Gods (Amiga)

I'd been quite keen to play this from the moment I saw it sitting in my pile of Amiga games. I kind of had a few fleeting memories of it from way back, but I don't think I actually played it then. But with it having the name Bitmap Bros. on it, there was naturally a high level of expectation that I'd be having a good time.

And I did.

I wrote a description of Gods, and in reading it back, it sounded like I was slagging the game off. I described it as being like a typical Amiga platform game - filled with lumbering, detailed characters that are too large for the playing area. And while that's true, it doesn't actually detract from the game... in fact, it helps to define it.

Gods, as I said, is a platform game. You wander around, jumping from ledge to ledge, climbing ladders, and shooting nasty things. Hardly innovative, that. To make things more interesting, there are some puzzle elements in there. There's nothing that will tax your brain... mostly, you're going to be pushing switches until you get them in the right positions to destroy obstacles or open trapdoors. It does add an extra element to the game, although as you might imagine, it can be a little frustrating at times. Depends how much you hate switches and levers.


No, your character is not a naked welder...

The best thing for me about this game is that it throws loads of loot at you. You'll always have gems and crystals and other valuable little bits falling to the ground, ready to boost your score. And that's something else I really like... Gods may be an adventurey-platform game, but it's also a great high score game. High scores will always appeal to me, being a child of the arcade age, so I appreciate the fact that this is a platform game where you can score over a million points, if you're good.

There are problems and flaws here... most notably with the controls. The problem is one that affected many a game back then... our joysticks only utilised one fire button. Because of this, you can only jump diagonally, and you can't fire whilst crouching... instead cycling through your "very limited" inventory. I think that, although I enjoyed the game, it would be a lot more fun if it didn't have these issues. In fact, I think I'd really like a modern remake of Gods. I think that using a modern controller and mapping these actions to other buttons would make it better to play. As it is, though, Gods is a very polished and pretty entertaining game.