Issue No. 33 October 1986

REGULARS

EDITORIAL

NEWS
A quick roundup of the PCW Show and the first good look at Amstrad’s Spectrum Plus 2

FEAR AND LOATHING
Hunter S Minson is missing... what can this mean?

LLOYD MANGRAM’S FORUM
Another postbag-pounding session from Mr Mangram

CRASH HOTLINE AND ADVENTURE CHARTS

CRASH COURSE
Rosetta continues her journey through the blackboard jungle. The teachers are programming nowadays!

FRONTLINE
Sean takes a peek at LOTHLORIEN’s American Civil War Game and gets two whole pages of FRONTLINE FORUM this month. Lucky Sean!

PBM MAILBOX
Mr Kavanagh gets a double-sized column this month as well, and he’s FORUMising too... Lloyd will get jealous soon!

HANNAH SMITH’S PLAYING TIPS
Oodles of maps and tips this month, introduced by the only REAL Girlie Tipster

TECH NICHE
A quick musical roundup from Mr Bates

SIMON GOODWIN’S TECH TIPS
Mr Goodwin’s got the letter-answering bug too!

JETMAN

DEREK BREWSTER’S ADVENTURE TRAIL
Normal service is resumed this month after last issue’s concatenation (LMLWD)

SIGNSTUMPS
Stuck on an adventure? Write to Derek for a tip or hint, and maybe get your name in print

LLOYD MANGRAM’S HALL OF SLIME
High score heroics from across the land

MERELY MANGRAM
Another collection of previews with Lloyd at the front end artistic readers...

CRASH GALLERY
RAINBIRD will soon be sending more full colour screendumps to our

FEATURES

THE JON RITMAN INTERVIEW
Graeme Kidd talks to the man behind classic like BATMAN and MATCH DAY

THE GENESIS UPDATE
We report on the first meeting between the programmer and designer of the GENESIS Birth of a Game project.

GAMES IN 3D
COSTA PANAYI and LUKE ANDREWS from VORTEX came visiting...

DIY

WIN A PERSONALISED GAME
FIREBIRD are going to write a special version of DRUID for the winner of this comp. Lots of T Shirts up for grabs, too

GO TO WAR WITH MARTECH
Fifty copies of a new shoot em up on offer

JOIN THE STRIKE FORCE
PIRANHA are offering 50 games and a day out for two people in the Hunt the Minson comp

GET FIT AND HEALTHY
Get fit and healthy with CRL and win a squash outfit. Copies of ROOM 10 on offer, too

As Autumn draws in and the nights get longer, what better way to spend an evening than curled up with a copy of CRASH? October 23rd should be a good evening... a whole new CRASH should be in the shops that day.

REVIEWS

- 1942 Elite

- Buccaneer Firebird

- Bullseye Macsen

- Captain Slog Alpha-Omega

- Countdown Macsen

- Dekorating Blues Alpha-Omega

- Esperanto Lezperanto

- Future Zoo Clwyd Adventure Software

- Greatest Show on Earth Americana

- Grimble Microtech

- Headcoach Addictive

- Hunchback the Adventure Ocean

- ICUPS Odin

- Johnny Reb II Lothlorien

- Kane Mastertronic

- Knight Games II Black Knight Software

- Knight Rider Ocean

- Lap of the Gods Mastertronic

- Moonlight Madness Bubble Bus

- Mindstone The Edge

- Nexor Design Design

- Octagon Squad Mastertronic

- Olympiad ’86 Atlantis

- Paperboy Elite

- Rescue on Fractalus Activision

- Revolution Vortex

- Rugby Manager Artic

- Scooby Doo Elite

- Strike Force Cobra Piranha

- Strike Force Harrier Mirrorsoft

- Tennis Imagine

- Trap Door Piranha

- Trivial Pursuit Domark

- Universal Hero Mastertronic

- Zythum Mirrorsoft

- ZZZZ Mastertronic

PUBLISHERS

Roger Kean, Oliver Frey, Franco Frey

Editor

Graeme Kidd

Staff Writers

Tony Flanagan, Hannah Smith, Lloyd Mangram

Adventure Editor

Derek Brewster

Strategy Editor

Sean Masterson

Tech Tipster

Simon Goodwin

Contributing Writers

Jon Bates, Brendon Kavanagh, Rosetta McLeod, John Minson

Production Controller

David Western

Art Director

Dick Shiner

Illustrators

Ian Craig, Oliver Frey

Production

Gordon Druce, Tony Lorton, Cameron Pound, Jonathan Rignall, Matthew Uffindell

Advertisement Manager

Roger Bennett

Advertisement Assistant

Nick Wild

Subscriptions

Denise Roberts

Mail Order

Carol Kinsey

Transcriptions

Matthew Wilson, http://www.crashonline.org.uk/

Additional review transcriptions

Chris Bourne, http://www.zxspectrumreviews.co.uk/

Thanks to those CRASH authors who have allowed their work to be reproduced.

Well, it finally arrived at the PCW Show. A handful of Spectrum Plus 2’s were firmly bolted to the Sinclair stand and everyone was told the machine should be in the shops by the end of September.

Why Sir Clive didn’t take the Amstrad approach to the 128K Spectrum in the first place will remain a mystery for ever — at the 128K launch Sinclair Research made it clear that their new computer was aimed at the games player, and the press was treated to a roomful of software houses demonstrating their new games for the 128 the moment Sir Clive stopped speaking. Yet there was no sign of a joystick port, and no cassette player on the 128 (although a tape loading meter had been incorporated into the firmware).

Perhaps typically, Amstrad have diddled around with the wiring on the joystick ports ‘glued on’ to the Spectrum Plus 2. They plan to sell their own, wittily named, SJS1’s with the machine. Already, manufacturers are gearing up to make converters so that ordinary joysticks can be used. One company at least had a compatible stick at the PCW Show.

On closer examination, the cassette unit on the Plus 2 looks like it might first have featured in a cheapo car stereo set-up — and there is no tape counter! Silly omission, really. And the way this relaunched computer has been put together hints that it was designed to sell for rather less than the initial asking price...

If the Plus 2 going to sell? Over two million people in this country alone already have a Spectrum tucked away in the house somewhere. People whose rubber-keyed friends are getting very tired may well upgrade and stay faithful to the Spectrum name. The new keyboard — a ‘proper’ one at last — might justify the purchase of a Plus 2 to anyone who uses a Spectrum for serious purposes. The extra memory and improved sound will appeal to Techies, Musos and Gamesters too... provided software houses start taking advantage of the extra facilities.

And that’s what it all boils down to, really. Software houses. It’s a ‘chicken and egg situation’ when a computer is launched. People will buy a machine if there’s enough software available, but software houses are only going to invest time and money in writing for new machines if the hardware sells in significant numbers. Just where ARE all those games described in the glossy leaflet that came with the first 128K Spectrum?

Maybe Alan Sugar has managed to crack the shell of this particular egg, finally allowing the 128K chicken to fly into the air... Or perhaps Amstrad will still tackle the entertainment side of the home computer market with a dedicated games console in the not too distant future.

OVER THE TON!

Much celebration and jubilation up here in CRASH Towers greets the arrival of the latest set of figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. During the period January to June this year, CRASH sold 101,483 copies a month on average — more than any other computer magazine in the country by all accounts.

Several pints of Old Flatulence Bitter will no doubt be consumed here in Ludlow when we get down to the formal celebrations, but meanwhile here’s a big thank you to all the people who buy CRASH.

“THANK YOU”

Now if we can only stop groups of thirty people all reading the same copy and persuade more readers to buy the magazine... Hmm.

Wonder if the Ludlow Mafia is ready to go national?

BYE BYE (Ish)

And this month is a slightly sad month for yours truly. All sorts of changes have been happening in the Towers this year, what with LM starting up and getting into gear ready for Christmas, and Auntie Aggie and the mail order crew moving to a new office. Gary Liddon has scurried off to London to work for Newsfield’s software house, Thalamus, Robin Candy is furthering his education at college, Ben Stone has joined the team and is busily writing comments full time now he’s left school. And of course CRASH is now the biggest computer magazine in the land and has the only REAL Girlie Tipster in the form of Hannah Smith.

This issue is my 25th as Editor. It is the last issue of CRASH that has me at the helm. Don’t worry, I’m not defecting — I’m not brave enough to try and control the Spiky Haired Ones over on ZZAP! like Roger Kean was. Anyway, Gary Penn is doing very nicely on ZZAP!, thankyouverymuch, and is also celebrating a chunky rise in circulation this month. And there’s a good few miles left in Old Crumbly’s bathchair over on AMTIX as well. No, I’m not changing magazines.

The CRASH Editorial Doc Martens have been promoted! I’ll be wearing them as Publishing Executive from now on, and will be staying with Newsfield to help the editorial teams of CRASH, ZZAP! and AMTIX keep on producing their magazines.

So it’s not REALLY Goodbye. More sort of, cheerio a bit.

ON THE COVER (Twice so far)

Ian Craig recently joined the team working in the CRASH Towers ART Garret as an illustrator. Ian first featured in CRASH twelve issues ago in the ON THE COVER feature. This month, he features in CRASH yet again, this time on the cover.

Oliver Frey has produced all thirty two CRASH covers so far but has now got so busy, what with the other two computer magazines published by Newsfield and the brand new project, LM, that his airbrush is constantly overheating. Being a sensible sort of fellow, Ian brought his own airbrush to Ludlow with him and should be wielding it a lot more over the coming months...

NEWS INPUT

THE ANNUAL OLYMPIA EXTRAVAGANZA!

It was Showtime again in the first week of September, and off we all trotted to the Personal Computer World Show to person (or should that be Minion?) the Newsfield stand, potter round the show fearlessly seeking out the latest products for review, and generally have a good time meeting people.

Auntie Aggie was there, of course — never one to miss out on a picture, and over the weekend Oli Frey and David Western clambered down from the Artroom garret and wandered round Olympia soaking up the imagery.

Auntie Aggie cranes her neck, just to make sure she’s in shot while serving yet another customer at the NEWSFIELD stand. Oliver Frey sniggers in the background at Uncle David’s ‘Mean and Moody’ pose for the lens...

As ever, there was a roaring trade in backnumbers, shirts, caps and binders and the stand was packed to capacity — people even had to wait in the paddling pool to be served.

Paddling pool? Yes, paddling pool. The Girlie Challenge first laid down by Hannah Smith, our very own Girlie Tipster, escalated when C&VG Minions were spotted handing out rude stickers on Melissa’s behalf. Almost instantaneously, Hannah responded with her very own “Stop Raving Dame! Stand up Melissa and accept the Challenge” stickers, which soon adorned just about every visitor to the show. Oodles of green jelly and a paddling pool were shipped in specially, just in case Melissa made an appearance, but despite numerous enquiries to the C&VG stand she didn’t show. It seems that fictitious Tipster Melissa spent most of the PCW Show quaking in the Ladies — every time we asked where she was, we were told the dear girl was ‘powdering her nose’.

Which led to speculation that Melissa must have a very large nose indeed...

KONAMI GO SOLO

Japanese coin-op masters, Konami announced during the course of the PCW Show that they would be handling future conversions of their arcade games for the Spectrum, Amstrad and Commodore.

Following a series of highly successful releases licenced to Imagine, The Edge were granted the rights to Shao Lin’s Road which should be complete in time for a review next month. But from here on in, Konami games will be published for home micros by Konami.

First in line for conversion is Salamander, which has apparently been breaking coin-op records all over Europe, while Jail Break, Nemesis, Super Basketball and Iron Horse are just waiting their turn to arrive on the Spectrum.

Oh no! Not again. Greg Follis, on the FASTER THAN LIGHT stand realises that it’s five to ten in the morning and another hectic day at the PCW Show is about to begin...

VIDEO NICEY!

Ace cartographer Kevin Payne collects his prize for producing the best map of Saboteur in the competition Durell hosted in the pages of CRASH. Tim Hine hands the Hi-Tech prize over as Kevin smiles sweetly for the camera. Ready to map Saboteur II now Kevin?

BUBBLY AND BOP

The champagne cork popped, the photographer’s bulb flashed and Tracey Robinson of Hove collected her prize in the Dynamite Dan II competition. What a high society celebration there was on Mirrorsoft’s stand at the PCW Show! Rod Bowkett the creator of Dynamite Dan came along specially to shake Tracey’s hand while Pat Bitten from Mirrorsoft looked on and our own beloved Editor Graeme Kidd hid his tatty Doc Martens from view. A civilised celebration indeed.

Then Hunter S Minson turned up — his finely attuned hearing perfectly capable of hearing a champagne cork pop over the 146 decibel background noise generated by the crowds. Everyone else had managed with paper cups, but not Hunter S...

GOING SHOPPING

The winners of the Rainbird Karting competition certainly had a good shopping trip with Tony Rainbird — his wallet contained £2,000 and he spent every penny!

Originally, the winners and their families were due to take a trial spin in Tony’s Kart at the Hoddesden Kart Club, but the heavens opened and rain stopped play as the sports writers say. So it was off to the Zip Kart showroom for copious advice before much examination of the price lists. Eventually the two winners managed to spend £1,000 each on the bits and pieces that are needed to put together a competition kart, and it was time to go for a celebration meal. Soon John Hirst and Alan Myers will be zooming around the track in their 100mph karts — once they’ve assembled the kit of parts they took home with them. Could prove a little tricky — there are no instructions!

The ELECTRIC DREAMS pyramid was one of the strangest stands at the show. Inside the pyramid they sharpened razor blades and Mel Croucher demonstrated his new interactive video games to small, invited audiences

THE SPECTRUM PLUS TWO LAID BARE...

Laid bare, with its works there for all to see: the Spectrum Plus 2, a tidied up version of the 128. On the far left is the underside of the Datacorder, while heatsinks abound round the compact circuit board.

The Spectrum 128 is dead — long live the Spectrum 128 Plus Two!

Amstrad’s own version of the 128 sports a built-in tape drive, joystick sockets, and an improved keyboard. SIMON GOODWIN reports in depth on the revamped Spectrum.

Back in April, Amstrad’s boss Alan Sugar bought the rights to Sinclair Computers, promising a new Spectrum with a cassette drive “glued on” in good time for Christmas. That machine materialised at the Personal Computer World show on the 3rd September and should be on sale by the end of the month.

The machine is moulded in grey plastic and looks much cleaner because the old single-press keywords have vanished into the user manual, leaving only RUN, LOAD and CODE marked on the keys. Programming in 48K BASIC is going to be tricky unless you know the keyword positions off by heart; you will be better off using 128 BASIC, which is very similar but expects commands to be entered character by character. The manual says that 48K BASIC is ‘not recommended for anything other than a history lesson for the curious.’

The Spectrum Plus 2 as it appeared on the Sinclair stand at the PCW Show. Note the cunning resemblance to the choccy cake we featured in TECH TIPS a little while ago...

KEYBOARD

The new keyboard is excellent; the only reason I can think that anyone might want to replace it is because there is still no semi-colon key between l and ENTER where touch typists expect to rest their right little finger. The ‘feel’ seemed fine on every machine I tested, although as usual for Amstrad there was some variation between individual computers. The wiring pattern is still an 8 by 5 grid, so add-on keyboards will work but I doubt that many people will feel the need for an up-grade even if they use the machine for several hours a day.

CASSETTE

The cassette drive is very rudimentary. There is no auto-stop when you rewind or fast forward, so you may damage the motor or mechanism if you forget to press STOP.

Winding is very slow: it takes about a minute to rewind a C15 — 50% slower than the drive on the CPC 464. The tape pinchwheel is unusually small and will need regular cleaning. Sadly, there’s no tape counter.

A small hole allows access to the Azimuth alignment screw, so it should be possible to correct problems caused by minor knocks. The drive is held together with self-tapping screws, so you will probably have to replace the lot if anything serious goes wrong. There is no input for an external tape recorder, so any fault on the built in drive will force you to return the whole computer for repair.

CONNECTORS

Apart from the tape input, all of the Spectrum 128 sockets appear on the Spectrum Plus Two. There are telephone sockets for the keypad (apparently unavailable) and the combined RS232 MIDI output for serial printers or synthesizers. Any serial printer will work in 128 BASIC, although the COPY command expects one that recognises Epson quad-density bit image graphics. Printer control codes are ignored unless you use a couple of POKES — details in next month’s TECH TIPS.

There are sockets for RGB TTL, Composite Video and TV displays, plus a sound output socket which carries cassette tones, BEEP output and notes from the three-channel sound chip. Sound is also mixed into the TV signal, but there’s no built-in speaker and the sound output is much too weak to drive headphones without an amplifier.

Two joystick sockets on the left hand side of the machine can be read with IN 61438 and IN 63486 — the Interface 2 protocol. The sockets are standard nine pin ones, but they use a non-standard wiring arrangement. You can re-wire a normal stick to use that pin layout but you shouldn’t try to use a modified stick with other computers. One of the changed pins is used as a power source by other manufacturers, so a modified stick could short out the power supply!

A suitable joystick, the SJS1, is available as an option with the machine, along with six games. Prices are not fixed as I write, but should be around £150 for the machine, or £160 for the computer, stick and games. Rumour has it that Amstrad pay $2 for each joystick — the SJS1 is cheap and nasty, as are the bundled games — apparently so dire that they might as well be six blank tapes...

You would be wise to get the machine alone and pay £9 or £15 for a Cheetah 125 or Mach 1 joystick. Both have autofire, twin connectors — for the Plus Two or any other machine — and are much more durable than Amstrad’s offering. I particularly liked the Mach 1. Alternatively, get a standard stick and a Plus Two adaptor from Cheetah or Frel.

MANUAL

The new manual is the best yet, though it is a pity that it has been perfect bound like a paper back, rather than spiral bound. It consists of about 200 monochrome pages, with a good index. Most of the material comes form Stephen Vickers’ excellent orange manual for the original Spectrum, but Rupert Goodwin (from Sinclair) and Ivor Spital (from Amstrad) have added full details of the Spectrum 128’s add-ons without spoiling the overall style. There is lots of useful information about the 128 system and the new connectors, although a few more examples would have come in handy. Overall, though, it is a good reference guide and a helpful BASIC tutorial.

INSIDE INFO

After much bowing and scraping, I persuaded Amstrad to let me dig around inside the machine — I also managed to sneak a copy of the ROM onto cassette, so I’ve got a pretty good idea how it all works. In essence, the Plus Two is a tidied version of the 128; the same ULAs form the basis of the system although they now sport heatsinks and Amstrad part numbers. The power regulator heatsink is inside the box, around the tape drive — it looks chunky enough to prevent overheating.

There’s a power indicator light and a reset button but no on-off switch. The edge-connector is recessed slightly more than previously, so you should check that add-ons will fit properly — most will connect up without problems, and Sinclair’s own Interface One is said to be fully compatible.

The Plus Two packs the 16K Interpreter and 16K Editor/RAM disk driver into one 32K ROM chip. The BASIC code differs from that of the original Spectrum in ten places. Most of the changes deal with the keypad and the paging mechanism for the Editor. As on the 128, 1K unused in the original ROM contains new code, this will screw up efficient programs that use Interrupt Mode 2 but most software houses are aware of this problem and can code around it. The other changes are localised and should not cause any incompatibility — for instance the machine announces that it is now ‘Copyright Amstrad’ rather than Sinclair Research, and the SAVE message asks you to ‘Press REC and PLAY’.

