Download Zub

Fudge 123 2026-05-05 0 point ZX Spectrum version

One of those games that looks like a classic but plays like a turkey,the opening intro suggests a Bond movie,the option screen opens into a tech heavy space age stats screen with the impressive uploading of the ZUB character.

This is where the awe and fun end at least for me,you then end up at the bottom of what is essentially a ladder,a series of floating islands that you have to crouch down on to move them across the screen,aligning them until you can hop up on to the next one,sounds easy right?

It would be but if you got too far either way left or right you hit an invisible barrier that takes some of you health away,and while you go about trying to navigate the platforms to go higher you can at least at first hit this thing as you have no radar to tell you where you are vs where it is.

Then there's the main let down of the whole game,not the fact you have only 1 life,but they enemies that look like cotton bobbins,they turn up and harass you,knocking you off the tiny platforms with ease.

This gets to feel like they're playing a joke on the player the more you progress,you can be right near the top and then be knocked off,and even though you have a gun,shooting at them only scares them off,you can't kill them!

The game is really a climb to the top while avoiding the aliens that can knock you off,how high can you go until they do?

Add to the mix that you only have one life,the tiny platforms,pushing down to move the platforms means if you forget to crouch you just walk off of them,the fact there's a force field either side of the screen,as if the level builder thought,this isn't hard enough,lets make it harder!

Fixes that would have made it more a classic are,
respawn you where you died,
Killing the aliens,and less of them rather than 4 of them,
Moving the platforms doesn't require pushing down,
A half way safe space so you can't go right back to the bottom if you fall off.

A 'classic' but a very flawed and over hyped one.

Oh and there's a hidden game within the game,a top down shooter it's referenced in the loading screen with the blue then numbers at the top,there's a code it activates the hidden game Lightfarce. To access it, you must load in 128K mode, start a new game, press keys 2468 together to activate the cheat mode, then press keys 1357 together to play it.