Total Recall

Construction worker Douglas Quaid has booked a virtual vacation to Mars when things start to go wrong: his co-workers try to kill him, and he can't be sure who he really is. To find the truth, he must travel to the Red Planet for real.

Like Ocean's adaptations of the 1990 Schwarzenegger movie on other platforms, Total Recall on the Commodore 64 combines platform and driving levels, for four stages in total.

Level one is a platformer. Quaid must make his way across the city from his hotel to a phone booth within a time limit, taking care to collect a briefcase full of important information on the way. Standing in his way are enemy agents, who can be taken out with punches or shots from Quaid's gun. All over the place are wooden crates that can be destroyed to collect the contents. Possible pickups are additional ammunition (including explosive rounds) and continues. Also important are oxygen packs - the collected breathing gas is retained for use in the later levels set on Mars. Once Quaid has found the briefcase, he should take special care: if he gets hurt, he loses it and must pick it up again somewhere on the level.

Level two is the first of the driving stages. Seen from a top-down view and under a tight time limit, Quaid must drive his JohnnyCab to the spaceport to get to Mars. Other cars on the road want to hinder him and open fire on sight. Quaid cannot shoot back, but must evade them instead. Pickups on the road either increase the time limit or give a short increase in speed. The latter is required for several daring jumps across open bridges. The controls in this section are unusual for a driving game: the car can travel in any direction (even backwards and sideways) but only reaches top speed when driving forwards. However, orientation can only be changed on junctions in the road.

Level three is set on Mars and is the second driving level. Quaid must reach the hideout of the Mars resistance. Gameplay, controls and pickups are the same as on Earth, but on Mars, many obstacles like rock piles and oil puddles are on the road, possibly slowing Quaid down.

The final level is another platformer: this time, Quaid must make his way to the alien reactor and start a chain reaction that will transform the planet. All the same weapon and other upgrades are available as earlier, but some new enemy types make life hard for Quaid.