All in all this is an attractive up-grade for anyone who already owns a Spectrum. Unlike the 128, the Plus Two is here to stay.

HUNTER S MISSING

It is with a certain amount of regret that I inform you, Hunter S Minson is missing. Regret tinged with relief, I confess, because CRASH’s very own gonzo hack can also be a prime pain in the posterior. But mainly regret, because for all his failings, life is never dull when Minson is around.

But we are currently Mins-less. He has gone AWOL before, vanishing for days on beastly binges of the most hedonistic kind. I have no doubt that he will turn up again soon. Let’s just hope that he does nothing criminal. And God save those sober citizens who come into contact with him.

I have known Minson for years, acting as his personal assistant. Many’s the time he has handed me a garbled cassette tape with a curt instruction to “Make sense of this goddamn crap!” I’ve edited his most recent ramblings in an attempt to explain his disappearance.

I pick up the story with Minson continuing his quest for for sherbert. Once he’s on a sherbert binge there is little one can do but humour him. But let Minson tell the story...

“There is nothing remotely Swiss about Llamas, but then again there is nothing remotely Swiss about Swiss Cottage in North London, so it was probably a logical place for the lig to launch the Hewson/Jeff Minter marriage.

“Minter, you mumble, equals Commie-unist. Quite right. And what was I doing in such unsalubrious circles, other than watching the fleshy white, wobbly bits of overweight Holiday Inn-habitants as they used the exercise bikes in the pool next door? Well, I’d heard rumours that this was a likely source of sweet satisfaction.

“I quickly cornered the very blonde and very beautiful Julia Coombs and quizzed her about the Fizz Connection, but all she would talk about was forthcoming Hewson releases.

“One of these goes by the name of City Slicker. It allows you to roam round all my favourite London haunts in search of the bomb disposal kit that will stop a latter day Guy Fawkes blowing up the Houses of Parliament — though why you’d want to hinder a public benefactor is beyond me!

“You can actually enter some of the London landmarks, though the Holsten No 1, home of so many great Hewson launches, is sadly not among them. Pity as a game of grab-the-free-food-and-avoid-the-drunken-hack could have been most amusing!

“The Swiss Cottage nosh was great though, and the blue cheese and grape sandwiches were powerful enough to melt your socks (in fact, socks is what they smelt like!) but not powerful enough for me. My system craved a greater stimulant and, good ol’ Hewson... my prayer was granted.

“As is usual on Hewson ligs, all of us hacks were handed our own little press packs containing a plastic toy and something to munch on during the long journey back to town... rather like Santa’s grotto!

“Well, this being a Minter extravaganza, we all got plastic sheep or rams (cue RAM pack wobble jokes). Then, as I dived down to scrape the bottom of the sack, what other fitting souvenir did I find? None other than the required white powder; encased in candy flying saucers that tasted like expanded polystyrene. My joy was complete. I guzzled the lot before Baker Street.”

Amanda Barry, who looks rather like she would make a worthy competitor in a Hunter S Minson eating competition, gets her teeth into her new job as Ariolasoft’s Press Officer. Press Officer? Dangerous thing to be when Hunter S is about...

At this stage Minson’s ramblings become incomprehensible. Under the influence of the deadly sherbert he dictated the following. I have made no attempt to translate into anything resembling English.

“Right... get this. I’m going to King’s College in London, berk. No, Berk. BERK!!! Hero of a new TV show, Trapdoor. Launching it all today. I’m on my way.”

(There is a break in the tape as he steps into a taxi.)

“King’s College. Great Hall of some sort, full of cuddly toys and kiddies’ wellies, with a big TV screen at one end and what do we have here? Mandy! Hi!”

(At this stage Mandy Keyho of Piranha can be heard talking to an unidentified companion.)

“Oh no! Look who it is. Yes, the one we digitised ... Well, show him the game then.”

(Dialogue, mostly indistinct, as Minson examines the Trapdoor game.)

“Jeesus! This is great. Are you getting all of this. This is the best animation I’ve ever seen on the Spectrum. This is brilliant. I just can’t believe it...

“Try to explain. .. make some sense of this, Laszlo ... cut that last bit ... and that too ... you know what I mean. Right ... go again. You have to control Berk, a BIG sprite. BIIIG! Make him follow the orders of the master upstairs. Things like getting some eyeball crush.

“Eyeball crush. Reminds me... I’m thirsty. See you later, Mandy.”

(An audible sigh of relief.)

“Hey Cookie. Come here. Isn’t this going to be big. BIIIIGG! Hey what’s the food like?”

Once again the tape becomes virtually incomprehensible, but using the latest scientific techniques I managed to deduce the following. The food was excellent, in particular a walnut meringue gateau. Minson and his companion entered upon an eating competition.

“Five pieces. I’ve never seen anything like it. They should call you Trapdoor...”

At this point the tape ran out and so did Minson, into the traffic of the Strand, totally deranged on a deadly mix of meringue and the lingering effects of sherbert.

And that has been all, apart from a garbled phone call at 4.07am last Tuesday.

“Hey Laszlo, you old crud. How are ya? You’ll never guess. Hawaii. Wild times, I can tell you. Surfers everywhere. And the waves. Wild...

“But let me tell you. Somebody just shipped me a copy of some other Commie publication. ZZAP or KKRAP or something. Have you seen it. HAVE YOU SEEN IT? Take a look then! Some squid called The Shadow tries to slag me off.

“No, of course I’m not going to sue. I might do them physical harm, but sue... no way! I could slag myself off better than that. They’ve missed out on everything. Been reduced to fabricating stories. It’s pathetic!

“And hiding behind that pseudonym. Well, I knows that the Shadow’s nose is just in front of his Thalamus, but I can keep the Lid-on.

“Laszlo, listen. Gotta go. Going harpoon fishing. Caught a Californian kid on a surfboard yesterday. Cooked him myself. Had him for dinner.”

Whether Minson was actually in Hawaii remains unclear. However it is expected that he will reappear in time for that spectacle that makes the decline of Rome look like a vicarage tea party, the PCW show!

Laszlo Sandow

With everyone returning weary but triumphant from this year’s PCW Show (I’ve been stuck here holding the fort in their absence as I cannot bear crowded places), I find myself with a bulging mail bag and some very good letters. The triumph I mention refers to the highly successful sticker campaign where repeated commando style raids on the EMAP stand at the show made it clear that Hannah Smith and not Melissa Ravenflame is the only REAL Girlie Tipster. Despite the repeated gauntlet throwing, the much vaunted C&VG girlie tipster failed to put in an appearance, leaving our very own Hannah in command of the field at the end of the day. I’m told that it was C&VG who started things by plastering the Newsfield stand with offensive stickers on the Wednesday and Thursday which threatened to throw mud in Hannah’s eyes. Typical underhanded tactics I say!

However, onto the real business of the day — your letters, and this one below gets the £20 worth of software for letter of the Month...

STAR LETTER * *
IN PRAISE OF THE GURU

Dear Lloyd,
In reply to John Pinkney’s letter (ish 31) I must point out that the Forum would not be, without the so-called ‘manners’. OK, so most letters in the Forum are moaning ones, but when most people are happy and contented, they don’t usually make a song and dance about it, do they? But when something upsets them, or someone says that a thing they enjoy is bad or wrong (no smutty innuendo intended), then most people feel they should moan about it, I should know, it’s for this reason that I’m writing this letter! Also, does the aforementioned (LMLWD) personage realise that he is contradicting himself by moaning about moaning?

And in reply to Mr P(brain) Schofield, what is wrong with women in CRASH? Where would CRASH be without the subscriber teachings of ‘GURU’ Denise Roberts, the packaging expertise of ‘Auntie Aggie’ Carol Kinsey or the educational reviews of ‘Brains’ Rosetta Mcleod? And, I think many readers would agree (including Helen and Sara Beckett, Lisette Menage, Liz Soames, Sarah Grace and Becca Davies) that Hannah ‘Eat your heart out Melissa’ Smith is in fact BETTER than Robin ‘Roger Kean Follower’ Candy.

So Lloyd, keep up the moaning letters,
Simon ‘moan moan’ Salwan

What! Me contradict myself!? I’m the epitome (look that one up) of logical thinking, reasoned argument and sensible debate. I’m also a jolly nice guy, which is why I’m giving you the £20 worth of software this month for your splendid defence of all things feminine.
LM

ARE THEY JOKING!!

Dear Lloyd,
I am hoping that you print this letter in full with no bits edited as if you don’t it will mark a sad episode in the life of CRASH and you don’t seem to want to publish any controversial letters (which are often more interesting).

I have just been reading Sinclair User when, I came across a letter which criticises your magazine a great deal. After reading it I felt I must immediately write to you and put the record straight.

This letter (in the September 1986 issue) makes many ridiculous points. First it says Sinclair User is more readable and amusing than CRASH which, it most certainly isn’t as all Sinclair User’s ‘Jokes’ are just foolish and immature unlike some of yours which are actually funny.

It proceeds to say that Sinclair User is more colourful and interesting but, I must complain and state that CRASH has as much colour as Sinclair User and is definitely more interesting with it, also lasting a longer time to read and re-read (also, having 20 or 30 more pages) while, Sinclair User just gets thrown away.

This letter carries on... Now it says that Sinclair User’s reviews are better than yours but, as any sane person must realise yours are a lot better, more descriptive of the game in question, more detailed and longer though you could improve this by showing the reviewers’ initials by the review.

There’s more yet! Apparently, our letters are written by people with IQs less than 75 (not me nor most of our other readers), all printed by teenage boys (I don’t think so!) never say anything worthwhile (somebody’s got this wrong! Sinclair User’s are all stupid and include rubbish by the so called leader of the Humanitarian Democratic Communist Party! That says a lot!) CRASH letters are supposed to be unwitty and come across as **** (ha ha).

There’s more!! Our clear contents page and excellently drawn covers (most of them are good) are meant to be unclear and less readable and informative than theirs which is rubbish as Sinclair User covers could be drawn up by a blind man in five minutes and the contents page is one hell of a mess.

Also, it comments, Sinclair User covers every aspect of computing, but this is stupid as most of the magazine is adverts and Playing Tips which ramble on and have ancient pokes which look like they’re nicked out of back issues of CRASH. I bet I could send an August CRASH poke and get it published in about November’s Sinclair User. One nameless person even sent the same map off to both magazines.

CRASH is better than Sinclair User in these ways: Better maps (not inch high ones), letters, covers, reviews, contents, decent adventure (even though my classic game wasn’t reviewed), Tech Tips that work, more colour, Lunar Jetman, readability, length, value and Playing Tips.

By the way, good luck to your LM magazine which I shall buy and to Hannah Smith in her battle with inferior C&VG Tipsters.

This girl letter-writer to Sinclair User (her name I am tempted to print), is the worst traitor since Mark Roberts of Ealing all those years ago. She says Sinclair User is better value as it is 2p cheaper. Now let’s see...

At that rate you’d buy a new game in just over 41 years NOT counting inflation! She also claims to read CRASH so I hope she sees this and realises her many mistakes, if I was her I’d go back and crawl in a hovel.

Finally, try and print my letter and not just chuck it in the bin as, it contains brilliant valid points and my name’s never been in CRASH.
Michael Sutton (loyal CRASH fanatic)

Wow, that’s some analysis Michael. I’m afraid I must confess to hardly ever reading S U, so I haven’t seen this particular letter. I’ll bet S U doesn’t have nice grannies writing in like we do — 12 year-olds indeed. Well some no doubt are, but don’t forget the average reader age is actually 17.5. The next writer also has a few similar points to make...
LM

CHEAT POKES

Dear Lloyd,
Recently while reading Sinclair User I noticed that some of the pokes and cheat routines which appear in CRASH also appear in Sinclair User usually a month or two after they appeared in CRASH. A recent example of this is the Green Beret listing for infinite lives which appeared in the June issue of CRASH programmed by Brian Smyth, the same listing turned up in the Sinclair User August issue with very slight changes (line numbers changed, prompt messages changed etc) and S U claimed that Barry George and Mark Bell had written it. Also in the same issue of S U appeared a listing for Bombjack which had also been copied straight from CRASH. They have also copied the colour, double page reviews which CRASH are famous for. Sinclair User is not the only magazine which copies both style and cheat listings, other offenders are Your Sinclair and Computer and Video Games, but to a lesser extent. Keep up the good work and keep CRASH the number one magazine in the entire world. One word of warning, keep CRASH original and keep the humour.
Thomas Connolly

I’ve no doubt the mags you mention could sometimes claim the opposite. There are some readers who take great delight in lifting the listings from one magazine and writing in to another very quickly as though it was their own cheat routine. As magazines we have very little way of checking up on this sort of thing until it’s far too late. Just another example of how we suffer for our art...!
LM

SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Dear Forum,
After the Seven Deadly sins of Adventure here are my Seven Magnificent Deadly Sins of Arcade Writing:

COST

Mermaid Madness, Kung Fu Master, The Comet Game and, believe it or not, World Cup Carnival are all overpriced by a huge amount. In at least three of these the sound is bad, the graphics worse, and the colour clash worse still. The latter, World Cup Carnival, fooled a lot of people, and whoever I meet says it is even worse that the reviews people have given it.

BUDGET

I can’t say all budget games are crap, because they aren’t. But some software houses think that they can launch rubbish games at low prices. Ninja Master, The Master and Cagara and Con-quest are below average to say the least. And three pounds is not all that cheap, although most games in this league are good, Cagara is exceedingly crappy crap.

CLONES

Knight Lore, Alien 8, Pentagram, Batman, Sweevo’s, Spindizzy, B Bearing etc, W.O.T.E.F., Yie ar Kung Fu, International Karate and Sai Combat, Gunfright, Pyracurse and Nightshade. It goes on and on. Can’t the software houses realise that we want originality? Jet Set Willy, the game that launched a thousand copies. Most of them poor imitations. Shadowfire was the first game with icons to speak of. All of a sudden up pops all these games with icons. What had been revolutionary soon became run of the mill.

PACKAGING

Why do all games seem to have double cassette boxes around them? I have only seen two games which need two cassettes, The Planets and Way of the Tiger. Ultimate and Ocean are the main culprits. Also, huge packaging that falls apart as soon as you open it. That means Beyond!

EARLY ADVERTISING

Remember Hunchback the Adventure, Street Hawk and Knight Rider? Gosh, doesn’t it seem like a long time since adverts first appeared for them. About a year ago, if you must know. Actually, a version of Street Hawk came out, but was withdrawn before anybody could part cash for it. Other held-up adverts were the Prince and Swords and Sorcery.

PROTECTION

Why are so many games protected? Not everyone in this world is a pirate. Lenslok is a pain up the butt and I once needed to re-load Elite three times. JSW1’s colour codes are a deterrent, but it only took me one night and six pens to copy them out, while my friend used a colour photocopier. The number codes on Dragontorc were photocopied successfully first try.

ENDINGS

This is only a minor complaint, but why do so many games have crap endings? Batman, most Ultimate games, Starstrike II and others all have endings along the classic lines of ‘Congratulations, you have completed this game’. Can’t houses leave some space in memory for an animated ending, or something interesting?

Those are my seven deadly sins. Hope you agree with them.
Andrew

That seems like a fairly concise list of sins. Andrew. Anyone else share these feelings? Ah yes, there is...

AND NOW 5 SINS...

Dear Lloyd,
After reading A Neithan’s letter on the seven deadly sins of adventures, I’m writing about the 5 deadly sins of Arcade games.

AIMLESSNESS

When a game has no aim it loses some of its addictiveness because there is no ultimate aim. It either loops round to the start or carries on at the same difficulty. Some examples are Fist, Spy Hunter, Bombjack and Yie ar Kung Fu. Many say that some games couldn’t be aimful, but I would disagree, even shoot em ups can be made aimful eg. Starstrike, Glass, Moon Cresta. But maybe not Space Invaders. When you set out to complete a game rather than just get a big score it has you coming back to it see the end effect, adding to the game’s excitement.

OVER DIFFICULT

A game must obviously not be made too easy, but should be completable by an average game player with plenty of practice. Many good games could only be completed by game playing wizards eg. MOVIE, Knightlore, Alien 8, Spindizzy, Starstrike 2, Pyracurse and Dynamite Dan. Okay you could always cheat, but it’s not the same when you have to cheat. When a game is over-difficult people tend to let it fall by the wayside because they know it is out of their reach which is a shame if the game is a good one. The game doesn’t have to be slowed down or made inferior, to make it easier you could give the player more lives, or make the nasties less nasty.

TOO SMALL

This occurs more with arcade adventures than anything. Generally, if the game is too small it’s too easy, eg Jack the Nipper, 3 Weeks in Paradise, Herbert’s Dummy Run. With these games it’s just a case of experimenting with objects and looking for significant links. I bought 3 Weeks and completed it in two days without help, hints or pokes. My mate did it in one and a half hours. The cream of the arcade adventures are the massive ones, eg Dragontorc, Marsport, Dun Darach, Fairlight.

LACK OF ACTION

A good arcade game should have you using your reflexes most of the time and your brain some of the time. A big mistake of software houses is to put in lots of insignificant screens which are empty and actionless, eg Gift from the Gods, Robin of the Wood, Enigma Force, these are but a few culprits. Insignificant screens are a waste of memory.

BAD END EFFECTS

There is nothing more frustrating than spending hours of endless effort, brain flogging and eye straining just to see some crummy message or daft effect. The least software houses could do is to reward our efforts with a stunning end effect. The top 5 all time bad end effects in my opinion are Dun Darach, Ghosts n Goblins, Fairlight, Underwurlde and Green Beret.

The best 3 are: Everyone’s a Wally, Max Headroom, and Herbert’s Dummy Run.

So come on software houses, make our efforts worth while and make some good end effects for us.
RMW Yorks
PS Who’s that ugly bloke on the back issues page?

You seem to agree on the end effects being generally poor. But most programmers I know are baffled as to how to fit them in when so many games use every spare byte available and I can’t quite see you waiting for a few minutes while another load of code gets dumped into the Spectrum to provide an end effect.
LM

BRING BACK CANDY

Dear Lloyd,
I wish Candy would return from his new pastures and come back to his old job, because I hate Hannah Smith. The thought of a woman taking over a man’s job embarrasses us readers as we think that CRASH is such a brilliant magazine, but the thing that bugs me is that us (fabulous) readers never get to see many photos of you or anyone else who writes for CRASH.

If you make any stupid remarks about this letter I’ll personally kill you.
Daniel Kydd

Hannah’s very keen to get her hands on your full address, Daniel! After several bouts with Melissa Ravenflame, she could take you on with both hands tied behind her back. Man’s job indeed! Robin Candy still pops into the offices after college some afternoons, but he’s taking a long sabbatical (LMLWD) from CRASHing. (Incidentally he thinks Hannah’s doing a great job).
LM

MCP SCANDAL

Dear Lloyd,
What has happened to dear CRASH? I am talking about that very disgusting letter YOU PRINTED (gasp) by Mr P Schofield saying that women are only here to clear up after men. We’re not machines you know, we do have a mind of our own.

