Project Paradroid

If you look for five minutes you're sure to find at least half a dozen remakes of games from the 8- or 16-bit era. If it was halfway popular or playable, someone's made a version for the PC or Mac. Paradroid, Andrew Braybrook's classic robo-hunting C64 game is no exception, and Ovine By Design have revived it as Project Paradroid.

Bugger.
Bugger.

In essence the game's much the same as its venerable predecessor. It takes place in a top-down view of rooms and corridors on a starship that's been over-run by rogue robots. You take the role of the 001 Influence Device, a rather puny robot that's quite easily blown apart. But despite your lack of effective armour and weapons, you have one serious advantage: your ability to link to and take over other robots, bolstering your own meagre defences.

Visually, it's very nice. It follows the appearance of the C64 game pretty closely but looks a little more chunky and colourful. The robots in particular are a delight to look at; perhaps a little different in style from the backdrop, but on the whole the graphics are cheerful and easy on the eye. The lasers and other weapons discharges are particularly pretty, and the addition of an online high score table is a very good idea indeed.

It's quite a treat for the ears too: most of the sounds are taken from or based on the original C64 game. The guys at Ovine have really gone out of their way to capture the feel of the original and bring it up to date, and good thing too. It's a shame, really, that one crucial aspect of the gameplay lets this remake down.

Come to Daddy.

It's slow. God, it's slow. 001, regardless of the robot it's hijacked, crawls along at a rate of what feels like one square per second. The laser has a rate of fire that would put a muzzle-loading musket to shame. Given that every friggin' robot and its uncle is armed and hostile (now there's a scary divergence from the original!), you have to stay alert and use all available cover if you want to stay healthy. Despite that the game is still playable and there is still the thrill of satisfaction when you've wrestled control away from the latest robot. The slow movement, though, is nothing short of frustrating, especially when compared to the original, where 001 could zip quite merrily down the corridors.

According to the site, this is the second version of this particular remake, If by version 3 Ovine can get this game's speed and responsiveness to match those of its illustrious ancestor, then Project Paradroid will be an absolute blinder of a game. Sadly, at present it falls flat in one area that can make gameplay a bit of a chore.

Promising, but not quite there yet.