Fighting for the Fairies

Where do the heroes from games go when they retire? Is there an old folk’s home somewhere, populated solely by aging barbarians, cartoon animals and cyber-enhanced super-soldiers of the future, reminiscing about old times? “Back when I were a lad, all you’d need to see you through the level were a broadsword and a pixie with potions in his bag… Nowadays you need a comedy catchphrase, a moustache or spiky blue hair… There's just no pride in the craft any more...”

In this vein, Telcogames has dredged up Stormlord, an old-old-old-school platform adventure title from the dark days of floppy disks, the Bangles and Jason Donavon’s mercifully brief flirtation with the pop charts. Yep, coming straight outta 1989, Stormlord puts you in the itchy boots of an un-named warrior who’s taken it upon himself to free a race of fairies who’ve been kidnapped by the evil queen Badh.

Equipped with the ability to fire energy bolts or honking great swords when you hold down the fire button, your warrior alter-ego was quite spritely before he was pensioned off. Leaping around the fantasy world, your progress depends on your platform-jumping skills as much as it does your combat prowess. Locked doors, springboards and giant Venus Flytraps will test your agility as well as your grey matter; some of the puzzles involved are fiendish in their difficulty.

But why, exactly, has Telcogames decided to give this old warrior a day pass from the old folk’s home? “We're very pleased with Stormlord and absolutely delighted to be bringing it to market,” enthuses Niklas Bakos, important person at Telcogames. “It’s another hugely enjoyable game and one which complements our existing line up of Smartphone games. Like all of these titles, we've tried to ensure that fans of the original and new players alike will be able to pick it up and enjoy it. The combination of platform accuracy and fast-paced combat action is something which is difficult to capture on a mobile phone, but once again, Magic Productions have pulled it off and created a game we're very proud of.”

Stormlord is one of several titles on offer from Telcogames that are designed specifically to take advantage of the capabilities of Nokia smartphones. Running exclusively on the Symbian mobile phone operating system (it’s like what Windows is to your PC), the games can take advantage of the powerful processor, large screen and sophisticated controls on offer. If you’ve got a compatible handset (Stormlord will run on the Nokia 3230, 6260, 6600, 6620, 6670, 6630, 6680, 6681, 6682, 7610, N-Gage, N-Gage QD, N70 and N90) then you can experience it for yourself; head over to www.handango.com where you can download a demo of the game.

Stormlord costs $9.99 (around £5.60) and is available now.