Captive
| Developer: Antony Crowther | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Mindscape | Sound: |
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| Year: 1990 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Role-playing game | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
8/10 | |
An interesting scenario: the 26th century, you’ve been accused of a crime you didn’t commit and cryogenically frozen.
One fine day, you wake up in a cell, God knows where. Tubes are coming out of your body, connected to machines. You don’t remember who you are or how you ended up here. On the outside, everything looks devastated and deserted—is it a war?
Your only chance of salvation is a briefcase you found, which allows you to remotely control four androids. Maybe they can help you…
Well, it looked great in the manual, but in the game, I didn’t understand a thing. I managed to name my robots, land on a planet by myself, open a door … and that’s it. Stuck in a three-metre-long corridor with a locked door behind me and a wall in front. I spent half an hour clicking everywhere, banging into walls, and eventually, to pass the time, I set up a boxing tournament between my robots.
It was Maurice (the blue one) who won.
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Oh, damn! I had to right-click on the up arrow to push the wall! And how were we supposed to know that? Well, Maurice, you pick up the pieces of your mates, and let’s carry on!
Ah, my children, thank goodness for the Internet! The manual explains nothing. We don’t know where to go, why, or how. My computer almost ended up in the courtyard…
So, aside from the ergonomic factor, once you’ve found a large enough sheet of graph paper and a pencil to draw your maps, the first steps into a “dungeon” are fairly easy. Your robots are big brutes that nothing can stop! Well, except puddles of water (they have sensitive feet).
You’ll notice that dead enemies leave behind loot bags filled with money, so you can do some shopping in the local store: buy new weapons, stock up on ammo, or grab various high-tech gear.
Now, let’s get to the heart of the matter. Each base you visit holds a generator that must be destroyed (moments of panic arise when you have to escape before the explosion!). After ten bases, the prison station becomes accessible. Order your mechanical minions to free you, and then you’ll have the choice to either finish the game or be captured again! This will allow you to restart the escape mission from the beginning, in a newly generated random galaxy (of course, made up of different levels). Some monsters and special equipment only appear in the second or even third playthrough.
Just so you know, you can restart the mission like this more than 65,000 times. You’ve got this!
Its sequel, Liberation, was released in 1994.
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