I wear jewellery, make-up and do other feminine things but have never picked up a pair of knitting needles in my life. Mr P is living in the 19th century: and if he thinks women would like to clean up after his disgusting self he’s got a shock coming. Has he ever noticed the squillions of women authors around? Judging by his letter he isn’t too intellectual himself. He is also very boring as well as a very disgusting male chauvinist pig.
Clair Ritchie

I couldn’t agree with you more, Clair, but you mustn’t be angry with me for printing his letter. After all, it’s got your dander up enough to write and refute his chauvinist nonsense!
LM

CRASH COMPARISON

Dear Lloyd,
First of all I have a confession to make, I actually buy computer magazines other than CRASH. Now before you screw this letter up and throw it in the bin please read on.

I have been buying CRASH and Sinclair User for over two years now, and from time to time I have also purchased other mags such as Computer & Video Games and Your Sinclair. What has compelled me to write to you is a letter that I read in Sinclair User concerning its new look. It states that Sinclair User is becoming more colourful and interesting to read and is overtaking CRASH in these respects. Whilst I accept that the magazine has improved vastly over the past few months, I find the statement that Sinclair User is actually better than CRASH very hard to digest.

The ‘New Look’ that so many magazines have adopted of late — ie much more colour, bigger reviews, playing tips, greater emphasis on games reviews than hardware reviews — is not new at all. I have seen it in CRASH magazine for years now.

It seems very ironic that mags which used to boast that they were not just comics, and treat themselves very seriously have now adopted the ‘CRASH Look’. It would appear that these mags have at last realised that although the humble Spectrum can be used for many serious applications, the principal use of the computer is in games playing.

Keep up the good work CRASH, and although I will continue to buy other computer mags yours is still the best.
Andrew Thorpe

Thank you for the kind comments, Andrew. It has been interesting for us up here in the wilds of Shropshire to watch other publications follow CRASH’s lead. I’m not trying to suggest that we are all brilliantly clever or anything (cos we’re not really), all we did at the outset was look at the market and realise no-one was taking games as seriously as they deserved.
LM

WORLD CUP CARNIVAL

After the slagging CRASH readers gave to US Gold’s World Cup Carnival it only seems fair to let them reply, and here is the letter I received recently..

Dear CRASH
Subject: World Cup Carnival

US Gold licensed this property in the summer of 1985. Our intention was to produce a program that not only gave actual computer entertainment but also gave added interest to football enthusiasts.

We duly commissioned a company, who will remain nameless, to produce a piece of entertainment software that matched, in terms of graphics and playability, Ocean’s Matchday, but with added football associated events and some unique fun features such as ‘ball control’.

We proceeded then to prepare packaging and contents which, without exception, have been praised for quality. After repeated requests to the software company for proof that the ‘game’ was progressing, certain searches and investigation highlighted to us that the company was imminently due to enter into liquidation and game completion could not he guaranteed. In fact, tracking down the individuals that were actually freelance and writing the versions proved almost impossible.

We then (this was the end at February) decided to sever our links and hopes of completed titles from this company and re-assign the development. We needed final versions by the first week in May and licenses were also obtained for our European offices in France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

This left us two months to assign the work, develop the games, fully test, master and package in time for the commencement of the World Cup Finals.

Anybody who knows anything about software development will tell you that a game cannot be written in two months. Our only option was to take a game that had not sold well, make modifications and add features not previously available.

Prior to the release of the game, screenshots from the Commodore version were sent to all major magazines including ZZAP! 64, CRASH’s sister magazine. We then duly informed major retail chains of the title’s origin and when released to the trade, told distributors to inform retail stores to tell prospective purchasers of World Cup Carnival that the game was an updated version of Artic’s World Cup Football. US Gold did not mis-lead the buying public but was faced with a situation that commercial interest had to weigh heavily. Our reputation in dealing with our customer is well versed. We answer all letters and take all telephone calls. If our customers are genuinely dissatisfied with one of our titles, we offer another game at half the recommended price. The decision always being at US Gold’s discretion and subject to availability.

In some respects, World Cup Carnival was to the good of the software market. It has set a precedent for publishers to produce quality software on the back of a licence which US Gold has been proud to have been able to achieve without exception in the past.

Conditions and timing wouldn’t allow us the grace to maintain that reputation with World Cup Carnival although I personally feel that if the purchaser did not already own World Cup Football, the package offered very good value for money.

US Gold is the World’s Number 1 Entertainment Software publisher and as such, views as vital the excellent reputation it has earned with Spectrum Owners!

SIR CLIVE RETROSPECTIVE

Dear Lloyd,
The nation is in a State of Panic and why? (As if you didn’t know). Yes it’s true Sir Clive Sinclair is out of the home computer market (industry). And no one cares. Well let me just tell you about Uncle Clive. In 1980 the world saw the launch of Sinclair’s first computer — the ZX80. Then within 12 months of the happy event the ZX81 was launched, but this was only the beginning of a great era. With this Clive produced his ace in 1982 and what an ace the Spectrum is. By doing this he had created the British home computer market. Just think, if Clive hadn’t made his move Commodore 64s would still be selling for £350.00. Amstrad might still have been mucking about with Hi-Fi and I would have sat around waiting for a miracle to happen. Even good old CRASH wouldn’t be around. Sir Clive Sinclair may not have been a great business man but he is a computer genius and no one can question that. Sir Clive Sinclair may be gone for good, but he will live on forever in the heart of my Spectrum.

There will never be another computer like the Spectrum.
Richard Hargreaves

(To be spoken to the strains of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’)

I don’t think anyone would deny the truth of what you say Richard. As to whether Sir Clive is gone for good is another matter — he’s bounced back time and time again, perhaps he’s got another ace up his sleeve. Who knows?
LM

A NICE GRANNY WRITES...

Dear Lloyd Mangram,
The June issue of CRASH Forum contained a letter from a lady and you asked for any other ladies to write in to you. Well I am a Granny and enjoy CRASH mag and of course Forum. My children are much quicker than I am, but my grandchildren 10, in all, also enjoy trying to do the games which teach them patience and skill.

As a warden of elderly people I found I stayed at home much more, so decided I would teach myself the computer and it has given many hours of fun. My age is 51 and though not old yet, it does surprise many people when I say I’m going to play with Monty Mole, Popeye or my favourite Chuckie Egg.

Thank you for your news pages in CRASH, it’s a super mag and explains so well that you seem to know what you are buying.

Cheers for now
Joyce Smith

Nice to hear from you Joyce (did you know they named a computer after you — well they did, well done). Perhaps you should try out some adventure games, you might find you’re quicker than your grandchildren on them!
LM

NO MOAN AREA

Dear Lloyd,
No I’m not writing to complain about the fall and rise of Ultimate, or to winge about the price of software, or rabbit on about software piracy. And no I’m not going to moan about my CRASH arriving in like second post (or even later!!!), or try and stop poor games being reviewed, or complain about games being late for release, or about Oli’s artwork. And I’m not going to write a stupid male chauvinist letter. I’m not even going to complain about the ‘disgusting’ pictures scattered through CRASH and from now on if everyone thought this before they wrote a letter to the Forum it would brighten up without the need for bug box (yuc!). Stop using Forum as a moaning column.
Jo O’Donovan

Too right, Jo. You tell em. How about some really constructive letters for a change? All this moaning and groaning is beginning to give me a complex, and you know what happens when I get a complex, I get mad and rude and (what was the word some nurd used a few months back, ah yes —) FLIPPANT. And all that does is cause more moans. Ah well, such is life...
LM

I’M A GAME!

Dear CRASH,
I am one of the unfortunate teenagers who have just taken their O Level/CSE exams this summer with whom Robin Grant so kindly sympathised in the August issue.

Anyway, a few days ago I was playing Pentagram when it suddenly dawned on me that my life is slowly transforming into a plot devised by Ultimate in a typical adventure game of theirs. You know the plot — evil spreads over a kingdom and poor old Sabre Man has to risk life and limb trying to piece a Pentagram or a similar item together in order to bring happiness and joy back to the ill-fortuned kingdom which darkness and evil has possessed for the time being.

This plot roughly resembles the unfortunate situation that I have found myself in. My mum has warned me that if I don’t get a certain amount of O Level passes then my faithful Speccy will be banished to the loft while I am forced to do retakes. What’s more all my copies of CRASH, plus my future subscribed issues, will be following my ill-fated Speccy into the dark realms of the loft as well. This, of course, will bring gloom and despair to life as I know it.

So you see, in my case, a number of good exam results have to be collected in order to ensure future happiness and joy in my life otherwise evil consequences will prevail. Sabre Man does have an advantage over me because he can have as many goes as he likes in order to achieve his target but as for me, I only have the one chance. Hannah Smith’s Playing Tips could probably help Sabre Man out, if his life gets that little bit too dangerous in his adventuring, but there is no way she could help me out on this one.

So it’s ‘cheerio’ from me folks, if my luck runs out which there is a pretty good chance that it will. It would probably be of some consolation to me to see this letter printed in your great magazine because the September Issue of CRASH could be my last CRASH for quite a long time and it would be pleasing to see this letter printed somewhere in its Forum.
Andrew Callaghan (16)

What an absolutely horrific tale. Tell your mum that if she does anything of the sort I’ll use all my influence with the Ludlow mafia to get them to change her mind. I’m sure you’ve had your results long ago by now, and we all hope time they were good. Incidentally, Robin Candy proved to be a real clever boots by getting loads of O levels. I always knew that boy would go a long way and doubtlessly all of it downhill!
LM

GROVEL TOGGLE

Dear Lloyd
Allow me to introduce myself, I am DROID MK16 and it’s part of my programming to read CRASH and your excellent Forum every month. (GROVEL MODE OFF).

As I was flicking through the pages of the aforementioned Forum, I noticed an increase in letters concerning the so called GIRLIES. One of the items which grabbed my attention was one from a Mr P Schofield who is obviously some kind of male chauvinist.

All this rubbish, and unnecessary rubbish at that, is not worth the space, even if you do proceed to pick them apart in your reply. I personally, or Droidally as I’m not a person, have no time for both chauvinists and feminists as their views are very biassed and destructive, leaving a nasty taste in the mouth of both sexes who could not care either way, but take people as they come.

I do not think women should be stereotyped as I know several of the human persuasion who are witty, attractive, and clever with it. I think the girls (and blokes) at Crash Towers do a great job and wish you all the very best for the future.

I also think that the lovely Hannah Smith (hope that’s not too patronising for you) is a very welcome change from the Candyman and writes a very good Playing Tips column.

So think again, Schofield you jumped up prat, or I will send round a few heavy automated pals of mine to deal with you and anyone else with chauvinist or feminist leaning in their letters.

Yours most faithfully, (WHOOPS Grovel mode again)
DROID MK16

Through my good offices, the girls and blokes of CRASH Towers thank you kindly. Now you’d better go get your batteries recharged.
LM

REGIONAL EDITIONS?

Dear Lloyd,
Is there a Welsh CRASH? Having bought the August edition in Derby, I took it on holiday.

When I returned my friend had bought the same edition but he had bought his copy when, ‘Gadzooks!’ cried my friend, as we turned to page 83 ‘On The Screen’.

In the bottom left-hand corner of the page was the screen dump of the castle courtyard. This was coloured pink and purple. So what? you cry.

Well, after a quick cycle round to my friend’s house, he produced his CRASH and Yes! The castle courtyard in his edition was indeed yellow and green!

So, is there a Welsh CRASH? We demand an explanation!
M Edwards and R Powell

Well I think you’re jolly lucky, it’s like having a rare, wrongly printed stamp! No, there’s no Welsh edition of CRASH, what’s probably happened is that you have one of those very few copies that get out when the printer changes paper rolls in mid-run. A few get slightly ruined, for a second or so it can take the printing plates to get the ink balance correct again resulting, here and there, in some odd colour combinations.
LM

WHERE HAVE ALL THE PEOPLE GONE?

Dear Lloyd

What’s happening at CRASH Towers? Has Graeme Kidd’s BO got too much for you all. First Robin Candy then Gary Liddon and now you! Are you leaving CRASH for LM or what?

Well if all the new staff are like Hannah Smith you won’t hear any complaints from me (she can wrestle with me any time know what I mean)! Less of the sexist (me, sexist HA) remarks, onto something more constructive.

Minson is great, his inane ‘Fear and Loathing’ is ace, even if I’m none the wiser after reading it.

I must congratulate CRASH on introducing a PBM game section to the magazine. I was in danger of dying of boredom as my Spectrum had blown a fuse (A IN4148 diode and a A 780516 regulator to be exact) so I joined Vorcon Wars. Brill!! (any players on Vorcon 60 better watch out cos FRIDGER will settle for nothing less than total domination).

I think praise is also needed for Sean Masterton for having to put up with anencephalous (new word for you) prattlers like Peter Shields (Frontline Forum No 31) he’d need more than shields if I got hold of him. Just cos frontliners are in the minority there is no need to scrap frontline.

Otherwise you’re gonna have a revolution on your hands matey (sorry about that outburst but people really piss me off).

All you have to do to make CRASH perfect for me is to expand PBM Mailbox, Frontline and put the reviewers initials after the reviews. A pin up poster of Hannah Smith wouldn’t be a bad idea (simple to please aren’t I?)
Mark Frewell

I’m not going anywhere Mark. They’ve just borrowed my initials for the new mag (only now they’re pretending they have nothing to do with my name — something to do with calling it a Lively Magazine I think, or Lazy Morons, or Last Minute — the way it gets done no doubt). The biggest change is that Graeme Kidd has sort of left CRASH, left in the sense that they’ve booted him upstairs to become Publishing Executive of all the computer titles. He’s now a Big Kidd and having trouble getting into his Doc Martens. Funny thing life, ain’t it?
LM

THE ULTIMATE PRAISE

Dear Lloyd,
I am sick and tired of reading people praise and slag off Ultimate every month. I myself was a true Ultimate fan up until the release of Pentagram. This game was a complete waste of money, it’s exactly the same as everything else around at the moment. However, it is not their fault that once great and way ahead of the rest, they have fallen into a slump, and if they are truly are great they will recover.

I think people should stop going on about Ultimate and take more notice of Odin for in my view they are the leading software house in the country.

I must however, thank you for telling us about the Loki being pure rubbish for this is one relieved 128K owner.
RJ West
PS You had better publish this or I’ll keep writing until you do.

I’ve printed it — so stop writing. No I don’t mean that — honest. I’m not sure I totally agree with you, however. What do other CRASH readers think?
LM

HUNTER RULES KAYOED

Dear Lloyd,
Let me introduce myself. My name is Geraint Jones and I am President of the Hunter S Minson fan club. Our sole aim in life is to promote the great man himself, his drinking habits and to destroy all those who oppose him. So, JA Attwood, our hit gang is already on its way to Norfolk to seek you out. Even now two stretched limousines escorted by a fleet of Ferraris and Lamborghinis may be closing in on your abode. If you don’t swear allegiance to Mr Minson they will give you a pair of concrete shoes and drop your rotting torso into a vat of Bloody Mary’s.

Such is the fate of those who blaspheme against Hunter S Minson. Nobody has ever said that our society doesn’t give its victims fair warning (none that have lived long enough anyway), so blasphemers, next time you see somebody in a Hawaiian style shirt, watch for the burst of insect repellent (as demonstrated by the almighty Minson in issue 27) it may spell your end.

I also have a warning for you Mangram. Print any more anti-Minson letters and you will find a long limousine outside your cottage, unless of course you send the squad Heartland and Cauldron II. Don’t try to get the Ludlow mafia onto us as we have infiltrated that puny excuse for a protection racket. But we know that that thought never crossed your mind as you’re a nice guy really and wouldn’t like your kneecaps broken.
Hoha,
Geraint Jones, 16 Bloodymary Road, Hungersville, Loathingshire

I wouldn’t dream of printing another anti-Minson letter ever again, as I require my kneecaps for kneeling on. I can say little about the great man himself because the few times I’ve bumped into him I haven’t been able to see anything through the glare from those appall... (sorry) stunning shirts. Still, you can rest assured that you’re not the only reader alarmed at the Attwooditude...

Dear Lloyd,
I think the opinion voiced in the letter written by JA Attwood was in itself excessive.

Hunter S Minson is paid for doing a job, a job he does well. As a journalist he paints a colourful picture of life behind the scenes in the computer world.

If JA Attwood thinks that Hunter S Minson’s behaviour is slightly below par at launches I can assure him that he is not the only one to behave in this manner. I know two or three journalists and from what I have gleaned from them Hunter Minson is a kitten compared to some. The offer of a free meal and free booze to the ligging manes creaks a buzz of excitement, and why shouldn’t it? Epicureanism (look it up) is far from dead.

A sense of humour should be exercised, and the articles of men like Hunter should be read in a jovial, lighthearted way. More power to your drinking arm Hunter, from a loyal fan!
Ben James

It rather depends on whether you think CRASH readers want to see behind the scenes. Some would argue not, but from my experience, most do, and Minson does it well (kneecaps, please stop telling me what to write..) Someone else who also enjoys kneeling in comfort has this to say....

Dear Lloyd,
Here is my view on Minson’s Column. It’s different, funny and good to read because he goes into detail wherever he goes (games launches etc) or games lunches as he would prefer!

There is nothing else like this column in other rags so, well done CRASH for packing so many different things into the magazine.
CAN

... and...

Dear Lloyd,
Don’t sack John Minson.
Alex Marsh

... and again...

Dear Lloyd
Mr Minson can relax because I am certainly a fan of his. His column is entertaining, amusing and a piece of professional journalism. I’m sure his column is not going to encourage any younger readers to go out and ‘throw up on volvos’. Come on, after all it’s only a bit of fun and isn’t that what computers are all about?

And look at T’zer in YS. Her column’s written in similar style and nobody complains about her.
Lynda Matthias

... and and...

Dear Lloyd,
I happened to read JA Attwood’s letter on the excellent column by Hunter S Minson. I can’t tell you how utterly embarrassed I am to live in Norwich. I find it embarrassing that JA Attwood should be so uncultured and not have heard of or read any Hunter S Thompson. I myself find him highly amusing and have a book which houses such greats as ‘The Great Shark Hunt’, ‘Fear and Loathing at the Super Bowl’, ‘Jimmy Carter and the Great Heap of Faith’ and many more. I do hope you will continue with the column and not be put off by morons such as JA who do not think before they speak. Please don’t suppose that all Norfolk Dumplings are uncultured, country yokels.
Yail Bloor

... and yet again...

Dear Stereogram,
To JA Attwood and CH Evans — Paws off Hunter S Minson! The Fear and Loathing page in CRASH is the page I first turn to on buying the magazine, being very humourous and well written. To those critics, if you want to read serious news turn to the news pages of CRASH, Mr Minson is obviously CRASH’s answer to Nigel Dempster, with Fear and Loathing being the CRASH Diary. More free lunches and liquid ones too to his elbow!
Philip Green

... but what’s this?

Dear Lloyd,
I will put my point of view on Hunter S Minson’s ‘Fear and Loathing’, as you requested. After reading his column I thought to myself, what was all that about? Reading again it dawned on me... Absolutely Nothing!! It had hardly anything relevant to home computers and was as boring as it was long. Please remove Hunter S Minson from this column or try and get him to write more relevantly!
Richard Poppleston

Better watch out for those li’ll ol’ kneecaps Richard.
LM

HELP AN ADDICT

Dear Lloyd,
I write this letter because no-one else has done it. Someone’s got to be first, it might as well be me. You see I am addicted to computer magazines. Well that’s not too serious you might think, but it is driving me nuts. I read CRASH, Sinclair User, Your Computer, Computer & Video Games and about six Dutch magazines you have never heard of. I hardly ever read anything else. There isn’t time! As soon as I have finished reading through one load of magazines the next load appears. My greatest fear in life is that I miss one issue of a magazine. I read them long before I even owned a Spectrum, yes I do own one now, but playing games? Hah! Even if I would have any money left to buy programs I probably wouldn’t know what to buy: I am spoiled for choice: Smashes, Star Games, Classics etc, all of them programs no self-respecting Spectrum owner should be without. Well, I am!

