Cadaver - The Pay Off

Title		Cadaver - The Pay Off
Game Type	RPG
Publisher  	Renegade
Players		1
Compatibility	A500/A1200 (Patch Available)
Requirements 	Requires Cadaver 'Game' disk
HD Installable	Yes (With Patch)
Submission	Chris Burns

Review
 After winning the mighty battle with Dianos and lopping off his head,
Karadoc the Dwarf staggers back to Wulfheim, groaning under the weight of
all the gold pilfered from Castle Wulf (plus of course, Dianos' head!).
Now to collect the reward that the villagers promised him for ridding them
of the evil mage..  Unfortunately, Karadoc discovers that most of the
villagers have been turned into monsters!  Not being the sort of dwarf
that gives up on rewards easily, Karadoc sets out across 4 more levels
with money (and welshing villagers) on his mind..

 The main differences between the first game and this add-on are that TPO
has outdoor scenes, the graphics are slightly better and on the first
level Karadoc has the help of a friendly monster, Snot (according to
Bitmap Steve Kelly!!!).  The appearance of Snot is fairly brief
unfortunately - his continued presence might have added an extra dimension
to the game. Also, the appearance of more magic mushrooms (finish the
game! :-) might have added extra fun, although there is still plenty of
alcohol for Karadoc to drink scattered throughout! There's a fun drinking
game to be played (and Karadoc will die if he loses - hey! they don't play
games like that in the pubs I go to!! :-) and there's also a secret quiz
room - but no prizes for getting all the questions right.. Pah!  One of
the better spells to be found is 'Talk to the Dead' which, when cast on a
corpse in the mortuary, yields an 'Urgh, what was I drinking last night?'
from the deceased. Heh, brilliant!!  Beyond all this, the game is more of
the same as Cadaver (no bad thing IMHO) and it uses the original games'
'Game' disk, so the animation of Karadoc, interaction with objects and
weapons etc are exactly the same as in the first game.

 The Pay Off definitely improves on the original game a little, while
containing all the monster fighting, puzzle solving, traps and exploring
of the original.  The puzzles are more logical (IMHO) although there are
still a few cases that aren't - off the top of my head, one example is a
hole in the wall; you give it some money and it gives you something
useful; give it more money and it'll give you something else useful.  Then
it says (yes, a talking hole in the wall - crazy world, isn't it?) that it
doesn't have anything else to give you but you need to keep pumping the
money in there until it eventually gives you something *crucial* to
completing the level.  That's not really what I'd call a puzzle... Again,
experimentation and examining everything that looks 'useful' is the key
and again, this game will last you a loooong time.

 While The Pay Off has improved on Cadaver, I don't think there'll be any
converts.  If you liked Cadaver, you'll love this; if you hated Cadaver,
well, chances are you'll hate this.  It's still one of my favourite ever
games and apparently it's all written using a special game language - so
Bitmaps!  It wouldn't take you 5 minutes to hammer out Cadaver 2 would it?
:-)

Just to make it clear - you need the original Cadaver 'Game' disk.
'Cadaver : The Pay Off' just replaces the 'Levels' disk.

Alphabetical list.