a swarm of desperate criminals who just don't like an undercover cop that much. You carry a gun for protection against these evil rapscallions and their grenades and missiles (but be careful - while you're busily gathering points, the gun can overheat).

After taking out the plasma computers, you can enter the master level of the warehouse hideout, thus setting off a chain reaction in the central power electrode and foiling the bank robbers' plans for good.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: poor and badly-defined
Sound: squidgy explosions

I'm sick of all these 'shoot every person in sight' games - they were only appealing for a short while, and now they're very tedious and boring affairs. Rapid Fire is the epitome of everything bad about this genre. It has absolutely no content, and it seems pointless going around blasting every single thing that moves. I'm not a pacifist, but all this violence makes me sick.
PAUL [27%]

Rapid Fire is a highly boring, unaddictive shoot-'em-up. The graphics look like they were made in ten minutes on a Friday afternoon (some of the enemies weapons are like black lemons, and your own machine gun is a simple stick) and the animation is pathetic. The only decent thing about Rapid Fire is the loading screen, so there's nothing worth buying here.
NICK [40%]

This is the kind of primitive junk I'd have expected from a budget label a couple of years ago. The gameplay is extremely limited, so there's virtually no playability. And the graphics are horribly flickery, with unconvincing animation of the main character - though the characters are nicely detailed. I doubt Rapid Fire will appeal to many; it certainly left me cold.
BEN [30%]

Label: Mastertronic
Author: Icon Design
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

Could have been good, but ain't. Rapid Fire is one of those desperate mixtures of themes where valiant undercover cops battle to disable plasma computers (huh?) and power electrodes (wha....?) in order to destroy a warehouse full of criminals.

Run left and right, shoot diagonally upwards to pick off the snipers, jump over bombs, leap up to shake off unarmed baddies.

The scenario's there, but the graphics certainly aren't. The horizontally-scrolling backgrounds are pretty dull, the heroic cop runs like a pregnant duck and his macho machinegun looks like a broom handle.

Not interesting enough to keep you going through the five levels - more a case of 'rapid boredom' if you ask me.

Blow 'em away with Mastertronic

Rapid Fire is played using joystick only over six levels of increasing difficulty. The background scrolls from left to right with your character staying centre-screen as you move through a warehouse dealing death and foiling the bank-busting ambitions of a bunch of computer-literate crooks - achieved by blasting 'plasma computers' at the end of each level and the 'central power electrode' at the end of the game. You have five lives, a machine gun, and a limitless supply of ammunition to expend in the restoration of law and order.

Smooth animation and scrolling do not compensate for poorly drawn sprites and drab backgrounds, though the sound makes a brave attempt to raise the game out of the ordinary with good effects and a lively tune. A reasonable budget game, but don't expect much in the lasting interest stakes.

Reviewer: Andy Smith

RELEASE BOX
C64/128, £2.99, Reviewed
Spectrum, £2.99cs, Reviewed
Other versions undecided.

Predicted Interest Curve

1 min: 40/100
1 hour: 60/100
1 day: 60/100
1 week: 40/100
1 month: 20/100
1 year: 10/100