My family have been very understanding, but right now they are trying to get me to talk to a ‘very nice gentleman’. You’ve guessed it: a shrink.

So here’s some advice to all of your readers out there: stick to one magazine (CRASH is not a bad choice), or you could end up like me. You wouldn’t want that to happen, would you?
Michel van Staveren

Perhaps you should look at it the other way Michel, that it is the others who are mad and you who is sane. The Dutch are enormous magazine readers anyway (pity the British aren’t the same!) and you may just be suffering a slightly advanced condition of being Dutch. If you want to put your ‘shrink’ off, just ask him for a reading list of international psychology magazines...
LM

HANNAH HAS GREAT TIPS

Dear Lloyd,
Does Hannah Smith have breasts the size of Samantha Fox’s, a waist as thin as Duchess Fergie’s and buttocks the size of Anneka Rice’s?

If not then why is this beautitul body displayed on the cover of issue 31?

Yours droolingly
Peter Reid

It’s all true, Peter, and she’s much more stunning than C&VG’s Melissa Ravenflame. If you attended the recent PCW Show at Olympia, you may have seen the ‘battle of the stickers’. C&VG started it by plastering the Newsfield stand in ones saying ‘Here’s Mud in your Eye Hannah Smith’. I’m told the Newsfield team retaliated furiously on the Saturday with stickers saying, ‘Stop Raving Dame, stand up Melissa and accept the challenge.’ There was even a paddling pool at the ready and a supply of lime green jelly for the two tipstresses to wrestle in but Melissa never showed up.
LM

THOUGHT THIS WAS A NO-MOAN AREA?

Dear (Urgh!) Lloydy Poos,
Don’t read this smelly old piece of paper cos it’s totally meaningless.

Moan 1. Don’t let puffs like Mr P Schofield write a load of sexist crap like the stuff you printed on page 35 of August issue. Most females are human except for my sister (Hello Lindsey) and her friend (Hello Batie) who is a distant relative of the cherry (her nose is a cherry).

Moan 2. This has nothing to do with computers or CRASH. Would you please tell my cat to use the garden and not my bed for a cat’s duties.

Moan 3. Have longer reviews and the reviewers name after every comment.

Moan 4. Kill the Ed, Graeme Kidd, Robin Candy and yourself and send me Hannah Smith’s (bissy kissy) address. Also kill the pervy who only gave Pyracurse a one page review and 88% for graphics. It deserves at least 95%. I just lurve them zombies wiv the stakes driven through their hearts.

Moan 5. Don’t print my address cos I don’t want Mr P Schofinessle writing to me to complain. Remember to send me Smithie’s address and give her mine.
Paul Rocball

Hannah is very flattered you want her address but unfortunately she has no home to go to, sleeping and working at her computer. Otherwise you’re right, I never should have read this smelly bit of paper.
LM

A SPANISH VIEW

Dear Lloyd,
I am a 16 year old Spanish boy and I have been reading CRASH for 18 months. I have many friends who read CRASH and we think it is very good. I saw the issue 31 which my English penfriend buys and I have some points to make:

1. Minorities.
Peter Shields in the Frontline Forum says the Frontline and other minorities should be finished. This is not good. The different parts of the magazine is what makes it interesting. Finishing them would make it all the same and make a boring magazine, si?

2. Budget Games
The reviews of budget games is stupido! Why does the price of the game hardly affect the ‘Value for Money’ score? Example: Podder, 99p, overall 54%, value only 58%.

3. Manngramm
What does he think he is making?? He never answers the serious letters seriously but is getting angry on the joking letters, eg the Girlie Takeover letter, issue 31. Some CRASH people are saying he does not exist, I am thinking it’s better if he did not.

4. Fear and Loathing
What is all this moaning about Minson? He is the best thing in CRASH.

La saluda atentamente,
Miguel Martinez

Point 3 nearly got your letter in the waste paper bin, young Spanish gent. How dare you cast aspersions on my abilities. I, Lloyd Mangram (please note the English spelling), am what makes CRASH what it is, if you don’t mind. As for that brightly coloured Hawaiian butterfly of a roving journalist called Minson — well you can have the kneecaps back — so there.

THE SOFTWARE KILLERS

Dear Lloyd,
I thought I’d write to let you know how I feel about software (horrible) houses!! Oh ‘groan’ I hear you cry but it gets me really angry to think how they are holding back the home computer industry and their attitude towards it.

Only last week I heard that Enterprise Computers had gone bust, why? Well the answer is simple, people didn’t buy it. Oh Wow! I hear you all think, but listen, the Enterprise had hardly any Software available for it, why? because no damn software house would produce software for it because it didn’t sell!! This seems like a pathetic attitude to take! If software houses produced software for it, people would buy it and everyone would be happy.

It has got to the stage where no company will produce software for any other computers beside Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPCs. When you think about it the Speccy 48 has been pushed to its limits, the Commodore 64 reaches its limits years ago and the Amstrad is hardly a quantum leap! But until software houses change their attitude in the 1990s we will be stuck with 80s computers when we should be having super high tech computers and many more companies will end up like Enterprise when they had a marvellous computer, (some already have).
Simon Jones

You seem angry and surprised about the Enterprise, yet hardly anyone else is, I think. When the Spectrum was released, the fledgling software industry such as it was were easily able to leap up from producing ZX81 games by converting them straight to the Spectrum. Development of software was cheap because the punters didn’t actually expect too much then. Software houses could make money, survive and prosper to do better things. When the Amstrad was launched, the company had taken care to ensure a reasonable quantity of utilities and software was already available and backed up their hardware by also becoming a (none too successful) software house themselves, helping Spectrum houses to convert existing games by the hundreds to the CPC464. The Commodore, already a massive worldwide success, could draw heavily on hundreds of American games, also cheaply converted to run on British machines. None of this did the Enterprise have — no real back up at all.

You can’t expect software houses (who have to live just like you and me) to spend thousands of pounds paying for programmers, promotions and advertising to develop an Enterprise game when there were probably only three to four thousand machines sold (don’t know the actual figures). It would mean selling hardly any copies of the game. Equally, who wants to buy a computer with no software to run on it? A vicious circle which other manufacturers have managed to crack. Enterprise didn’t.
LM

A RUN DOWN

Dear Lloyd,
Have no fear, Lloyd, I am not writing to say that I’m a male chauvinist pig (cause I’m not).

No indeed, I write to congratulate you and thank you for an excellent magazine, that has kept me enthralled enough to pay a pound each month for the last two years and to write this letter.

Yet I am saddened at the loss of Robin Candy and Robin Candy’s Playing Tips, which he brought from puke to pokes (as the saying goes). But wait, let us not talk about this young attractive new tipster by the name of Hannah Smith who has saved Playing Tips and what a great job she has done of it as well and hopefully she will bring it to the highest standard in the future.

I also congratulate you on the PBM mailbox and what a great job Brendon Kavanagh has done of it.

All the other regulars are Brill as well, Merely Mangram, SM’s Frontline, DB’s Adventure Trail, Forum, Tech Niche, Lunar Jetman (how about Terminal Man II) to name but a few. And every one deserves a round of applause Oh Yes! And a special thanks to Graeme Kidd (May his Doctor Marten Boots reign the carpets of CRASH for many a year to come).

Tell Cameron Pound to keep up the good work because his photos complement the reviews like Laurel and Hardy complement each other.
S Davies

Graeme’s boots have certainly ruined over the carpets of CRASH for some time now. Hate to think what his bigger ones are going to do to the lush, hotel-quality pile. Actually, I’d better be good now that he’s turned into another Power That Be’s. (Have you noticed how many times I’ve been passed over in the promotion stakes. Just as well I’m not the sort to moan and complain). LM

And talking of recharging batteries, it’s time to replace the cracked leather dustcover of my Hermes, unlock the chains from the old bicycle, and wend wearily off up the hill to Mangram View Cottage while the rowdier elements of the team like Michael ‘Skippy’ Dunn and Ben (I didn’t get to bed until 6 in the morning last night) Stone join Greyboots Kidd, carpet scourge and bigger than ever bossy boots and Hannah (Flamed out the Raving Dame) Smith in the local hostelry they refer to as the Pig and Ballbearings (would you drink in a place with a name like that)? I wouldn’t — that’s why I’m off home. See you next month...

This month our play by mail expert fights for and wins two pages — it’s PBM FORUM time again! Brendon also takes a peek at Amateur PBM games, looks at Conquest and gets on the touchline for a new league in SOCCER STAR

AMATEUR PBM GAMES

Amateur games are of a breed that I have avoided mentioning, mainly because they tend to be human moderated games of a simple nature. These games are generally run by PBM fanatics with a little spare time and money.

The principal of amateur gaming is the same as in ‘professional’ PBM, which after all, developed from amateur PBM — the only difference is that the results of all the players’ orders are published together in a ’zine (normally in the form of a table of figures for the players to interpret). These games are very cheap to play — the only charges being a couple of pounds startup and a few more pounds for a ’zine subscription. Turnaround varies from every three weeks to every two months, depending upon the ’zine.

If you are interested in playing any of the variety of amateur PBM games available (many of them derived from board games such as Diplomacy, Sopwith and Railway Rivals), or if you would like any further information about amateur gaming, then I suggest that you send an SAE to Martin Le Fevre along with a letter asking him for details of the amateur PBM game directory which he edits.

And Lloyd has passed a letter from David and Michael Bradley on to me — they’ve got three games on offer: a cowboy game, a football game and a space game which are apparently free to play so long as you send SAEs along with your turnsheets. The games are meant for beginners and people who want to play by mail in a simple way, so if you’re interested, send a SAE to David and Michael for details.

SOCCER STAR

Soccer Star is the first PBM game to be released by Pace Games Software of Nottingham. As this is a new game, a fair appraisal cannot be given so all that can be said is that Soccer Star appears to be a fairly detailed professional PBM game of Football Management.

The game offers a league structure, player skill ratings (ranging from Park Player to World Class), team selections, player transfers, weekly matches, aggression factors (defining how your team plays!), game attendance figures, financial management, professional cheating and so on... All in a day’s work for your average Bobby Charlton!

Soccer Star is due to be launched this month, costing £3 to start up, with game costs of £1.25 per turn (which can be as often as weekly if you wish). Send an SAE for further details to CRASH Soccer Star, Pace Games Software.

CONQUEST

Conquest is a human moderated game of, well, conquest. The land of Rall upon which the game is played is mapped out onto well over 10 A4 sheets, each sheet containing 29 hexes of land and sea. Initially, the player is given a nation compromising of a few hexes, and is told the type of nation ruled, the ‘Personalities’ owned, the nation’s religious and magical tendencies and troop strengths, along with information regarding the hexes and cities governed. The player is also given a copy of the (somewhat daunting) rulebook.

The main nation types are: barbarian; nomad; superior barbarian and civilised. Each type of nation has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, a superior barbarian nation can raise civilian population at 80% of the normal economic costs, while its prosperity is low compared to that of a civilised nation.

The personalities are the leaders of nations and armies, and they are used by the players to actually ‘do’ things in the game — conducting spying or espionage missions, trading and so on. Normally the player has about 10 personalities, but this figure can vary. They all have ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ style attributes which give different Personalities different uses.

Nations’ troops generally come under two headings: INFANTRY archers and marines for instance, and CAVALRY which may comprise chariots, elephants and so on. The nation type and geographical description decides the troop type of the nation. Fleets of ships such as galleys and coastal raiders are available for maritime battles. Combat in Conquest is a well thought out affair — victory does not necessarily go to the largest force!

The player’s hexes and cities are termed PROVINCES. In the provinces, loyalty-crushing taxes can be enforced to raise the gold needed for economic development and investment in infrastructure and armies. Economics is the strongest feature of Conquest, and international trade is an important key to successful play.

A map from CONQUEST in which the aim of the game is... conquest!

CONCLUSION

Conquest’s a well run game which requires a lot of careful planning and diplomacy to win. The game is quite difficult to understand at first, but after a few months play and a bit of diplomacy with experienced players you should get used to the game. A word of warning if you choose to join: don’t expect the world to be easy!

Conquest is played on a monthly turnaround and each turn costs only £1. Startup costs £3, and as a special offer to CRASH readers this fee includes an extra free turn not normally included in the startup package (rulebook and first turn free). Matthew Brunt, who GMs Conquest, also produces an informative game newsletter called The Conqueror — well worth reading and why not contribute articles too?

PROGRAMMED BY TEACHERS

It is interesting to see that my favourite programs this month were designed, written and produced by practising teachers. Andy Watson in Aberdeen and Bill Elliot in Plymouth, have both become aware that much of the educational software on the market is not really what teachers in schools are looking for, and so have come up with their own products. If you expect these to be amateurish, you’d be wrong — Expose and Nightmare/Potholer are both extremely professional packages which have been thoroughly tested in the classroom.

Andy Watson has been interested for many years in the potential of the computer in the classroom, and as a teacher of English, and more recently, working with remedial children, he has built up tremendous expertise in his field. Bill Elliot also, has reaped the benefits of his computing knowledge. Seventeen out of his class of twenty-eight children at Southway Junior School own Spectrums, and indeed, are avid readers of CRASH. Over to them for their comments on Potholer and Nightmare:

“I like Nightmare because of all the different monsters in it like the Number Gumber who knocks you for six.”
Ben Davey

“Every time you got killed by monsters you just couldn’t wait until your next go to find out what would happen next.”
Simon Rash

“Nightmare has a lot of riddles and lots of different monsters. This game is very interesting for people with an imagination.”
Carl Bates

“Pothole is a game for all the family. It is well put together and is a long game.”
Sarah Green

“It is good how you have to work out plans to get over a river and try to rescue your friends.”
Steven Morris

“I like it when the computer gives you funny remarks, then when you get clues, that is when your brain has to work.”
Jason Rowe

EXPOSE

Producer: Key Software
Price: £4.00

Every primary school and every secondary English department ought to invest in a copy of this program. The writer, Andy Watson, is a teacher of children with special learning needs and he has devised this program especially to help children with their language development, particularly with the skills which are essential for fluent reading and comprehension.

The program contains a wide selection of passages in which all the lower case letters have been replaced by blanks. The player can use a variety of methods to reconstruct the whole text using knowledge of spelling and comprehension to predict words and phrases. There are 36 passages to chose from, loaded in groups of nine, and these cover a variety of interesting topics from fiction and non-fiction sources. When the main menu appears, the user can choose Instructions, Play game, Create text, or End.

The instructions detail the keys to use, outlining the differences between those for the Spectrum and for the Spectrum Plus. A very nice feature is that the player can select the normal Spectrum typeface or a clearer redesigned typeface. When playing the game, the passage with blanks is displayed, together with a starting score of 20 and a bonus which can range from 0 to 100.

The player then has 4 options... Buy a letter, which reduces the score and bonus but has the advantage of revealing all instances of a given letter. Guess allows the player to type in a letter or group of letters which cannot include any existing displayed letters — if the Guess is correct, all the instances of the letters in the Guess are displayed and the score is increased. Type is similar to Guess, but this time if the player is correct, the other instances of the letters are not displayed, but the advantage of this option is that, unlike Guess, the bonus is not reduced. In order to obtain a high score, the user has to balance the advantages and disadvantages of the various options. The Help option reveals the letters that have previously been bought or correctly guessed. This game format makes the program interesting and enjoyable for children, working either individually or in small groups.

The Create Text option is invaluable for teachers who can either alter an existing passage, or can create an entirely new one. The instructions are so clear in fact, that pupils themselves could create passages for others to try. The need for correct spelling would then be immediately relevant for them. Expose comes complete with a detailed manual outlining the aims and objectives of the game, and a full program description. There are a number of programs on the market based on the same idea, but this is by far the best I have seen. Send off for it now.

COMMENTS

Control keys: clearly described on the screen and easy for children to operate
Keyboard play: good
Graphics: none
Use of colour: kept simple so as not to distract
General Rating: An excellent, professional program with a number of user-friendly features such as extensive error-trapping with a choice of typefaces. It has been thoroughly tried out at schools, and at only £4 this is a program which everyone can afford. Highly recommended!

THE GRAMMAR TREE — VERBS AND ADVERBS

Producer: Sulis Software Ltd
Price: £10.95

Verbs and Adverbs is the second of a trilogy of Grammar Tree programs, the others being Nouns and Adjectives and Sentences. All three are intended as a popular learning kit for “anyone who wants to organise all those half forgotten bits of information about basic grammar into a straight forward, cohesive system of grammar”.

Although the accompanying booklet gives information about ‘correctness’, the screen text misspells the word ‘beginning’, and the booklet includes a sentence which is grammatically incorrect! When the program has loaded, the following profound sentences appear on the screen: “In the beginning was the sentence (the Bible calls it the Word). The sentence is divided into the subject and the predicate.” An extremely irritating bleep forces you to rush through all the information given, which of course means that none of it is absorbed. The sentences used for examples, such as “Patsy sings sheepish songs”, are trite and silly.

The menu on the first cassette offers a range of options from Verb and Noun phrases to Auxiliaries and Suppressed Verbs. The second cassette contains exercises to test understanding of the theory. Sentences appear on the screen, and the task is to select the correct group of words to fill the blank. One of the sentences to test knowledge of noun phrases is “...............was standing by the lamppost”, and the choice is from: People today, you and me, you and he, Certainly Higgins, or Higgins.

The scoring system is rather odd as, after answering four questions. I was informed that I had scored 12 out of 12 — one of the questions was repeated three times! I’m afraid that this program is no better than the worst sort of grammar text book, and at least the latter doesn’t make silly noises.

COMMENTS

Control keys: one key commands
Keyboard play: good
Graphics: none, apart from a simple diagram
Use of colour: limited
General Rating: A good way to put the user off studying grammar for life.

NIGHTMARE AND POTHOLER

Producer: Southway Software
Price: £6.00

Both of the programs on this cassette were written by WH Elliot, a teacher at Southway Junior School in Plymouth. To solve the problem of lack of funds for software purchase, most of the profits from the sale of Nightmare and Potholer go straight to into school funds. The programs are specially structured for classroom use with groups of children, and the screen text directs the children towards a variety of activities.

Nightmare is an adventure game in which the children have to rescue Princess Pru who is being held captive by Naughty Nora. After visiting a few locations, the players are given a task to complete. Tasks include creative writing — descriptions of the castle using words such as battlements, sinister, portcullis and drawbridge, art work, solving codes, number activities, and even research to find out the capital cities of France, Turkey and Portugal. The idea is that each group of children will work at its own pace, and will spend a relatively short time at the computer before going off to complete an assignment.

