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| A View to a Kill | |
|---|---|
 Cover forThe Computer Game | |
| Developers | Domark Angelsoft |
| Publishers | Domark Mindscape |
| Series | James Bond |
| Platforms | The Computer Game Text adventure |
| Release |
|
| Genre | Action |
| Mode | Single-player |
A View to a Kill are two separate video games released in 1985 and based on theJames BondfilmA View to a Kill. The first, anaction game titledA View to a Kill: The Computer Game, was developed and published byDomark. It was available for theZX Spectrum,Amstrad CPC,Commodore 64,MSX, andOric. The second game,James Bond 007: A View to a Kill, is atext-basedadventure forMS-DOS,Macintosh, andApple II. It was developed by Angelsoft, and published byMindscape.
Domark created an action game split into three separate sections, inspired by scenes from the film. The game starts with the famous movie intro sequence of the moving gunsight and Bond shooting towards the camera. The MSX version omitted the first two sections.
In the first section set in Paris, James Bond commandeers a taxi to followMay Day who has parachuted from theEiffel Tower. Roadblocks and police cars are out to stop Bond, who can shoot his pistol at them to get them out of the way. The display is in three sections: an overhead map of Paris, a small 3D view from the car's point of view, and a scanner showing May Day's height. James must arrive at the right location to catch her as she lands.
In the second section, James must helpStacey Sutton escape fromSan Francisco City Hall, which is on fire. Each room is displayed from a side-on perspective. James must collect useful objects to get through the floors of the building, like keys to open doors and buckets of water to stop the progress of the fire.
In the third and final section, James must collect the code numbers to stop the detonation of Zorin's bomb. Bond runs around the mine, avoiding rockfalls and long drops. Among the objects he can pick up are a grapnel gun (to fire ropes upward which he can climb to safety) and a plank of wood to bridge gaps. May Day is also somewhere in the mine.
A password system lets the user play the second or third levels on their own without completing the first.
The music for theCommodore 64 version was written byAntony (Tony) Crowther, and consists of two covers. One is the "James Bond Theme" byMonty Norman. The second is theDuran Durantheme for the film.
Mindscape published thetext adventure game byAngelsoft Inc forDOS,Macintosh andApple II computers with the full titleJames Bond 007: A View to a Kill. Future Bond novelistRaymond Benson worked on the development of the game. It spawned a follow-up game,James Bond 007: Goldfinger.
Sinclair User gave the ZX Spectrum version four stars out of five.[1]Commodore User called the Commodore 64 version, "Certainly one of the better 'game of the film' implementations around."[2]Your Commodore gave the Commodore 64 version two stars out of five and criticized some of the gameplay concepts, writing, "Sometimes programmers can go overboard with special effects at the expense of what could otherwise be a superb game. A View to a Kill is one such example."[3]
Zzap!64, which gave the Commodore 64 version a 36 percent rating, criticized the game's graphics, its music, and its three separate gameplay modes, writing that focusing on a single gameplay style might have been better.Zzap!64's overall conclusion of the game was, "A powerful idea that seems to have missed its point."[4]Zzap!64 reviewed the Commodore 64 version again in 1992, giving it a 19 percent rating and writing that "the problem was a licence with such potential being turned into such a diabolical arcade adventure."[5]
QuestBusters, which wrote a positive review, praised the game's "well-written" text and "well-paced story", but criticized its first level for being "a skullsmasher that's near impossible without information obtained only in the film. [...] Maybe the designers figured people wouldn't play this game unless they'd seen the movie."QuestBusters criticized the game's slow loading times and response times as its "major drawback", but ultimately concluded, "Bond fans will not be disappointed."[6]
