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Description:
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Thundercats: The Lost Eye of Thundera Video Game is a side scrolling video game published in 1987 by Elite Systems for home computers including Amstrad CPC, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum.
When the game begins, the player is shown an image of Mumm-Ra, the Thundercats’ main villain, and is told that Mumm-Ra now has the Eye of Thundera, the source of the Thundercats’ power. The player takes control of the character Lion-O and maneuvers him through 14 side scrolling levels to search for the missing Eye of Thundera.
The fourteenth and final level of the game is nearly twice as long as all previous levels. The player is given a larger time limit to complete the level. When the final level is completed, the player is shown an image of Mumm-Ra and is informed that Mumm-Ra has been defeated and the Eye of Thundera has been returned. |
There were various versions of the game. The programming group behind the game were Gargoyle Games, the people behind it not wanting to talk about it today. Unusually, the programmers were not credited but they are: Roy Carter, Stuart Cox, Rob Hubbard (music), Ian Upton (Spectrum/Amstrad version), the game’s country of origin was England.
On Amstrad 64k and Spectrum 48k machines, there were three less levels. You would get all 14 levels on a 128k machine along with digitized photos of Panthro, Tygra and Wilykat on screen before their respective rescue levels. These levels could be used to help build up lives (maximum of 9) and you only had one chance to rescue the respective Thundercat. There was no concequence for losing.
If you ran out of time before finishing a level, then Mumm-Ra would send a skull of death to make you lose a life. On occasion, you could collect a gun which fired balls. But on some levels, you could only use the sword.
When you reached Level 4, you reached the Garden of Elements and you could choose which of the next four levels to do first and they could be done in any order.
On the Amstrad/Spectrum versions, there is a bug in which you can collect the Nosediver in Level 5, go back to the beginning of the level and go up into the ceiling then go towards the end of the level without losing a life.
Other games were comissioned for the licence but became other games. One became the game Beyond the Ice Palace while the other became Bomb Jack II. It is intresting to note that the music to the latter on the C64 version is a version of the Thundercats theme.
The game recieved many magazine awards. Amstrad Action awarded it 90% and an AA Rave rating. Your Sinclair gave it a YS Megagame award. Crash (Spectrum) gave it a Crash Smash award,
The game also came out for the MSX, also by Elite but different. A Nintendo NES version was planned and even advertised but it eventually never came out.