The game is extremely enjoyable, and the colourful graphics hold the players’ attention. In both of the games, note-taking skills play an important role. In Potholer for instance, the adventurers have to rescue their friends who are long overdue from a caving expedition, using the following equipment: a rucksack containing food, batteries, clothes and a first-aid kit, a knife with many blades, an electric lamp, a 20m rope, a life jacket, and a small spade. One of the first tasks in this game is to work out how to cross over a stream without getting the rucksacks wet, and a later problem has you working out how to get through a long passage which is too narrow to crawl through wearing them. Problems such as these are superb for getting children to think and to discuss their ideas with each other.

This adventure offers a wide scope for artwork, as the groups have to produce, for example, cave paintings of strange animals. If the players complete their mission successfully, they are invited to appear on television to tell their story.

I thought that both Nightmare and Potholer were marvellous programs for use both in the classroom and at home. The only reservation I have is that after completing each task away from the computer the players have to start at the beginning of the game again and work quickly through until they reach the point where they left off.

This could have been avoided by the inclusion of a code obtainable from the teacher on successful completion of an assignment, which would allow the children immediate access to the appropriate point in the game.

COMMENTS

Control keys: kept simple for young children to operate
Keyboard play: good
Graphics: excellent
Use of colour: eye-catching
General Rating: Both games are outstanding examples of educational adventure programs. Don’t miss them!

O LEVEL MATHS

Producer: GCE Tutoring
Price: £5.00

There are eight programs on this tape covering arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, sets, statistics, transformational geometry, matrices and calculus. When each program has loaded, a list of the topics it covers is displayed on the screen for selection.

The first program offers information on fractions, decimals, rounding, accuracy, indices, square roots, and so on. A brief explanation of the topic is given, together with a few examples, then the student is given more questions to tackle solo. The information is rather sketchy, but I suppose that if the program is used only for revision in conjunction with text books, students may find it quite useful. The trouble is, there are already a fairly large number of study aid programs for O level Maths revision on the market, and these are of such a high standard that a program like is made to look somewhat amateurish. It doesn’t help that words are split in odd places at the end of a line, or that spelling mistakes occur rather too often to be overlooked. The program, however, is quite cheap — well within the budget of a sixteen year-old.

COMMENTS

Control keys: C to move on, together with all letter and number keys
Keyboard play: reasonable, though there are a few long pauses between screens
Graphics: limited
Use of colour: simply black lettering on a yellow background
General Rating: Covers a lot of ground in a rather sketchy way. Amateurish.

STARTER WORDSPLITS AND JUNIOR WORDSPLITS

Producer: Sulis Software Ltd
Author: R.V. Beaumont, G.M. Beaumont
Price: £7.95

Both of these programs are aimed at improving word recognition and spelling by matching up two halves of words. In Starter Wordsplits, there are 14 different categories to choose from, such as Sounds, Movement, Animals, Nature and People. Each category has 18 words to be completed — more than enough to hold a young child’s interest. The word ending appears on the right of the screen, and can be brought in line with its beginning by using keys 7 (up) and 6 (down). To make the two halves join up, the child must press 5.

Junior Wordsplits is a more difficult version of the same game, and you can choose to practise beginnings such as for/fore/four and des/dis or endings like -ary/-ery/-ory and -ance/-ence/-ense. Each game begins in black and white, with colour being introduced for each correct answer. With each completion of a section the time taken is given. The programs are easy to operate and useful in their own way, but I would like to have seen a more imaginative use of graphics in Starter Wordsplits to motivate the younger children.

COMMENTS

Control keys: 7 to move up, 6 to move down, 5 to make the word
Keyboard play: good
Graphics: very limited
Use of colour: builds up from black and white at the start
General rating: Useful in a limited way, but rather unimaginative.

SUPERCOM

Producer: Atlantis
Price: £1.99

Although not a specifically educational program, this game would certainly be of use with children to encourage their thinking and note-taking skills. The storyline is as follows: the government has failed to track down the criminal mastermind who is holding the country to ransom with a computer-activated nuclear warhead. No-one knows where the computer or warhead is located. The only information you, the hacker, are given is an incomplete telephone number supplied by a C15 agent who was ‘terminated’ while transmitting what he had discovered.

When the program has loaded, the menu displays 5 options: you can telephone other computers; opt for an analysis of the phone link; read the data which the analysis sends to the information board; display your phone bill; or Load/Save your data. Each time Supercom is loaded, it contains new codes, so no two games should ever be the same.

I found this an absorbing, if rather frustrating, challenge, and the game certainly becomes addictive after a while. It is important throughout to jot down all the clues and code numbers given and, by a process of trial and error, try to hack the system. Disappointingly, I found a spelling error recurring in the screen texts, but in spite of that, this is a nice little program for encouraging logical thought.

COMMENTS

Control keys: number and letter keys are used to input the codes. Z returns you to the menu
Keyboard play: good, though it is impossible to delete it you make a mistake
Graphics: none
Use of colour: reasonable
General Rating: This is a very cheap little program which represents very good value for money. It would be enjoyed by older children and adults.

SHORT ’N’ SWEET

Several people wrote to defend FRONTLINE from the ravages of a letter from Peter Shields a couple of months ago, which suggested Rosetta and yours truly went to join the dole queue.

There is only one game to have a look at this month, so there’s plenty of space to devote to the Forum. Keep writing in. Most of the letters were full of interesting suggestions but unfortunately, these were unprintable. Thank you. I’m one year old this issue and it’s good to be here and know people enjoy the column.

As I prepare this intro we’re coming to the end of a fairly miserable summer. The PCW Show looms on the horizon (once I finish this column, it’s off to Olympia for me). Next month, I’ll give you a full run down on the goodies you can expect for Christmas. See you then...

FORUM

In which Peter Shields is well and truly hammered by FRONTLINE readers on the offensive; tips for Chaos and Rebelstar and the great computer opponent debate are all dealt with in inimitable fashion. Roll up, roll up!

Dear Sean,
Putting anti-strategy game letters in your Forum is undoubtedly strategic itself because it promotes further letters of anger/defence etc! A few notes therefore follow which I feel are relevant to the pro/con debate.

First, I subscribe to CRASH only because it reviews and takes seriously strategy games.

I wonder how many people reading CRASH have ever actually had a chance to become involved with good strategy? Two player/multi player content is what the vast majority of computer games lack and I can therefore only determine that if CRASH readers aren’t unsociable or dull they simply haven’t yet experienced the far greater permutations and challenge that having a human opponent provides.

To anyone interested, the major value that a game such as Rebelstar Raiders provides, is that while the computer does what it is best at (the donkey work and representation), the fun stems from out-thinking another mind — far more unpredictable and emotional than even the best computer opponent can provide. Try bluffing the computer or expecting it to learn from your decisions! (One day?!!!)

A second major point in strategy/tactical games is that they have a far less linear plot than even the most flexible of adventures, because you tend to begin with the whole story and work within it.

There can be several paths to success in a single game. It must be admitted that there is not, at present, much good material around but I feel sure that we are only talking about a matter of time. (Well done Firebird!) Which brings me to the most important point. Who can say what the future of computer, (or other) games may be? The most certain fact is that the existing situation will change and today’s minority, (as was suggested last month), may yet become a majority. I think this is particularly relevant to the multi player aspect of game interaction.

Well done CRASH for staying at the front, and full marks for printing the articles about other game areas. It’s only a matter of time before they merge.

And to any who still doubt the wisdom of CRASH Towers, I predict when the computer game world changes, if they keep up this superb diverse approach, whatever happens, the magazine will be the leader. Don’t knock the games if you haven’t fully tried them. I bet Derek B didn’t play Chaos with some merry friends or he would have surely been won over by the fun.

Here’s to the future.
Andrew Hughman

PS Do search for RED SHIFT expanders.

Thank you for the kind words Andrew. I tend to hold similar views about the increasing importance of strategy games for whatever machine you care to mention. The multi-player aspect of games like these is never really considered fully but it is the element that most closely links the genre with conventional wargaming and also provides by far the most enjoyment when playing a game. As for RED SHIFT expanders, I’m looking, honest!
SM

Dear Sean
Having read the FRONTLINE Forum in Issue 31, it appears that someone else has discovered the super fantasy wargame Chaos (G Havenhand’s letter). I feel that it is unique amongst wargames in its spectacular presentation and user-friendliness and it has not spared complexity at the cost of these. The small graphics are animated beautifully, and the sound is better than in most arcade games. The computer opponent handles its forces very skilfully, and it is a joy just to watch eight computer players slugging it out between themselves. Many more people could gain from Chaos, and so I urge you to give it a proper review in FRONTLINE and award it the Smash that it deserves.

Here are some tips for any new players: early players (the 1st or 2nd in a large game) have the attacking and spell casting initiative, but later ones can cast an illusion with less chance of following players disbelieving in it. Illusions are no good towards the end of the game, since wizards cast disbelief often, when they have few other spells. Protect your wizard with armour and a shield, or shadow form and a castle, since they are very weak at the start. The computer is very cautious with its wizards, and they do stay alive for a long time!

Also, try to get a magic weapon so you can attack undead creatures. If you have no magic weapon and wish to disengage combat with the undead, try pressing I for info and then enter a direction. You will attack that empty square and move onto it.

Magic woods allow you to get some new and powerful spells but remember they are not anybody’s property and any wizard can use one. Fire and Gooey Blob can win (or at least save) the game if they are used properly. Walls can be used to build fortresses to hide in, but can be flown over. A good way to start is to magic bolt another wizard, or to cast something next to him. Players 2 and 7 can have an attack on five players by casting a shadow wood tree next to them.

The final trick, discovered by a friend of mine, is how to get an undead wizard. If you can become undead, you stand a good chance of winning. You must raise a mount of some kind from the dead (a horse is easiest), then get on it. If your mount is slain or vengeanced then you yourself are undead!

I would also like to start a new argument in your pages. How important is the computer opponent anyway? Because of memory problems, if the opponent is not to be a dumbo then the game must have severe restrictions imposed upon it. A game which is ultra-complex would need about 20K of Artificial Intelligence for the computer to learn and improve enough to keep the challenge to a player. So how about some games which are for humans only, with the computer acting as a rule-book. It would make for more variety in play, would it not? I wish to write a wargame without a computer opponent, in order to make the game as big as possible. What do other readers think? I always find playing humans more fun anyway.
Anthony Bailey

Interesting plans for an interesting games. I plan to meet up with some old colleagues from Games Workshop very soon to discuss the availability of the game now that GW has pulled out of software production. If the situation warrants it, I’ll prepare a full review of the game immediately afterwards. One of the advantages of computer wargaming is the option to play solitaire. Perhaps the best option is the kind used in Rebelstar where one side of the tape has a single player option while the other is a two player game.
SM

Dear Sean
I have got to reply to the stupid letter written by Peter Shields in last month’s issue. It annoys me so much that he can be so single minded, and it also surprises me that you should print such trash, or is it that you want to receive a whole lot of angry letters like this, then ask for a pay rise because of all the extra workload? (It’s a fair cop, guv — SM)

Peter Shields seems to want everything arranged for him and has no consideration for other people. Even humble me, who hardly ever reads any of your section or CRASH COURSE can see the usefulness of these to people who play wargames or are parents.

But while I’m here I might as well give you some aggro. Don’t worry, it’s only a bit of constructive criticism. The main reason for people disregarding your measly three or four pages is the appearance. It is too grey and drab. Why don’t you press for a colour page or two, or even a few colour photos. I mean, Derek Brewster did it, why not you?

For instance just take a quick look at last issue and compare the CRASH Smash Rebel Star with the CRASH Smash Bobby Bearing. You have to agree there is a big difference in colour and razzamatazz.

I think it’s time to revolt. The only way to get more readers is to attract them, and if the other slime eaters at the CRASH Tower say you don’t have enough readers to warrant spending a little cash, then either kick their feet away or stick your fingers up their noses.
Stuart Bedford

PS Do you really look like Don Johnston of Miami Vice as your portrait by Oli suggests?

Let’s make a deal shall we? I won’t mention clothes pegs again so long as everybody keeps their mouths shut about that drawing. I’ve been compared with everybody from Jesus Christ to Don Johnston, and I’m not paid that much! Okay?

As for the presentation of FRONTLINE, it always comes down to what space is available when I get games in to review. If a good game arrives while there’s colour space free, nobody minds me grabbing some of it. However; as was the case with Rebelstar, all the colour had gone. When this occurs, I have a choice. Do I hold the review for a month to ensure colour but risk being late reviewing the game, or do I get the review to you as fast as possible and make do with monochrome pages? I normally go for for the latter option. However, I do hope to brighten these pages over the next few months so stay tuned. The case for the defence rests.
SM

Dear Sean
I can’t help but write to you complaining about the letter from a Mr Peter Shields of Manchester. He asked whether war/strategy games are worthy of their own regular column in CRASH. I say yes, very much so in fact. I’d rather have a specialised person who knows his job well, giving his criticisms or comments about a wargame, than an arcade freak doing so amongst the other arcade games. I know that wargames don’t appeal to everyone; nor are they as widely produced as arcade games (pity though!), but it’s just no reason to have their column ‘abolished’. Although the column may be bare at times or mightn’t have a CRASH Smash every month, it still should exist, after all is CRASH always absolutely packed to the brim with CRASH Smashes every month.

He also said about wargames being far inferior to arcade games. Yes, I admit that too for a majority of them but not so for such games as Shadowfire, Lords of Midnight and so on, which were highly acclaimed and got into the CRASH Readers Awards.

Having cleared that up, I’ll put forward some of my views on the Forum. I was very glad to see you take over from Angus, as your reviewing system is far better, and I very much liked the idea of the Forum. I think the Forum is just too small, and although space is a limitation it could be enlarged by using up the wasted space that a Mr Minson writes his gobbledigook on (no offence White Dwarf!.)

Generally wargames on the Spectrum are improving, but agreeing with Steven Cook’s point that they are generally slow. For instance in Lothlorien’s The Bulge, I find that the computer is slow to respond to the order key, etc. Another point I would like to make is that some people were complaining about the S&S system being very similar to D&D or AD&D, yet nobody has complained about HotM (Heavy on the Magic) using the FF books’ fighting and requisite system, that of SKILL, STAMINA, AND LUCK?

Finally, I would like to ask you a few questions. What type of wargames, RPG’s etc do you like/play?

Is there any news of any other games coming out from J. GOLLOP soon?

Will you be reviewing Dark Sceptre? and Do you PBM?
David Kelly

Ooh, my head is getting so much bigger! In answer to your questions, Traveller, Skyrealms of Jorune, Call of Cthulhu, Rolemaster, AD&D are my favourite RPGs in that order, though I play and collect many more. Conventional wargames include SPIs Starforce Trilogy, Star Fleet Battles, WRG modern miniatures rules, Warhammer and my favourite game overall is Go. Yes I do PBM but the games I play are my business. I never form alliances or make my presence known when it can be avoided. At present it would appear that I’m not reviewing Dark Sceptre though that isn’t definite.
SM

Dear Sean
I have long held the opinion that people who dismiss wargaming and RPGs as boring must be unintelligent and/or unimaginative. Peter Shields sounds like one of this cursed kind. He sounds as if he cannot enjoy computer games unless half the universe is destroyed by him in the first five seconds.

I am not knocking Arcade games indeed I enjoy a good many, but I do like to have some measure of intelligence in my games, I am happy to set a new house best at Quazatron, but much more enjoyed winning Arnhem against the computer.

Point 2: Swords & Sorcery can not be a true RPG because you can not use the standard Role play technique of lying your way out of trouble. An example of this follows:

In one game a friend and I were caught searching the baggage carriage of a circus train. Two guards came in... in a computer game we would have had to get into a dangerous fight and kill them to stop them sounding the alarm.

In the RPG we explained we were the flying Karamazor Brothers, and were checking over trapezes for that night’s performance. Computer games just cannot handle the aspects of a) conversation and b) all the natural laws such as gravity.
Ian Hopping

I agree that current computers cannot possibly ever create a true RPG. The point is that computerised RPG development isn’t being carried out on Crays. It’s being handled on machines of comparable power to the Spectrum. It will have a very important role to play in the future of home entertainment as games become ever more realistic. Role playing is the most sophisticated form of leisure invented by man. Its birth in the home computer field (which will expand) is surely worthy of coverage.

Finally this closes the case for FRONTLINE. Peter Shields’ opinion was not backed up by any of the correspondents. In fact, I’ve never had such an enthusiastic response to the column. Thank you to everyone who wrote. I guess it was the acid test. FRONTLINE will continue to grow and improve while I’m writing it. As a famous Vulcan once said, ‘Live long, and prosper!’
SM

JOHNNY REB 2

Producer: MC Lothlorien Ltd
Price: £9.95

This is the first offering from Lothlorien for some time and is a follow up to one of their oldest and most successful titles. Based on the American Civil War, Johnny Reb II is a one or two player strategy presenting the player(s) with a ‘typical’ action rather than a recreation of one of the many historic battles such as Bull Run or Gettysburg.

For those in need of a quick history lesson, the ACW was the result of differences between the Northern and Southern states of the USA mainly (but not entirely) over legalised slavery. Neither side actually wanted the confrontation which lasted from 1861-65 but both were caught up in unavoidable conflict in a war so bitter and complex, it literally set brother against brother. It holds interest from the strategists’ point of view because it has been called the first ‘modern’ war.

This terminology is used more in the context of new weaponry than anything else. Repeating rifles were rare during the war, but gained in numbers towards the end. Gattling guns, the forerunners of the modern machine gun were also used occasionally and cavalry, whilst still maintaining an effective role in combat was armed more with slug throwing weapons than swords. The war was further complicated by the fact that whilst the North possessed the industrial might and numerical superiority, the South was better organised and trained and had fewer commitments. All this explained Lothlorien’s first foray into this era. Their excuse this time was increased sophistication and better gameplay. So, how have they done?

Well, the most obviously notable feature of the new game is that it is apparently 100% machine code (something unheard of in the pre-Cambrian days of the earlier version’s release) and it loads very quickly indeed. A passable title screen is then succeeded by a menu that allows limited modification of the game’s parameters. Just about everything is user definable from the control keys (or Kempston joystick option) to the balance of forces, the terrain features of the battlefield, where and when the various reinforcements arrive, game strength (on the one player version) and screen colours.

I was most impressed with the choices available to the player. When playing solitaire, the player may choose either side thanks to a flexible computer opponent (though I later discovered that the opponent is not actually that hard to beat on the first two levels). Safety features ensure that you cannot alter the force played by the computer to make things easier on yourself. It’s possible to have hidden movement on the single player game but all units are always visible in two player mode.

Once the game begins, play is very straightforward. Again this is due to attention to detail in presentation. Under joystick control, a cursor is simply placed over the unit to be ordered before pressing the fire button. Information about the unit is then presented on the screen in a colour code to show levels of ammunition, morale, strength and efficiency. This display appears below the ‘action’ screen. To the right of the screen, a series of icons appear, each indicating a possible action such as dig in, advance, charge or fire (not all these options are available to all units, as you will see). Joystick movement allows selection of the required order with confirmation coming from a second press of the fire button. Some orders may be elaborated upon. For instance, when advancing, you are asked whether the unit is to advance firing or not. As units carry out their orders on the main screen at the end of a turn, the unit symbols themselves will change to show the current status of those units.

Limited sound effects are employed during combat. This is normally ranged combat though melee is possible between adjacent units. Units may retreat, become routed or be destroyed depending on their performance in combat. The unit types are infantry, cavalry, artillery and supply (these units cannot fight). The exact scale of the units is never really explained throughout the game or manual but by the nature of movement, I would suspect it lies somewhere between platoon and company level.

