Ice pellets

Fire and Ice Longplay (Amiga) [50 FPS]

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• published: 11 Apr 2015
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Developed by Graftgold and published by Renegade in 1992. Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Al82_Retro Add me on Google+: http://bit.ly/1tPwL1u The evil wizard Suten has escaped from incarceration in a distant galaxy and has taken refuge on Earth. Biding his time and regaining his power through absorbing heat from the sun, Suten plans to enslave the planet to his own ends. One of Suten's warders, Glemm, has tracked Suten down and is searching for a way to recapture the wizard without risking the annihilation of the planet and all life along with it. To this end, he enlists the aid of Cool Coyote, who must travel from his own in the Arctic to the scorching deserts of Egypt to defeat the wizard. This has to be one of the strangest premises for a platform game featuring a cuddly, anthropomorphic coyote, but who am I to judge? Developed by Andrew Braybrook and Phillip Williams, Fire and Ice was one of the most anticipated Amiga games of 1992, especially when Braybrook as responsible for developing classic titles such as Uridium and the Amiga conversion of Rainbow Islands. The game is set across seven environments, each of which comprises of a number of levels. The objective on each stage is to assemble a key to the stage exit by defeating enemies that inhabit the level. One piece of the key is held by each distinct enemy type in the level, so you have to hunt down all the different enemies, destroy them and hope that they have a part of the key; the enemy that holds the key is random, so no two games are exactly the same. Once assembled, Cool Coyote must find the level exit, which is a large, locked door suspended in mid air; as long as the key is complete then the door will open. Of course, the enemies are not about to simply give up their key fragments. Fortunately, our furry hero is bestowed with the ability to hurl an unlimited supply of ice pellets at his foes, freezing them in place. Touching a frozen enemy will destroy them, but be quick, enemies don't stay frozen for long. In addition to pellets, CC can collect snowflakes from storm clouds by cooling them down with his pellets. Clouds will spit out a number of snowflakes, before going transforming into a deadly storm cloud, which will begin to cast lightning at anything nearby; the lighting is capable of zapping both enemies and CC himself, so be exercise caution around these storm clouds. Located on certain levels are small puppies, which will follow Cool Coyote and when rescued and can attack enemies with their own supply of ice pellets. These little fellows aren't particularly agile, but the additional fire power is worth waiting for them them to catch up with you. If you bring a puppy to the level exit then he will escape, netting you a cool extra life and a ton of bonus points. As with any good platform game, there's a decent amount of hidden secrets to be discovered. Hidden teleports can be found that lead to areas containing bonus items, and some areas can be opened by shooting them with ice pellets. I was pleased to find that the controls in the game are pretty good; not too sensitive, but responsive enough to keep control over CC. There is a sense of inertia when moving around, so you really have to be careful when changing direction when standing on small platforms as it's very easy to fall off. Many of the levels are quite open, with as much vertical travel as horizontal. I did find that there were too many occasions where you can fall from a platform and land on an enemy below you that you just didn't know was there. One of my pet hates with games, especially platformers, is being killed by things you cannot see, or didn't have time to react to. Fire and Ice isn't the worst offender in this regard, but there were a few moments, particularly on the temple levels, where I was left gnashing my teeth with some frustration. Fortunately, there's still a lot to like about the game despite these niggles. The graphics and animation are fantastic; Cool Coyote looks great and there are some really cool touches in his design, such as the way his fur moves when running, and also the very cartoony way he comes to halt after running. Fire and Ice certainly holds it's own in the visual department when compared to platform games available on the 16-bit Sega and Nintendo consoles available at the time. Jason Page was responsible for the game's audio did a really great job with the game's music. There's a definite chip-tune vibe to a lot of the music and many of the level tunes are down-right catchy and will have you humming along as you play. I actually prefer the music in the original disk-based release to the full CD soundtrack in he CD32 version. Fire and Ice is a very polished product and shows that, with the right team, that the Amiga could still hold it's own against the consoles. This is one platform game that should be part of every Amiga-owner's collection.