[AMSTRAD CPC] Biggles – Longplay & Review

Do you want to be a hero? Chocks away! BIGGLES takes off on the Amstrad CPC … and a strange game it is indeed! Mostly because it’s based on the movie released in 1986 that bares little resemblance to the books and features a bizarre time traveling plot!

For those of you that don’t know, Biggles is a very famous character and series of books published in the UK by W.E. Johns from the 1930’s-60’s who’s an ace pilot in the RAF following his exploits through WW1, WW2 and beyond. For many years a movie was planned to be made, eventually in the early 80’s scripts were written for a ‘Raiders Of The Lost Ark’ style adventure, but was hastily re-written due to the success of Back To The Future. So we ended up with a strange plot involving an American TV dinner salesman (Jim) who is Biggles “time twin” and they both get zapped through time whenever the other is in trouble!

The games follows the plot of the cheesy movie (which is a big guilty pleasure of mine despite the naff plot!!) where Biggles and Jim have to first photograph the new secret ‘Sound Weapon’ the Nazi’s are making, find the test site location for the weapon, shoot forward to 1986 to eventually steal a helicopter, which then gets zapped back to WW1 where it’s used to destroy the secret weapon! Phew! Got all that?

The game is split into two sections, the first sees you jumping between 3 different levels and time zones and the last section being a helicopter shoot-em-up sim that is ridiculously hard which I’ve explained in the commentary – so cheats have been used here (on this section) to show you the complete game.

(c) Mirrorsoft 1986

http://cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=391
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biggles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biggles:_Adventures_in_Time
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090729/

Cheat & Pokes for 2nd section –
poke &3e9b,&c9
poke &5a7a,00
poke &6135,00