There is a standard scenario. A Confederate force is approaching a vastly outnumbered Union outfit which must defend its side of the map while reinforcements arrive during the course of the game. It’s a basic but flexible arrangement which should present plenty of challenge in a two player game. The one player version only really comes into its own on the hardest level. The on screen presentation is both logical and clear but the tiny instruction booklet is both cramped and badly laid out. There is no key reference so setting up can be slow until you become accustomed to the procedures.

Johnny Reb II is definitely a worthy successor to the original but at £9.95, I can’t say I’m overly impressed, especially considering Rebelstar was only £1.99 and that was a better game. The best advice is to buy Rebelstar first. If you have that and are looking for a flexible, well presented and interesting game... get this.

Presentation

84%
Cramped and badly laid out booklet but wonderful onscreen presentation.

Rules

85%
Some omissions but otherwise well suited to the game.

Playability

85%
The unobtrusive icons are useful and fast, especially with a joystick.

Graphics

80%
Simple but effective and colourful.

Authenticity

82%
The various unit strengths and proportions capture the essence of mid-war skirmishes.

Opponent

79%
Flexible but not too demanding.

Value For Money

81%
The most you could ask for this game.

Overall

82%
Very reasonable in most respects, admirable in some. What a shame though, that in the wake of a couple of good budget games, people seem to be putting up their prices rather than bringing them down.

NEW STRATEGIES

t really can be fun to watch the microcomputer games world from a removed vantage point. I’ve touched upon this ground before but let’s just have a little look at the latest manifestation of an age-old marketing dilemma.

If you have a listen to your local commercial radio station (for we must take the commercial airwaves as a suitable comparison), you will notice music programs concerned with Folk, Country & Western, and perhaps Jazz, tucked away at the end of the day’s schedule. Most of the music on these programs is specialist interest with only the occasional well-known tune coming up. However, when a well-known tune does come up, you think no less of it for being on a specialist program, you just accept it for being the highly pleasant material it is. No-one thinks any worse of Sting for producing a jazz-inspired album, and it certainly was commercial, as its Number 1 position in the American charts testified.

Now, back to computer games, and we have another outbreak of the ‘don’t tell them it’s an adventure we want it to sell like an arcade’ syndrome. This mental angst has it that adventure games sell far less than arcade games BECAUSE they are not called arcade games, and takes no account of the facts which only relate how very poor adventures sell next to none and good adventures sell very well, it just so happens, due to the likes of the Quill, there are more opportunities for the uninitiated to produce poor adventures.

The syndrome is sad because many adventure games really do sell in tremendous numbers; Heavy on the Magick is a true adventure and it has maintained a healthy chart position for months, if it continues to do well no doubt it will cease to be an adventure and slide over to join Lords of Midnight in the ‘successful strategy’ camp. Redhawk, from Melbourne House, was deemed too important to be classified as an adventure, and so was reviewed as a mainstream game. The game can not be counted a chart success and so the attempts to confuse games players, and to ensure no adventurer plays it, have presumably succeeded.

Dark Sceptre is the latest non-adventure about to hit the streets and the latest release not to take into account the public’s total disregard for such classificatory pedantics — they will buy a good game no matter what the title. Let’s hope for less text and graphic products, and more adventures.

CRIMBLE

Producer: Microtech Systems
Price: £2.20

This is another game in the ‘here’s another Quilled game in a cheap cover and if you’re good we might tell you how much it costs — go on then, guess’ category. However, in this case the authors have got an excuse — they are unquestionably mad and make no attempt to cover up what’s blatantly obvious from the outset. To put it succinctly the guys at Microtech have lost their marbles. It is not like the other humorous games reviewed this month; there are no subtle lampoons here more a blunt bludgeoning of the senses with an inexorable onslaught of loonyisms.

The madness begins with the cover which is made the wrong way leaving you struggling to open the cassette box from the right when it is to the left. The loading screen shows a mock pound note where ‘I promise to give the bearer on demand the sum of one’s sanity’ quite rightly has you wondering on what you’ve let yourself in for. So how does this adventure describe itself? ‘Sensible, down to earth, original, unexaggerated, truthful, unerring, undeviating, precise, undistorted, honest, unbiased, fastidious, never wrong, always right, rational, well grounded adventure’. Oh, I see, a thesaurus style listing which can only be said to be in direct contradiction to the evidence, as having played some of this game, I can safely say it is the most insensible, pie in the sky, unoriginal, exaggerated, untruthful etc etc game I have ever played.

Following a very chirpy rendition of The Entertainer (stopped by pressing the BREAK key) the adventure immediately confronts you with its first absurdity, an irreverently long list of things you can see. Just check out this loony list. ‘You are in the closet. You can also see: a silver candlestick (highlighted), an electrical plug, a blue coathanger, a two handed battlesword, an elephant’s vest complete with holes, a tattered old scroll, a stained map, a screwdriver, a 13 amp fuse, some 7/8 spring-loaded washers, a bag of sparks, a bubble from a spirit level, a long stand, a set of ‘Go Slower’ stripes, a puncture repair outfit’. Now you won’t be too amused to find that Quilled games do not support the GET ALL command but not to worry, the game plays a little tune after picking up only four items — and that’s your whack.

There is one drawback to trying to review Crimble and that is the danger of exposing you to the sort of crazy writing which is powerful enough to turn even a speed reader into a gibbering moron. Directions are never as stated so an exit from a location with NE, E, and S exits will as often as not be something like UP! What is more, dropping objects is sometimes the only way of picking them up and there are a number of ‘Wrong Commands’ especially formulated to keep you amused on your trip to insanity. The text itself isn’t exactly on the straight and narrow. Take two of the milder examples (in the hope of leaving you sane for the rest of the column): ‘Sat in amongst the Sour Williams you gaze at a garden gnome who is fishing in someone’s Perno and Black. The smell of the freshly uncut grass is a somewhat pleasant sight’. And... ‘Here you aren’t in the outer garden shed where plant pots sing quietly to themselves whilst eating apples that smell a funny colour... You can also see a HW Smiths C15 tape with a PIRATE copy of Jetpac’. There are a few contemporary and political references in the mayhem but don’t look to hard for any slant or pronounced bias, the message, if any, is lost in the twists and turns of the satire, anti-satire loony-go-round.

There are a few graphics scattered about in this adventure but they are more symbolic than accurate. However, this adventure does present a colourful face to the world and in any case the game is out for only one notoriety, to be the most crazed, mixed up adventure on the market and for my money it gets the prize.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: leaves you feeling like you’ve been trepanned
Graphics: abstract but passable
Presentation: fair, colourful
Input facility: verb/noun
General Rating: Should sell like hot cakes in loony bins (Crash Towers?).

Atmosphere

70%

Vocabulary

54%

Logic

90%

Addictive Quality

73%

Overall

59%

FUTUREZOO

Producer: Clwyd Adventure Software

A new company of keen adventurers, this one, set up to produce challenging adventures which keep to their own critical standards and provide value for money. There’s only one thing wrong with the company’s stated philosophy (ignoring the fact that this game is nothing special just for the moment) the price of £7.95 is far and away above what other similar teams are asking for similar standard games.

In the middle of the 21st Century, after years of patient research, Hugo Skoltz, a brilliant scientist, finally succeeded in producing an interstellar drive unit theoretically capable of propelling a ship through space faster than the speed of light. The first ship to be fitted with the Skoltz drive was loaded up with a cargo of test animals and despatched under computer control to a destination eleven light years from Earth.

The test ship had been programmed to remain in the target area for 24 hours and then return, so the Works settled down to wait for its expected reappearance, around 14 months after the departure. When the ship returned, its mission completed after only fifteen days, the human race now realised the shackles chaining it to Earth were gone. Man’s age-old dream of conquering the stars was about to become a reality.

The race to build the new starships began. With the rapid advances in technology over the previous fifty years, the techniques required were already available and Governments, Private Corporations, in fact anyone who could raise the huge sums required, all became engrossed in Mankind’s latest adventure. One by one, and manned now by human crews, the ships slipped away to explore the stars.

Yet the flow was not one-way. The great ships that now departed the Solar System with their cargoes of human seed did not return empty. The wealth of a hundred worlds flowed back to the Mother Planet and Earth became a world of plenty. Although a few specimens of alien life had already found their way to Earth it was not until 2130 that the idea of a vast zoo filled with such creatures was first conceived. Billed as the Futurezoo it met man’s craving for ever more bizarre forms of entertainment but then, in the vicinity of a small and largely unregarded solar system, Mankind met the Senissa, a strange alien race of a similar technological level as Mankind.

Against the background of the ever-increasing threat of interstellar conflict, the two races signed a peace treaty during which the Great Seal of Senissa, a most revered artefact, was handed over to the Earthlings as a lasting tribute to the treaty. The Earth Ambassador took the next available flight home, a freighter transporting alien life-forms to Futurezoo. As unloading began on Earth a freak accident released the cargo to roam free aboard the ship. It was during the investigation into the accident that the Security Forces were alerted to the fact that one of the creatures destined for the Futurezoo had taken the Great Seal of Senissa. As head of the investigation you are the one now responsible for the Seal’s safe return.

Being a sensible chappie you decide to begin your investigation at the Futurezoo. An inventory shows you are wearing a warm coat and a nearby robot is selling tickets. A shrewd player will have these swapped in no time to ensure access to the zoo grounds. No sooner have you entered the grounds when another passing robot gives you a raffle-ticket (all these robots seem a trifle careless with their tickets) which no doubt will be put to good use later. Sadly, it won’t be long before you meet another robot who isn’t so friendly. It man-handles you out of the park whenever you trample on the flower borders or transgress (however unwittingly) the park’s rules. Getting back in isn’t an easy matter either. This is not the only danger as you wander round collecting the torch, spade, red fish and (totally unyielding) step ladders as a trip through the carnivorous plants building will soon show.

One of the better aspects of this dame are the wonderfully evocative location descriptions, one of which runs like this: ‘You are in the centre of a wide paved plaza, near a fountain which sprays water high into the air. Visitors sit at low tables nearby and several small children scamper after a ball thrown by a patient robot-nurse maid. To the west a row of red and yellow booths stands at the edge of the plaza’.

Futurezoo is a game which has been well presented for review but sadly the adventure is not quite up to scratch. In text-only adventures, the memory released from the chore of forming pictures can be expended on providing a deeper game with friendly vocabulary and atmosphere-creating EXAMINE and LOOK commands. Unfortunately Futurezoo has neither a friendly vocabulary, nor an EXAMINE command worth mentioning, and therefore can only be described as disappointing. The player feels alienated from the game as not much beyond ‘Sorry, I don’t understand. Try some different words’ can be achieved in any reasonable length of time, and trying any other words doesn’t seem to do anything. The lack of a HELP option just adds to the feeling of playing a most unhelpful adventure.

Only having the main compass directions (N, E, S, W), and using a bright yellow background to the black print (like trying to read the print on a light bulb), with a conspicuous lack of proof reading are not damning features on their own, but put alongside the unfriendly vocabulary, in what is a text-only adventure, then the evidence for the prosecution becomes overbearing.

Futurezoo is available from Clwyd Adventure Software.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: reasonably easy
Graphics: none
Presentation: poor, no highlights of inventory etc
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: it’s that quick Quill again!
General Rating: Poor; a story in need of an adventure programmer.

Atmosphere

75%

Vocabulary

30%

Logic

65%

Addictive Quality

41%

Overall

43%

HUNCHBACK THE ADVENTURE

Ocean, £7.95

Scrapping with the guards in HUNCHBACK

As you might expect from a firm like Ocean this is a step above the usual adventure game in terms of presentation. In many other respects, however, it is pretty run-of-the-mill stuff with the usual blend of objects and problems to be tied up together (although the first part of this three part adventure has more objects than problems). The game follows in the footsteps of its arcade namesakes, but this offering has more in common with Never Ending Story, what with its ‘events’ window on the left of the picture and up to six objects displayed on the right. These are laid on top of a tableaux depicting Notre Dame cathedral and can go as far as cartoon-like Biffs and Bops emanating from the scene where you, the hunchback, take on one of the many guards. As with Never Ending Story, I think the trendy display and atmospheric redesigned character set go a long way in compensating for any flat-footedness in plot.

In short Quasimodo has to find and rescue Esmerelda. This entails completing the three parts in the correct order. Firstly hunchback must escape from the cathedral set in the heart of Paris, made famous by the Victor Hugo novel of 1831. This involves side-stepping or disposing of the guards sent to harass you by the evil cardinal and his spineless lackey the Bishop of Notre Dame. If you survive that ordeal you then make your way under the city of Paris until you reach the cardinal’s mansion. Finally you challenge the Cardinal and rescue your sweetheart Esmerelda.

Not only is the game itself polished but the instructions on the cassette inlay are truly superb. The story-telling and gamesplay is related in a much more professional way than is often the case with adventures, and useful details like acceptable verbs are included making it easier to make a proper attempt at the game.

Not all gamesplay is sweetness and light though; the silent key entry is error prone. This is in some way countered by the DELETE not needing the CAPS SHIFT depression, but not entirely. Another irritant is the lack of an EXAMINE command without which much of the interaction with the adventure is lost.

By the far the greatest offering Hunchback has as an adventure is its humour. Take these two location descriptions in the first part: ‘Standing in the front aisle you can see to the east the altar and to the west the centre aisle which is pretty impressive considering you have only got one eye’ and ‘You find yourself in a bedroom that is decorated in early gothic tack. The wallpaper is garish and clashes with the duvet, and the fluffy slippers are just too passe!... Lying on the ground is a strange tattered book entitled Evil Worshipping for Beginners’. Even the Inventory list, which complements the picture tokens above, shows some good turns as in ‘An old music book entitled Bell Ringing for the Deaf’ and how about Zen and the Art of Guillotine Maintenance, a book which no doubt predates the one all about flowers and motorbikes and how to link them by going loopy.

Hunchback the Adventure is an attractive, stylised adventure with much humour and a great amount to play, what with it coming in three parts. It won’t enthral adventure freaks but it will keep many a novice chuckling before they get the hump.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: not difficult
Graphics: unusual, very attractive
Presentation: very pleasant
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: fast
General rating: superior adventure

Atmosphere

90%

Vocabulary

78%

Logic

86%

Addictive quality

85%

Overall

86%

MINDSTONE

The Edge, £8.95

Inside the village mystic’s store.

The Edge have brought a touch of class to the staid old adventure with a wide choice of options on play and some pretty pleasing graphics and sound effects. Loading up presents you with the options of Kempston/Sinclair Joystick or Keyboard control. Although the icon option with joystick and little on-screen arrow may be the slicker looking of the two, it is in fact the keyboard option which, once all the key assignments are mastered, plays the better.

You are Prince Kyle leading your band of loyal warriors in search of Nemesar, your younger brother, and the Mindstone he has stolen. Members of the trusty team which accompanies you are called upon by pressing numbers 1 to 4 in Keyboard Mode, a mode made all the more attractive by way of its keeping the strength and psyche attributes of a character up on the screen (making the S for Status key superfluous). Gold reserves are also shown on screen but this is the same for each team member as it is a team figure. The team consists of Kyle, who has average to high values for strength and psyche at the start, Merel, who has the highest strength but lowest psyche, Quin who averages in both, and Taina, who has the lowest strength but the highest psyche. Strength, clearly, is a measure of competence in combat but you may be puzzled at the word ‘psyche’ which turns out to be an indication of how well versed the character is in spell lore.

During play all attributes can be altered with strength being increased by eating and drinking, psyche assisted with meditation under the right conditions, and gold pieces can be accumulated by mining or alchemy. If you are finding it difficult to attain gold by these means it’s worth noting how buying provisions and artefacts can be made less damaging by bartering, which entails offering slightly less for an item than has been quoted. For example, I acquired a Royal Orb from a pixie for the bargain price of 36 (a discount of 3 gold pieces) while a golden arrow cost 53 as opposed to the 56 gold pieces price quoted by a voyager.

EXAMINE and LOOK are two commands used often in this game. EXAMINE tells you something about the location you are in. It tells you if something is blocking your way (a crocodile, locked door, or block of ice and so on) or whether a trader is present. LOOK tells of any objects lying within the present location but spells, being of the magic world, are transparent to the LOOK command. Instead spells are indicated by a brief flash of a spotted square at the side of the screen, possibly the only example of tatty presentation and design in the whole game — it very much has the look of a feature grafted on late in the developmental stage of the game. The ‘hand’ icon, indicating the presence of an object, isn’t much better, and these two features together require a certain amount of vigilance for what is otherwise a slowly paced adventure game.

There is some animation within the picture window along the top third of the screen. A character selected to perform moves across the screen from far left to right either to take a drink from the bar, attack a wolf or an orc or whatever, or cast a spell to smooth the way. The animation wouldn’t win any cartoon awards but is amusing enough.

Mindstone is a game which really impresses graphically. In play, as well, it is most engaging (although this comment can only be attributed to Keyboard Mode which is far more playable then the slicker looking Icon Mode) with some very pleasant sound effects. The game doesn’t allow for the team to go their separate ways, and the poster on offer can only be described as a waste of paper (or a joke), but mostly everything else about Mindstone is truly impressive.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: easy
Graphics: good
Presentation: superb
Input facility: keyword or icon
Response: fast
General rating: slow start but really engaging once you get into it

Atmosphere

77%

Vocabulary

89%

Logic

93%

Addictive quality

86%

Overall

89%

ZZZZ

Producer: Mastertronic
Author: Clive Wilson & Les Hogarth
Price: £1.99

You might, like myself, be pleased to learn that Mastertronic do not put out Quilled games in the belief that people, even at this price, expect better. Giving games players a little bit more is commendable as this offering not only has quite good graphics and a very readable redefined character set but also provides icon control over the common adventure commands. There are, unfortunately, a couple of things which let the side down.

The storyline isn’t as appealing as it might be with the excuse that you’re having a dream (see title) papering over a whole host of unconnected locations and problems. But by far the most damning fault of the game is the input system which almost defies a correct input. The auto repeat effect on entries and the curious DELETE system, which enters your input when you’re trying to correct words, conspire against you to the extent where you feel like giving up before you’ve really started. On some occasions lines seem to enter themselves as if the computer was fed up with you struggling with the program’s inadequate input routine.

The look of this adventure is really quite sophisticated for a £1.99 game. The icons are well designed and fit nicely around the picture, which, if not always detailed, is generally colourful. All of the compass directions can be chosen via arrow icons, cassette functions can be called upon via the quit icon and everyday adventure commands suck as LOOK, ENTER, LEAVE, GET, DROP, EXAMINE, HELP, USE and PAUSE can be called upon via shapes ranging from a clenched fist and magnifying glass to a bed (this last is for PAUSE).

You kick off in the place where every human being is at their best — safely out of harm’s way, happily snoring in bed. Here though, ‘happily’ may not be the right word as it looks like another adventure nightmare. ‘A sudden thirst awakens you and rising for a drink you fall out of bed into an ocean. The bed drifts away into the mist. You see shoreline ahead’. After struggling with the input system for ages you might pick up a spade, dig the sand and get a face smiling at you from a bucket. Avoiding the jaywalker’s fate you might then get around to working out how the bike can be started, or perhaps you just push it away (well, I thought you deserve a clue if you’ve struggled with this input system for anything longer than five minutes). At the checkpoint you will no doubt meet the following: ‘You step onto the gravel path but the crunch of your steps wakes the bandit and you are arrested for non-possession of passport. You are sentenced to hang from a tree until you wake’. Needless to say, any attempt to do something as useful as CUT ROPE comes up with the witty ‘Your sword is being repaired’.

