Rex and the ZX Spectrum militant ecology movement

1988 was 20 years ago and I admittedly do feel a bit on the older side of mankind. Regardless. It's amazing that 20 years since the release of Rex for the ZX Spectrum video games with a strong environmental theme can be counted on one (very crippled) hand, whereas happily militaristic shooters where starry-eyed young gamers kill anything vaguely resembling an Arab are a dime a dozen. And to think that back then it was still actually cold in Antarctica... Oh, well, it must be this clampdown thingy again.

Anyway. On to the game. On to Rex, the brilliant Speccy arcade platformer/shooter that, yes, you guessed it, was released back in 1988 by Martech Games to generally rave reviews. After all, massive Metroid-esque exploration-heavy action games, especially those that used both sides of a tape, weren't all that common for the humble Sinclair 8-bit.

In Rex, dear readers, players assumed the role of the cunningly named Rex, a heavily armored anthropomorphic rhino with a certain passion for ecology, and set off to rid his home-planet from a huge polluting factory-tower-fortress big building thing. Actually, make that a huge, cavernous, impressively non-linear factory-tower-fortress building thing and you'll have managed a way more accurate description.

Oh, and in order to survive said treacherous fortress thing players had to be more than skillful, as this was another traditionally difficult 8-bit game. To be fair though, Rex did provide with quite a few power-ups, occasionally a shield and some almost fairly placed respawn points, that actually did help. What's more, as the game was divided into two parts, there was a brilliant code system in place to help 'em poor gamers avoid playing the first bit all over again. Impressively, this code system even managed to pass on information regarding Rex's health/ammo/etc status.

As for the graphics, well, they were nice, colourful and detailed, and quite wisely designed to avoid as much colour-clash as possible. Sounds, on the other hand, were kept to a minimum few effects and obviously no music was featured.

The gameplay, what truly matters, of course was brilliant and immensely addictive. Otherwise, I guess, I wouldn't be battling my way through Rex all over again, especially on a pretty decent PC loaded with games and while ignoring a Wii...

To legally play Rex, download its tape images, read relevant reviews and/or generally go for the complete Rex experience, I strongly suggest you click yourselves over to the excellent World of Spectrum website. Among other stuff you'll find tons of Rex reviews, maps, ads, previews and walkthroughs.

Related @ Gnome's Lair: Mersey Remakes interview, Matthew Smith in FMV, Sensible Train Spotting, the Retro Gamer eMag