CHRISTMAS GREETINGS

IT'S a quarter to three and there's no-one in the place but you and me - and half a dozen assorted page-designers, film-planners, production controllers and ticking clocks hurrying the last dregs of CRASH (what? me a dreg?) on its way. These 196 pages were thrown together in just a fortnight, at three times the rate of ordinary CRASHes, so we'll be as interested to read what we've written as you.

I could go on about the blood, the swear, the tears, the Pro-Plus, but that's the job of the CRASH History; and anyway, a Christmas editorial is customarily the place for Christmas greetings.

There's not a whole lot you can actually do with Christmas greetings, except say

and hope for the best, or be pretentious and buy a card covered with 'merry Christmas' in 42 languages, 32 of which nobody ever recognises ('Hebrew...' 'I'm still putting my money on Finnish.').

So, Christmas greetings - I won't spell it out again, but you can glance a few inches up if you must have it in a mock-ancient script.

THE SUPERCLONE

A piece of sensational information that arrived just a little late to get on the cover is the news that a major hardware development company has been working on a 128K Spectrum superclone. Simon N Goodwin unearthed the full story and has exclusive details. More next issue.

OTHER BUSINESS

This issue Dave Hawkes of Ludlow joins the reviewing team. He's a school - sorry, college - colleague of Robin Candy, Mike Dunn, and Bym Welthy.

But sadly Derek Brewster is leaving CRASH after 45 issues as our guide on the Adventure Trail. The veteran programmer is helping set up a software house and just won't have the time to write for a while.

Adventure Trail will continue, of course, with all its regular features. We may be ringing Derek with a few Signstumps...

Till next month, then, Christmas Greetings (as the saying goes).

BARNABY PAGE

REVIEWS

SMASHED!

• COMBAT SCHOOL
  Ocean puts you through the stress and strain, wind and rain
• MATCH DAY II
  Back on the pitch

HOT SHOTS
70% and over...

• ANARCHY
  Zynaps' programmer Dominic Robinson's puzzling latest game
• JACK THE RIPPER
  ... in poke-a-gut papers
• MASK II
  Comic-strip licence produces another good game! Shock!
• RENTAKILL RITA
  3-D lives the 'tronic way
• STAR WARS
  The force with Domark

FULL INDEX