Voyager I: Sabotage of the Robot Ship

Personal Computing Today Issue 3
Writer: DB

Released this year by Avalon Hill, Voyager I is one of the better ‘seek and destroy' type of games. You are the only human aboard an alien spaceship that is infested by killer robots.

As you may have guessed, your mission is to either, destroy all the robots or, destroy all of the ships generators and escape yourself.

As you roam around the ships 144 locations, you are given a 3-Dimensional, "eye level", view of your locations. Using single keyboard entries, you move around the ship, you may take a laser gun if you happen upon one, turn left or right and move forward or backwards. Occasionally you will come across an elevator which will take you to a new level within the ship, should you require it. Scattered about the ship are generators which you may destroy or use to re-charge your laser gun. There is also an escape shuttle craft which you must locate before you dare destroy the final generator. During your wanderings you use up your energy, and this is shown on a chart, to the right of your display, together with the charge state of your laser gun and the ships generators. Should you chance upon one of the killer robots, you must hope that you are not too exhausted and that your laser gun is charged.

As well as a command to Abandon Ship, there is one other command that you may call upon. This is MAP! Pressing the M key clears the screen and gives you a graphic display of the rooms that you have searched as seen from above. Also shown on the screen are the number of robots remaining and any objects that you have discovered (eg. lasers, generators etc).

The program boasts a sound capability, but I could not make this facility work with my TRS-80 Model I, but this did not detract from my enjoyment of an excellent game that has many features not normally available on a single game. Ratings Table
 * Program Quality - 4
 * Value for Money - 4
 * Presentation On-screen - 3
 * Ease of Use - 4
 * Crashproofing - 4
 * Supplied Instructions - 4
 * Overall - 80%