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PUBLISHER: Imagic RELEASED: 1983 PROGRAM: Tim Yu FORMAT: Cartridge

With the immense popularity of the Commodore 64 home computer, its predecessor, the Vic-20, is often the forgotten member of the family. It's a shame too, since the Vic-20 saw some absolutely fantastic video game releases during its short lifespan. Dragonfire from Imagic is one such title, and proves to be one of the best and most underrated versions of the game ever released. It might not have the archer or moving drawbridge, but it has some of the best and most responsive play control of any of the Dragonfire releases. In Dragonfire, you take on the role of the king's servent and your task is to sneak into the castle and get back the king's many valuable treasures that have been taken control of by an evil group of dragons. In the first sequence, you must run across the castle's drawbridge ducking and jumping over the fireballs that are tossed your way by these dragons. Once inside the castle, you'll begin the second sequence in which you'll find yourself inside the king's treasure room where you must run around and quickly gather up all of the treasures lying around before the dragon burns you with his fireballs. The visuals in the Commodore Vic-20 version of the game are actually quite good and show a lot of variety in the various colors used onscreen. Even the treausures look very colorful and detailed. This version has the old-style 2-D treasure room, but it's complimented so well by the smooth play control that you won't even miss the 3-D treausure room found in many other computer versions of Dragonfire. The sound effects in the game are outstanding and are some of the best ever heard in any the Dragonfire releases. But as good as the visuals and sound effects are, it's the spot-on play control that makes this such an outstanding version of Dragonfire and such a fun game to play.

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