Spectrum Software Seen


Unclear User Wassock

UNCLEAR USER Wassocks are programs which, in terms of the opinions we are able to form, set new standards in software reviewing. They are the reviews by which none of the others are measurable. If you buy software, buy these and play them. We generally haven’t. No self-respecting reviewer should actually have to play the games he or she exclusives.

Software reviews carry a moon rating, the basis of which will be varied according to how exclusive the program review is, how much money the software publisher spends on advertising and how much of that money lines the coffers of UNCLEAR USER, as well as a host of other intangible variables.

Guide to ratings

☽☽☽☽☽
Buy it. They spend all their massive advertising budget with us EXCLUSIVELY, and we get to review the game before it even leaves the storyboard.

☽☽☽☽
Not short of a bob or two, the fellows who place advertising for this software house, and they’ve chucked quite a few pages our way for this game. They buy space in our magazine, we write nice reviews, you buy the game. OK?

☽☽☽
Lots of carrots. Buy it.

☽☽
Nearly finished when we saw it — and they do buy our ad manager lunch regularly.

☽
They feel we ought to wait until the game’s finished, then insist we play it before we write anything, and by the time we have, everyone else has reviewed it months ago. What a bore! Why should you buy their game if they won’t buy us lunch, or spend money on pages in our magazine, eh?


Shep

EXCLUSIVE

Shep screenshot

WE ARE proud to be the very first mag to get an exclusive look at this new game. Two weeks ago we dashed up to the front door of Wooli-vision and managed to talk to Avec Parsley about the new hit he had almost finished. As you will see from the picture the game is about sheep farming, in fact it’s a simulation of shepherding. We are truly proud to get this exclusive review of what is certainly the start of a trend.

It seems that you will have two sheep dogs to control (you may need a joystick for each). The idea is that you manoeuvre the dogs around the field, so forcing the sheep into the pen which has a gate that opens and closes. Close the gate when they are all in and then probably drive a truck up to the pen and let them all in. The next task is to take them to market and slaughter them all.

The graphics are very promising and fast. At the end of the game you will know how well you have done by checking to see how much the farmer has earned. The game is really clever because the more the dogs have to run about the more energy they use, you can always guide them to a feed bowl to re-charge, but then sheep may esacape.

Curs Brain

☽☽
Publisher Woolivision Price £7.79 Joystick Yes, two(ish)

Invasion

EXCLUSIVE

Invasion screenshot Invasion screenshot

LAST YEAR we rushed up to Skegness to get an exclusive peek at the latest blockbuster from Oceagine. As the Spectrum version is hardly started we had a glimpse at the almost finished unexpanded Vic 20 version. The idea behind the game is quite complex; you must move your gun left and right while trying to avoid the bullets that hail down from the spaceships above and trying to shoot them. The enemies also move left and right and gradually decend to try and over run the planet below. The graphics are really good and the side ways scrolling is excellent with the spaceships moving drunkenly across the screen. The nearest game to this is probably the well known version of Pole Invaders Part 2 otherwise it is a totally original concept. Definitely a hit which should reach the shops in about another year’s time.

Dreo Pud

☽☽☽☽

The Swizz

EXCLUSIVE

Exclusive!

THIS IS a really cool game published by Satyr Games, and is being written by a real life mugazine editor (Who me? Ed.) (Yes, you, the one and only Bile Scalding — JG) all about the journalism business. Although the game is written in, and is pretty BASIC the potential is there for hours of fun as you charge around the software industry in search of the elusive exclusive.

Setting out from a damp and dingy office in London, you improve your ego rating by attempting to get exlusives, or if all else fails, pretending to your readers that you have got exclusives.

Half of the fun lies in writing the game, which has been duplicated and will be sold in an unfinished form so you start of with an exclusive look at THE SWIZZ itself.

The rest is purely up to the gullibilty of your readers, as you try to collect the hidden letters that form the word ‘Exclusive’ so you can plaster it all over your magazine.

Scoring depends on the number of exclusives you can get away with, and the volume of advertising you can get in each issue of your magazine — this affects circulation. You have a variety of dirty tricks available to you, including fibs, threats to give games bad reviews or no reviews at all if the software company concerned places advertisements in your competitors’ magazines etc, etc.

☽☽☽☽
Publisher Satyr Games Price £9.90

Bunty on the Bun

EXCLUSIVE

Unclear User Wassock

NO PRIZES for guessing that this is the long-awaited follow up of Wanted: Bunty Bear by Greebly Graphics. The action takes place while Bunty is asleep, dreaming. In his nightmare he finds himself on a giant bun. The task is to collect all the currants. No prizes, either, for guessing that this is an absolute Wassock.

Of the 3,324 screens author Peter Carrot has written, I have only seen a screen dump of one, but from this I can expertly tell that the gameplay is impressive indeed.

If you’re into bakery on a grand scale then sit back, turn your brain to neutral and get kneading.

☽☽☽☽☽
Publisher Greebly Graphics Price £15.37 Memory 143K Joystick Almost certainly