Amaurote

• Title — Amaurote • Developer — Binary Design Ltd • Publisher — Mastertronic • Designer — John Pickford • Composer — David Whittaker • Released — 1987 • Genre — Action • Modes — Single player • Platforms — Amstrad CPC, Atari 8-bit, C64, MSX, ZX Spectrum, Electronika BK 0011M

From the game's instructions: • The city of Amaurote has been invaded by huge, aggressive insects who have built colonies in each of the city's 25 sectors. As the only uninjured army officer left after the invasion (that'll teach you for hiding!) the job falls to you to destroy all the insect colonies.

• Illustration — An insect chases the Arachnus (Atari 8-bit screenshot) The player controls an "Arachnus 4", an armoured fighting-machine that moves on four legs. The player must first select a sector to play in via a map screen and then control the Arachnus as it wanders an isometric (top-down in the Commodore 64 version) view of the cityscape attacking marauding insects and searching for the insect queen using a scanner. The Arachnus attacks by launching bouncing bombs. It can only launch one at a time so if a bomb misses its intended target the player will have to wait until it hits the scenery or bounces against the fence of the play area before firing again. Once the queen has been located, the player can radio-in a "supa-bomb" which can be used to destroy the queen. The player can also radio-in other supplies such as additional bombs and even ask to be pulled out of the combat zone. Extra weaponry costs the player "dosh", the in-game currency.