ZZZZ is not such a good game because it fails in the one area which is vital to smooth, unruffled adventuring — a competent input system. This game’s entry system is fraught with difficulties (like the question of the comment which says you can’t go north when you had no recollection of attempting that direction). As such, the game’s viability must be questioned even at such a low asking price.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: the most difficult thing is coming to terms with the atrocious input system
Graphics: alright for a cheap game
Presentation: good
Input facility: verb/noun and icon
Response: fast
General Rating: Flawed.

Atmosphere

45%

Vocabulary

50%

Logic

65%

Addictive Quality

55%

Overall

58%

FROM NAMTIR RAIDERS, TO A BIT OF BOVVER WITH BEARS THEN ON TO BATMAN... AND BEYOND

As was so often the case, it all began with a ZX81. JON RITMAN was working as a TV engineer with Radio Rentals when they decided to do some market trails on renting out Ataris. Thinking there would be a need for specialist engineers if home micros caught on, Jon bought himself a ZX81 in January 1982 to find out for himself what these computers were all about.

The bearded Jon Ritman takes a half-time break from being interviewed and joins MATCH DAY co-creator Chris Clarke for a bit of fresh air. The duo are “Over the Moon, John” at the prospect of transferring their programming skills to a new football simulation for the Spectrum, and expect to be signing with High Street stores in time for Christmas

The bug caught Jon very quickly — he spent a week staying up till two in the morning, motoring through the manual that came with the ZX81, then scampered out and bought a RAMpack and a book on machine code.

Within six months, Jon’s first game was complete and Namtir Raiders (Ritman backwards, geddit?) was launched by Artic. Then the Spectrum came along and Mr Ritman, flushed with the success of his first attempt at serious games programming, wrote a Spectrum game — ARG. It was never released, but his second Spectrum game, Cosmic Debris made it into the shops on the Artic label before CRASH appeared in newsagents. Three more Ritman games were published by Artic during 1983 — 3D Combat Zone, Dimension Destructors and Bear Bovver. Bear Bovver established Jon as a class Spectrum programmer, scoring 90% Overall in the days before Smashes (issue 3), it was a highly addictive platforms and ladders game with state-of-the-art animation and excellent graphics. Mr Ritman was soon to referred to as “Ace Programmer” on the pages of computer magazines....

In 1983 Chris Clarke, one of the founder members of Crystal Computing which evolved into the present day Design Design, moved to Artic, working on the business side of games software, rather than as a programmer. Chris and Jon and were involved in the marketing of Bear Bovver and they got chatting about the sort of games that should be written on the Spectrum. They reckoned a good football game was called for.

The duo looked at the Commodore 64 game, International Soccer, and talked to distributors who backed up their theory that what the Spectrum needed was a decent footie game. Chris had been programming on a ZX81, and after a bit of thought he and Jon decided to go it alone, leave Artic and write that Spectrum football game.

One week after they started serious work, Artic released World Cup Football. Disaster loomed up large ... or did it? “We weren’t too worried, once we had seen it”, Jon confesses.

Jon and Chris beavered away at Match Day, confident that they could write a highly playable football game. When it arrived, before Christmas two years ago, the CRASH reviewers were well impressed but didn’t quite give the game a Smash. A mistake. A mistake that we all now admit in CRASH Towers — more than eighteen months after it was first released, Match Day still makes regular appearances in the Hotline Chart and Lloyd still gets the odd nagging letter, saying that we underrated it way back in Issue 13! A definite classic...

Jon’s basic approach to writing a game explains, in part, why Match Day is still so popular. “I don’t like games with difficult controls — it’s like having an adventure that doesn’t understand words. I like producing a good game, and I’m a perfectionist. One of my specialities is playing games, I suppose, and I get annoyed if there are too many controls to a game or if it’s not fun to play. I get really aggravated, so when it comes to writing a game I take a lot of care in getting the feel right.”

Jon starts a new programming project by planning the gameplay — some programmers are programmers first of all, and tend to write for their own technical satisfaction: they’re keen on programming and gameplay often comes second. Simon Bratell, of Design Design works that way round, and finds a game to go with a technically excellent programming feat.

“I build the gameplay first and then fit a story around it in the last week. People who just write a game to a scenario have got it all wrong in my opinion... we ended up spending nearly all the time getting the gameplay right on Match Day.”

Match Day was very successful, which took some of the financial pressures from the Ritman budget and Jon found he could afford to work at a more leisurely pace. “I saw Knight Lore soon after I’d finished work on Match Day and decided ‘this is the sort of world I like to see a game in — it’s just like playing a Disney cartoon’. The germ of an idea that became Batman nearly eighteen months later had been sown... Serious work on the new game began around Easter last year.

Jon worked with a friend of his, Bernie Drummond on the Batman project — “Bernie used to draw just for fun,” Jon explained, and I asked him if he would be interested in doing some graphics for me. He agreed, and I let him have a copy of my drawing utility for the Spectrum. A couple of days later he came up with the first Batman graphics.

“Bernie works in an unusual way — he just sort of scribbles randomly on the screen and then looks to see what’s there. It’s a bit like the Rorschach test, where people are shown ink blots and asked if they can see pictures in them. Bernie might spot something that looks like, say, an eyebrow and start building up a character. Two hours later he’s got a finished graphic! He’s a perfectionist too, though, and can easily spend a day changing a couple of pixels.”

Batman took an awful long time to write. “I tend to work in intense spurts,” Jon admitted, “I don’t like to put a problem down until it is solved. And I did have three months off between August and October last year — I just wanted a rest... There was a one month delay over the licence as well — Batman is not a superhero — he’s got no superpowers — he’s a detective. The people who own the rights are very careful about what they let people do and everything had to go to the States first for approval.”

Batman wasn’t a stunningly original game in terms of concept, but it fared very well at the hands of reviewers — the game has appeared on the Spectrum, Amstrad, Amstrad PCW and on the Einstein. “It’s difficult to create something different. There are only six or so basic types of game, and three of them are down to Ultimate — I have got a lot of respect for them. As games designers, Chris and I are always looking for new directions in terms of gameplay but it is difficult to move off in a new direction. I’m not an innovator — I take a synthesis of good points. With Batman, take a room for instance: everything you need to solve it is in the room. I try to design a game for everyone, for the games buying public. I get a lot of satisfaction from writing a game and pleasing people — although the money’s nice!”, Jon adds.

“A lot of people spend six or eight months on a game and then two or three days at the end, putting the rooms together. The end result may be technically good, but the gameplay is often bad — people seem to get fed up with a project and want to get it out of the door. I can never really tell how long it will take to complete an original game. In the last week of the project I get some friends along to play the game and then alter it — in the case of Batman, I swapped a lot of rooms around when my girlfriend had played it.

A classic 3D game: BATMAN. Jon Ritman writes his Z80 code in a modular fashion on his development system, with the screen, keyboard and sound routines as separate modules that interact with the core code. Although he writes for the Spectrum, when it comes to converting to other Z80 based machines like the Amstrad or Einstein, it’s a matter of weeks rather than months to get the conversion running

“It’s difficult to remember that not all players are experienced game players, and not everyone has seen Knight Lore in the case of Batman for instance. I need to watch someone who’s never played that sort of game before — the most simple problems take some people ages to work out.”

What of the future? Nowadays, the team or project approach with lots of people co-operating on a single game seems to be popular with some companies. Could Mr Ritman find himself in a staff job as part of a team, rather than a freelance working at home in front of his Micro Mini development system? “No. The trouble with the team approach is that the game designer doesn’t know the limitations of the programming. I enjoy being a jack of all trades, playing the intellectual/technical role if you like, as well as the creative side. I look at the market and then add technical expertise.”

No doubt Match Day fans have already spotted the Match Day challenge laid down by Chris and Jon — we should be inviting a few selected few high-scoring readers to Ludlow for a play off against the programmers in the next few weeks. Jon and Chris still play Match Day themselves, but against humans rather than against the computer: “I can still play Match Day against a human; it’s no fun playing Batman or Match Day against the machine any more. In the next football game I hope to have the machine intelligence at a level where I won’t be able to beat it...”

Next football game? Yes it’s true! The men who brought you Match Day are currently working on a football simulation which has the working title Three and In because the gameplay follows the rules of Three and In! Bernie Drummond has been roped in to help on the graphics and Chris and Jon hope to have the game ready in time for this Christmas. There will be two players to each side, and the animations are going to be large. At the start, the first task is to pick your team — the computerised footballers each have their own playing and passing skills, and the choice of players will influence the outcome of a game. One, two or three people will be able to play. It’s early days in the development at the moment — but Jon is keen to get as much realistic detail into the game as possible: the players will run around looking behind them, for instance.

“I wanted to incorporate machine intelligence into Three and In”, Jon explained, “but I was a bit scared to begin with. Then I sorted out a few lines of code which basically instructed the computer player to run for the ball and then kick it. Thirty seconds after the little program had been loaded, it scored a goal against me. I laughed for fifteen minutes...”

Foot and Mouth is the other game currently under production at chateau Ritman. The game stars the two halves of a symbiotic creature — Foot, and Mouth — and they look like a human being split at the waist when they are together. F and M have been split apart by an evil being, and the ultimate aim is for them to reunite. Each half of the composite creature has special abilities and there will be two control methods in the game, one for Foot and one for Mouth.

The game is going to use the same 3D viewpoint as Batman, and will be room-based, only this time Jon is aiming for at least three hundred rooms. Three kinds of puzzle are planned for F&M — one kind of puzzle that Foot can solve, one that Mouth can overcome and a third that can only be solved by Foot and Mouth together, once they have been reunited as a composite being.

Two games from ‘Ace Programmer’ Jon Ritman in time for Christmas! Now there’s a treat for Match Day and Batman fans...

VORTEX — A WHIRL OF 3D GAMES...

COSTA PANAYI is a name you tend to remember, and in Spectrum circles it is a name firmly associated with 3D games. Games such as TLL, Cyclone, Android II, Highway Encounter and of course, this month’s Smash — Revolution.

Costa is the main man when it comes to programming at Vortex, the Manchester-based software house, while LUKE ANDREWS takes care of the business affairs. Costa and Luke came to Ludlow with one of the first copies of Revolution for us to review, and while they were here Graeme Kidd seized the opportunity to talk to the duo with a persistent reputation for producing quality games.

The Casual Approach To Pillar Leaning as demonstrated by Mr Panayi on the left, and Mr Andrews on the right. Could set a whole new trend in Ludlow, this...

Like quite a few software houses, Vortex began life as a hobby. Costa Panayi first got interested in computing back in the ZX81 days at the end of 1982. He was working as a mechanical engineer and bought one of Sir Clive’s home computers, played around with it and swapped programs with ZX81 owning friends. Then he got together with a few friends, they decided they could write programs and gradually the hobby started to pay for itself:

“Our first games were Pontoon and Othello — small BASIC games — and we sent them off to a publishers and started earning royalties! Once we’d written and sold those games we bought books on machine code and started learning. Then the Spectrum came out and we wrote Cosmos and Android I.

“Soon, we realised that writing programs was okay as a hobby, but when we tried to run a business on the side it was taking up too much time. We knew Luke, who was a teacher at the time, and he was interested in the business side of things...”

Luke takes over the story: “I got involved on the business side to allow the lads to program — everything was still being done on a part-time or hobby basis and with the talents that everyone had, everyone fitted in quite nicely so we just progressed. Everyone who’s been associated with us has really helped and encouraged us — people have seen that we’ve worked hard and that we’ve got the product, and everyone’s pushed and said ‘well done’ which is great. Sometimes, a lot of people just say ‘oh don’t bother’ or whatever, which is a bit demoralising, but we never had to face that.”

Gradually, what was a fairly lucrative (and time consuming) hobby grew to the point where it was a backroom industry and then, during 1983, the team got together, decided on a plan and began to run Vortex professionally. It was clear the company was successful enough to warrant people giving up their ‘day jobs’: “Yes, we bought premises, employed people and so on. In some ways we’re cautious on the business side, as we are on the programming side, in the sense that Cos has always come out with excellent stuff, and we are more geared to quality than quantity,” Luke explains. “Naturally, we all had a few regrets when we first started out writing and selling programs full-time — you’ve got a secure job and are doing well in it and it comes to the point where a part-time job suddenly has to at least equal what you were doing before, then decisions become a bit difficult. We got to the stage where we thought to ourselves that we’d succeeded so far and got to a certain level and we had to make a decision. We couldn’t really turn back, though. The biggest worry was whether the computer craze would die out overnight. Quite clearly, that isn’t going to be the case.”

Costa Panayi’s games have been the backbone of Vortex’s success, although other releases like Alien Highway have involved other programmers heavily... Obviously, a company such as Vortex gets sent quite a few programs for evaluation. Have they never been tempted to start a budget label, for instance? Luke explains: “I suppose we could easily have started another label on the budget side, but it’s not the sort of thing we want to do. How can you one day be sat down working out something really complicated and new, and two hours later try and promote a game that sells for £1.99? Your heart’s not in it. Maybe some people can work that way, but I don’t think we could...”

Working as a design engineer, Costa was involved in 3D geometry on a daily basis, so when it came to programming games it’s not too surprising that 3D techniques came quite naturally to the fore. “I’m quite fascinated with 3D — I’ve always liked to have things neatly arranged and geometrically correct, and I suppose my engineering background all tied in with programming.”

Costa first took the plunge into 3D with Android II and since then all his games have been in 3D. “It just seems like a step backwards to return to 2D now — I find you get a feeling of space when you’re working in 3D, and I don’t think I could write in 2D. It would be easy enough to do, but I wouldn’t want to.”

With a string of successful games behind him (the lowest overall rating Costa collected was 79%), he’s invested a fair bit of time, effort and expertise into developing 3D techniques on the Spectrum. But it’s not just a question of keeping routines and adding to them — Highway Encounter meant starting from scratch again, and Revolution is another fundamentally different style of display and programming. “I like to take a completely different approach to the way I handle the 3D in each game,” Costa explains, “It would be nice to come up with some sort of new system which gets out of the mould. We did it with Highway, and then we decided that we had to come up with something different, totally away from the shoot em up type game. After Revolution, it would be nice to do something completely different again. It’s as much a matter of looking at the game types and the way games play as actually looking at the environment — you can keep producing 3D games, the same games with a different scenario, but the difficulty is in coming up with something different.”

Revolution was designed with lastability in mind, so far as the gameplay was concerned. Each time a new game starts, the puzzles are shifted around between levels and their locations on individual levels are also changed randomly. “Shuffling the puzzles round and creating a new landscape, or set of levels, each time you start to play — it’s trying to make the game something more than other games on the market,” Luke says, “even with our old games, you always had the first level, second level, third level and so on, and you knew what was coming. Alien Highway, the remix of Highway Encounter started us thinking that way, and with Revolution I think the changes in the puzzles and landscape are the main attraction. If someone picks up the game and can’t get past the first level, then the game can be played on level one and the player still gets thirty new puzzles — so you can still enjoy it, even if you never get past the first level!”

Vortex appear every six months or so — two games a year is about all Costa can handle on his own. They take a different approach to designing games too: there’s never a storyboard to work from: “Well, I come out with ideas — as does everybody,” Costa explains, “and we throw them about and we always seem to reach a point where we say ‘that’s a good idea, why don’t we go ahead and see what that brings forward?’. Ideas that we find in the meantime are thrown in as well.”

“It’s a process of continual design rather than continual refinement,” Luke adds, “For instance we might decide to do something that has two animation stages in it, and Costa goes away and works for about two weeks on it and comes back with five stages of animation. We say to him ‘I thought you said it could only be two stages’ and he’ll say ‘yes, well it’s different, there’s five now!’”

“With Revolution we thought there are no bouncing ball games, so why don’t we have a go? And suddenly all these ball games started appearing! They all tend to be rolling rather than bouncing, so there’s a difference,” Costa adds, “The same thing happened with Cyclone — it seemed a natural progression from TLL and then there were dozens of helicopter games on the market suddenly...”

Things are moving for Vortex. They’ve just signed a deal with US Gold, who will be taking care of the marketing side of things for them in future, and they plan to expand: “Now that the market’s moved on to Europe, and we’ve moved on, Vortex has outgrown the Vortex team and with this deal, some of the pressure is taken off us. We can really concentrate on producing the software, and the aim is to build a team around Cos to keep producing the same standard of games. We have our own standards, and intend to stick to them. We’re looking for talented programmers up in Manchester, so if anyone would like to get in touch...”

Obviously, with a six month lead time on a Costa Panayi game, there’s unlikely to be another release in time for Christmas. But with the plans for taking on extra hands, who knows? Luke and Costa left for Manchester smiling enigmatically. They may have something in the pipeline for the festive season after all...

1942

Producer: Elite
Author: Dominic Wood
Price: £7.95

The Second World War is hotting up between the wartorn countries. Out in the pacific sporadic dog fights between the warring factions rage up in the skies. The enemy forces are seriously building up their airborne craft and it’s up to you to try and limit their numbers before they obliterate the goodies for good. Yup, Elite have turned their talents to converting 1942, a very early Capcom game.

You are taken into enemy zones on the deck of an aircraft carrier. When the situation becomes too dangerous for the carrier to go any further into hostile waters it’s time to fly up into the skies to meet the enemy. As usual they appear to outnumber you grossly.

The enemy are pretty mean shooters and do their best to blast heroic pilots right out of the air. However, if this wasn’t enough, those dastardly baddies are so committed to their cause that they’ve turned into Kamakazis and will willingly sacrifice their own lives... They set a collision course and if they meet up with you in those lonely skies then it’s curtains, and into the drink. One more life is lost from a dwindling supply.

Fortunately, ammunition is not in short supply — it’s seemingly endless. Firepower can be souped up by collecting POWer points that appear at random on the screen. Just as well, as the aim of the game is to fly over enemy islands and stretches of sea shooting anything that appears in your path. The enemy are quite sneaky and sometimes appear from the rear and often follow quite random paths of flight so you never know where they’re going to pop up next.

When each level is completed, return to the aircraft carrier and you are transported to the start of the next level where the fun starts again — and there are thirty two levels to fight through. There is also a two player option in the game so you can compete against someone else, and see who wins superiority in the skies first.

Apart from being able to move the plane backwards forwards and from side to side on the screen, you can also perform rolls which come in handy in tight spots. Picking up a white object in the air has a smart bomb effect, and obliterates all the enemy planes on the screen. Another chance to be a hero of the skies comes your way...

CRITICISM

‘After the brigade of great arcade conversions, I expected a little more from the father company of classics like Bombjack, but it seems that they have let their standards slip a little. Paperboy maybe wasn’t quite as good as it could have been, but 1942 is definitely lacking. The graphics aren’t amazingly good, but the game is averagely playable and addictive. I probably wouldn’t go out and buy 1942, because all it is is a fancified shoot ’em up. If you’re really amazingly into ‘blast the enemy until they are nothing but a clutter of misplaced pixels games,’ then there’s a fair chance that this game will appeal to you, though it doesn’t exactly grab me. But then there wasn’t that much to the arcade original in the first place...’

