AUTHOR: SEGA RELEASE: 1995 TYP: Jump & Run SPIELER: 1 LEVEL: - SPRACHE: Eng WERT: 13€

Phantastische Graphik, die zum größten Teil mit Silicon Graphics-Workstations erstellt wurde, schafft eine kino-ähnliche Atmosphäre inmitten dieser einzigartigen 3-D Spielzeugwelt. Turmhohe Gebäude, die kurz vor ihm einstürzen und flinke Bösewichte fordern halsbrecherische Ausweichmanöver von dem mutigen Aufziehritter Pepperouchau.

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Clockwork Knight is a game that depicts the sometimes friendly, sometimes combative, secret lives of toys. Betsy has a huge number of toys that come to life in the absence of humans and normally play nicely with each other. In the opening introduction, the somewhat inept clockwork knight Pepperouchau is competing with some other knights for the affections of a princess who lives in the clock. Everyone is having a grand time until a rogue toy shows up through the air vent, absconds with the princess, and turns many of the other toys against Pepperouchau. The gameplay consists of side scrolling action through various stages constructed of elaborate series of toys, traps, and common household items. The first stage is a quest through Betsy's room with lots of letter blocks, sharp crayons, and dollhouses precariously balanced on robots that tend to fall on you. Pepperouchau is armed with a key sword that has offensive use as well as the ability to open boxes that functions as warps to other areas. The second stage takes place in Betsy's brother's room. Kevin has a lot of engineering skill and has built an impressive network of cranes and trains that Pepperouchau will need to activate in order to clear the area. Watch out for the jet transformer boss at the end of the room. Other stages include missions through other areas of the house including the kitchen and the attic. Throughout the game you also collect coins. 20 coins are worth a continue when you run out of lives. Further, you meet other friendly toys between levels who give you the opportunity to gamble with your earned coins. www.Mobygames.com

I will take any excuse to hook up my Sega Saturn. I have a real soft spot for the Saturn, a system I happily paid $399 on Day One to acquire while working at a mall-based Software Etc. – much to the chagrin of customers that rushed the store the day Sega made their surprise launch announcement. (It was a decision that helped cost them the generation, too.) The launch library was slim, but as a huge platformer fan, there was no way to avoid Clockwork Knight. The back of the game case featured screens that bled bright color, and it looked like it used those new-fangled polygons everybody was talking so much about at the time. Of course, once you play Clockwork Knight, you realize it's not using polygons at all. The game was a regular 2D side-scrolling game that used rendered spites instead, faking the 3D effect. It was certainly an effective trick, and coupled with areas that occasionally took a 90-degree turn, the game took on more of a 2.5-D appearance than anything. There were some polygonal characters thrown into the equation, such as the final boss, which was a giant television with a weakness against… pencils. Now, Clockwork Knight might look quaint to some and messy to others, but in 1995, this was an eye-bleeder. This, and Panzer Dragoon, were the games I used to drive friends crazy. But, as we learn when we go diving through the games of yesterday, the tangibles sometimes do not hold up as well as memory. Clockwork Knight is indeed one of those games that puts a smile on your face by tapping into nostalgia, but once the initial connection fades, you're left with a very basic platformer that uses its shiny graphics to obscure some very plain game play. […] Clockwork Knight is a classic launch title. It's gussied up with features that capitalize on a new system's power, such as polygons or CD-quality audio. But at its core, Clockwork Knight is just a base-level platform that skates too long on the charms of its hero, Pepper. I do hope that the Saturn is resurrected somehow on the current console, maybe on the Virtual Console or the Xbox Live Arcade, but if Pepper is called back into service, his sequel is the one that should be enlisted. www.retro.ign.com