‘This game didn’t really impress me in the arcades, so I wasn’t that interested when 1942 poked its head around the office door. I’m sorry to say that it seems to have lost a lot of its addictive qualities and playability in the conversion to the Spectrum. The various characters used are not detailed so they look a little on the shoddy side and the use of colour is suspect. The sound is a big disappointment as there are no tunes and only a few effects. Generally, I am a shoot em up fan, but this one doesn’t really appeal to me as it simply isn’t fun to play.’

‘This must be one of the worst games to come out of the Elite offices in yonks. 1942 contains extremely basic graphics and colour that is used very unimaginatively. The sound is not too exciting, and does more to get on your nerves than compliment the game. The presentation of the game is the usual Elite stuff, consisting of all the options and a nice little highscore table. I can’t say that I’ve seen the arcade game, but if this is all that it contains then I’m not looking forward to it. The game is not very responsive and the collision detection is appalling. I also noticed that planes can often fire at you even if they’re in their own explosion. 1942 has none of the addictiveness that all the recent Elite games contain and they have tarnished their good name with this release.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable directions, 0-4 to Roll
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: responsive enough
Use of colour: lots of colour, resulting in terrible clashes
Graphics: small, but fairly detailed
Sound: lots of clicking sound effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: 32 scrolling play areas
General Rating: A reasonable conversion of a game that wasn’t very good to start with.

Use of Computer

70%

Graphics

65%

Playability

67%

Getting Started

68%

Addictive Qualities

61%

Value for Money

64%

Overall

63%

BUCCANEER

Producer: Firebird
Author: Insight (Peter Gough)
Price: £1.99

Alien forces are seeking to take control of Earth and have invaded in great numbers. It’s one fighter plane against a myriad of alien craft... a pilot’s lot is not a happy one. Wave after wave of nasties come towards the lone plane, determined to zap you out of the sky. Survival depends on swift reactions and deadly aim.

The screen scrolls from right to left, your fighter plane staying near the left hand edge of the screen so that there’s a clear view of the alien forces and time to try and dodge their lethal missiles. The action takes place over a broad blue river — on the far bank the scenery changes from mountains to cities to forests and back to mountains again.

The nasties come in a variety of forms and colours and dance about as they approach. Not only must their missiles be avoided but a collision can also cause your plane to explode. Fortunately, you are equipped with limitless missiles and powerful shields which together provide formidable protection. Your fuel supply, however, is not limitless — the amount left is shown in the bottom left hand corner of the screen.

Once all the aliens in a wave have been killed, the game proceeds to the next level. Sometimes, no missiles are involved at all and it’s a matter of weaving and dodging your way through a barrage of rota-droids and meteors. Most lethal of all, however, are the heat-seeking Mutile missiles which are very accurate.

Periodically, a mother ship appears and a successful docking restores fuel and shield power. This makes it possible to proceed to even higher levels and pit wits with even swifter and more deadly alien swarms. Should the docking fail, then you are forced to move on to the next level with less protection and less energy, making your chances of survival slender. The docking procedure must be very accurate — if you’re slightly out and miss the jaws of the mothership, then the plane explodes.

Eight points are awarded for shooting an enemy craft: twenty five, fifty, or seventy for a Mutile and more for successful docking. Bonus points are awarded for docking and completing waves. The score, lives remaining and shield power are all indicated in the status area at the base of the screen.

A high score guarantees you a place in the Buccaneer Hall Of Fame so it’s possible to see how you fare against the best. Time to save the world from alien invasion again, pilot!

CRITICISM

‘At base level, this is just a polished Scramble without the hills. The graphics, with the exception of the fantastic parallax scrolling, are flickery and rather unattractive, and the game, although playable, gets pretty boring after a while. The docking section is too easy, and the missile attacks frustrating, as they materialise when you’re halfway through a screen. Insight did better with Vectron, and I would recommend that they stick with products of that quality, ’cos I don’t like Buccaneer much.’

‘When I heard that this was from the people behind Vectron, I nearly flipped. How can a company release a brilliant game like that and then produce something as sloppy and unplayable as this? As a rule, I’m very partial to good blasting nasties games as I’m sure many other people are, but I’m afraid that this one really isn’t good enough to be compelling or playable. The graphics are fairly large and the screen scrolls from right to left nicely but there are plenty of attribute problems. The sound is about average for cheapo Firebird games. Overall, it’s not too bad for its price tag of two quid, but I started to get bored after a couple of goes.’

‘Ho hum! Another budget game pretending to be a slick fast action shoot ’em up. Well you’re not going to fool me mateys! The graphics are extremely flickery and move about in a very jerky manner. The sound is very basic and the colour is used much too lavishly — resulting in loads of attribute problems. I didn’t find the game at all enthralling, mainly due to the fact that every screen has its own little flight pattern and it’s easy to judge where the baddies are going to end up next. Then it’s just a case of how fast you can press the fire button — which isn’t very responsive. I found Buccaneer very boring to play and nothing like what I’ve come to expect from the top budget houses. Buccaneer is definitely a ‘no no.’’

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable: pause, abort, up, down, fire
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: reasonable
Use of colour: quite good, but clashes occur often
Graphics: flickery sprites, but nice parallax scrolling
Sound: limited to spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: scrolling levels
General Rating: There are plenty of shoot ’em ups on the Spectrum that are much better.

Use of Computer

54%

Graphics

56%

Playability

49%

Getting Started

63%

Addictive Qualities

45%

Value for Money

51%

Overall

49%

BULLSEYE

Producer: Macsen Software
Author: Shaun Heveron
Price: £8.95

Macsen specialise in producing computerised versions of well-known TV game shows, and this darts game hosted by Bully the bull in his cute striped overall first appeared on TV sets tuned to Central TV. This two-player game has four rounds, with a practice option available to help you gain confidence when throwing the darts at the dartboard.

There are nine skill levels in the game, selected at the start before the players’ names are keyed in. Darts are aimed by using the cursor keys to move a hand below the dartboard to the left and right. A strength bar display in the status area monitors the power of the throw — the harder the throw, the nearer to the top of the dartboard the dart lands. The strength meter rises when the Cursor Up key is held down — releasing the key throws the dart.

Each player is summoned to the ockey in turn by Bully. A dartboard with ten sections labeled A to J is provided in section one. Each letter represents a different subject. Select a subject to answer questions on and then throw a dart so that it lands inside the segment of your choice. A miss means you must answer a question on whichever subject your dart lands on. Score a hit, and bonus points are awarded before the question is asked. There is only a certain amount of time in which each question must be answered, but players usually get two attempts.

Round two consists of regular darts throwing. Each player is called to the ockey three times and throws three darts, going for the highest score. Whoever has the highest score after each turn gets to answer a general knowledge question which wins more points if answered correctly. An incorrect answer gives the question over to the opponent. Then it’s on to round three...

Whoever is winning at this stage in the game has a bonus question, and the chance to collect more points. On round three the player is presented with a dartboard with sixteen segments on it, eight black and eight red. Each red segment is worth bonus points, while the black areas don’t matter. Nine arrows are supplied and the bonus value of a red area is won if a single dart lands in it. However, if you hit the same red segment twice, the bonus value is deducted from your score.

Section four is purely for gamblers. The leader is asked whether he or she wants to gamble the points collected so far — gambling is optional and if the leader declines then the chance passes over to the other player. A regular dartboard is presented on the screen, and scoring over 110 points with the four darts supplied doubles the score if you decide to gamble. Score less than 110 and the score amassed is halved.

Two additional question files are supplied on the cassette should you too familiar with those in the basic set, and a mini-league table records players’ progress in the games played during a session.

CRITICISM

‘Bullseye is not a good game. Frankly, I don’t like it at all. The graphics are too big, and the game is difficult to control. The tunes are annoying, and they make long waits necessary. As far as the playability and addictivity are concerned, I don’t think that Bullseye is worth commenting on at all. The game is, in a word, bad. If you’re a dedicated addict of the TV series, then a) I’m very sorry for you, and b) you might like this game. Otherwise, leave well alone.’

‘Ugh! What a horrible game show, who in their right mind would make it into a computer game? Well Macsen have and to tell you the truth they haven’t done as bad a job on it as they could have done. At first sight it looks pretty enough: there are a few nice big and colourful cartoon-like graphics and the board is well defined. There is a little colour clash, but it isn’t really that noticeable. The sound is about average for this type of game; there is a tune on the title screen and a couple of spot effects during play. The gameplay, unfortunately is not half as good as the presentation — long waits between screens and slow response to keyboard input makes this already uninspiring game very monotonous indeed.’

‘I suppose you can’t expect much from a computer game that is based on a TV program like Bullseye — and the final result gives you even less. I must admit that Bullseye isn’t as bad as some of the games that Macsen have brought out — but what the game lacks is answers. As with Play Your Cards Right, you can get the question wrong and no one will tell you the answer — most infuriating. The graphics are quite good, with nice drawings of Bully and a neatly laid out dart board. Unfortunately TV quiz games on computer just don’t work in my opinion.... half the fun is audience reaction and compering, and this is sadly missing from computer versions.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Cursor left, right and up
Joystick: not applicable
Keyboard play: a bit too responsive for fine control
Use of colour: okay
Graphics: detailed dartboards and adequate Bully
Sound: tune and occasional spot effects
Skill levels: nine
Screens: one for each of the four stages
General Rating: A straightforward and uninspiring version of the uninspiring TV show.

Use of Computer

47%

Graphics

47%

Playability

49%

Getting Started

60%

Addictive Qualities

35%

Value for Money

37%

Overall

45%

CAPTAIN SLOG

Producer: Alpha-Omega Software
Author: David Walton
Price: £1.99

Blueprints and Captains seem to be the theme this month: there’s Captain Burt and now Captain Slog — similar jobs too. Slog supervises the construction of spacecraft on his assembly line deep in space. It’s the same thing week in week out. No wonder he’s a bit bored. However, the solution to his tedium is not quite what he expected — suddenly, the robot controlled space ship seems to take on a life of its own. The robots throw down their tools and decide that enough is enough and they’re going to rebel against their human oppressors. In the midst of this chaos is Captain Slog. And he’s not happy at all. But before he can get away and abandon his space craft, he has to find nine blueprints which will enable him to fix the transporter. This is not an easy task, however, because the robots are out to get him. Although they can’t shoot at our hero, they gradually sap away his vital life energy.

Apart from the irritating and potentially lethal robots who roam around, the complex itself seems to have taken on a sinister personality of its own. Barriers of varying colours stop Slog from getting into different locations where the all important blueprints may be hidden. These barriers can be removed, however, by collecting the barrier key in the relevant colour. Other useful objects can be gathered along the way — extra energy may be picked up in the form of miniature spacemen. Bonus points can also be collected, but beware! Some artefacts sap the Captain’s energy when they are in his pockets.

The troublesome robots can be exterminated by a quick blast of laser fire and points are scored for every robotic nuisance who is sent to that great scrapyard in the sky. However, once a screen has been cleared of robots and is re-visited, hey-presto, the nasties have been reincarnated!

Captain Slog moves around the multi-roomed star ship by way of his jet pack which transports him nicely upwards and downwards and hopefully out of the way of the patrolling robots. With the aid of a map you can find your way around the ship but the brave Captain can only consult it when the map icon is lit up at the top of the screen.

Once a game is finished, a score screen shows just what percentage of the game you have completed based on the number of blueprints that have been collected. The chart also shows how many of the meddlesome robots have been killed off. There is a time limit to the game and obviously the quicker it’s completed the higher your score is.

CRITICISM

‘I didn’t expect much from Captain Slog. I didn’t get much either. The game is awful. The characters move about like idiots, and the whole game plays like a five year old’s first attempt at BASIC programming. The Captain has been swiped from Project Future, and though the game has some nice ideas, the finished product is something that isn’t even worth a half of the cash asked for it. Captain Slog is the sort of game that really gets up my nose.’

‘Captain Slog resembles a game that was around a year or two ago called Project Future. Unfortunately, this one is not half as good or half as playable. It plays quite slowly so it isn’t very exciting or compelling. Graphically, things aren’t much fun either; the backgrounds are drab and the characters undetailed. The sound, on the other hand, is very good; there are a couple of tunes on the title screen and a selection of spot effects during the game. Generally, this one will probably keep you interested for a wet afternoon or so and for the price you can’t really complain.’

‘Grrr! They were good when they first came out but can’t the budget software companies take the phrase ‘arcade/adventure’ out of their programming vocabulary. Most of these budget games are the same, all consisting of small, useless graphics. The collision detection on a range from 1 to 100 would get 0. The sound is of the basic beepy type and none of this helps in a game that cannot be played progressively — you either solve it in the first session of play or you find it so impossible that it goes into some dark dingy cupboard and you never see it again. Harsh words, you may think. But it’s time the software companies grew up to the fact that the software scene is changing. Nearly every arcade/adventure budget game is the same. Captain Slog is all of the above and less. I just feel sorry for the people that don’t read CRASH. They are the people that buy these awful games and encourage the budget software companies to publish more. End of complaint!’

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: slow
Use of colour: drab
Graphics: small and undetailed
Sound: above average
Skill levels: one
Screens: over 100
General Rating: Simply awful.

Use of Computer

48%

Graphics

24%

Playability

32%

Getting Started

49%

Addictive Qualities

29%

Value for Money

34%

Overall

30%

COUNTDOWN

Producer: Macsen Software
Author: Armand Jammot
Price: £8.95

Are you a whizz with words, nifty with numbers, a giddy gamester of the computer kind? Then perhaps this game is just up your street, especially if you’re a fan of the Yorkshire TV version. A game for one or two people, Countdown (or Onwuontcd if you’re an avid anagrammer) is a jumbly jaunt through vowels, consonants and knotty numbers.

There are nine rounds in this game, the first three of which involve unravelling an anagram. The idea of these is to get the best word possible from a selection of nine letters. By pressing the C or V key a player can choose a consonant or a vowel, then there are 30 seconds — the Countdown — to make a word using some or all of the letters. A green bar along the bottom of the screen which gradually shrinks as time passes, turning red when it nears the end. Below the anagram, the computer gives variations so that alternative combinations of the letters are revealed.

Mistakes may be deleted up to the last moment, and words entered are checked against the computer’s own dictionary. Should the word entered not be in the dictionary, it must be verified by ‘The Guardian of the Dictionary’ — someone who has been appointed by the player or players to check the accuracy of words. The word can then be accepted or rejected simply by pressing the Y or N key. If the computer can make up a longer word, it is given at the bottom of the screen at the end of the game. The cumulative score is indicated in the left-hand corner of the screen.

Having won the word games, it’s time to test numerical skills in the Numbers round. The player chooses six numbers from four rows, the first of which contains numbers between 25 and 100 of which up to four may be chosen, or none at all. Rows two, three and four contain numbers of a value less than 10. Having chosen these, six numbers are displayed in a row of boxes at the top of the screen. Then it’s time for Cecil to do his work — Cecil is the unseen spinner who produces a random number of up to three digits to the left of the screen. It is then your task, within the 30 seconds available, to obtain this number (or the nearest you can get) by adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing the six numbers at the top. Fortunately, you don’t have to use all the numbers. When time is up, the player has to enter the calculations. If you can’t get close enough, Cecil displays a perfect answer just to show you how easy it really was.

Following this, there are three more word rounds followed by a numbers round. The climax of the game comes with the Countdown Conundrum in which there are 30 seconds to unscramble yet another anagram.

So, pit your wits against the computer or take on a friend or is it drienf... or maybe enfrid...

CRITICISM

‘The TV programme is a very good, audience-involving show, but although it looks like an idea you could translate to the computer it lacks that certain something that makes you want to get it off the shelf and spend a long time playing it. Countdown should only be played against another person as this is the only really competitive part of the game. I found myself stuck on long words in the Countdown, but easily getting the ten points available for obtaining the correct formula to form Cecil’s random number. A skill level option is sadly needed. Countdown will appeal to a limited few who like a fun game for parties, but I reckon it’ll prove a little expensive for the average Countdown watcher.’

‘Countdown is quite good as a words and numbers game, but there are no frills, and very few thrills. The theme tune rendition is absolute BASIC rubbish, and other than boxes to highlight letters, I didn’t notice any graphics, which could have brightened up the rather drab screen display. I got very little entertainment from it, and even if you are a fan of the TV series, I doubt if this would appeal to you much. I’m a little surprised that Channel 4 are giving the rights to such a game as this. because although it impersonates some of the series’ features quite well, I think that this game would deter me from watching the TV show.’

‘I used to watch the programme on the telly a couple of years ago, and I’m sorry to say that this does the show no justice whatsoever. The original’s spirit has been lost along the way through the very slow play that makes it extremely monotonous. There are no graphics to speak of and the sound effects are inadequate — nice tune though. If you like the TV series and are a bit masochistic you’ll probably get along quite nicely, but in general I’d stay well clear of it.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: whole keyboard
Joystick: none needed
Keyboard play: very slow input
Use of colour: below average
Graphics: hardly any at all
Sound: some weak spot effects and a passable rendition of the theme tune
Skill levels: one
Screens: three: the anagram game; the numbers game and the Countdown Conundrum
General Rating: Definitely not the best of TV conversions.

Use of Computer

40%

Graphics

5%

Playability

34%

Getting Started

49%

Addictive Qualities

30%

Value for Money

29%

Overall

33%

DEKORATING BLUES

Producer: Alpha-Omega
Author: R Morrison
Price: £1.99

Ah got de blues baby, yeh I got dem blues, yeh, yeh, ah got de dekorating blues...

Decorating is the most tedious of chores. First the paste is too thin and the paper won’t stick to the wall and then the paint drips all over the carpet. And have you ever tried wall-papering a ceiling? Still if you fancy yourself as a painter and decorator, then here’s an opportunity you can’t refuse. What about using your talents to bring a bit of colour to an otherwise drab hotel? Start at the bottom and work your way up.

Each of the screens displays a bird’s-eye-view of the hotel’s network of rooms and corridors. These networks assume a variety of shapes. Some take the shape of inanimate objects — a joystick, for example. Other networks take the form of animals (the Mutant Ram, for example) or humans (the French Teacher), whilst others are merely abstract. The background to each of the floor networks is sumptuously ornate, indicating that this particular hotel is something of a classy joint.

The idea to work through each floor, roller in hand, as quickly as possible. As you move through each corridor, blue dots indicate the decorated areas, so it’s easy to see where you’ve been. Nasties are determined to undo all the work you’ve done, and, if possible, put you out of action once and for all. Should you bump into any of them then you find yourself decorating that heavenly mansion in the sky in shades of subtle off-white!

The flashing red nasty and the caterpillar nasty both move very quickly and are simply out to knobble you. One of the other nasties wants to gobble up all your blue dots, so you may find yourself having to do the work twice over. Luckily, you have a steady supply of paste which can be dropped at convenient moments. Pretty strong stuff, the paste can be used to get you out of some rather sticky situations. For one thing, when dropped in the path of an approaching nasty it slows the little blighter down. It also enables you to walk all over them should you want to change direction.

The screen number is given in the bottom left corner, and directly beneath that, your score. Bottom centre indicates how many of your ten lives are left and above that, a clock ticks away the seconds. In the bottom right corner, the amount of paint, or number of dots you have to use is indicated and just below that, how many dollops of paste you have left.

There are plenty of screens to get through, so you’d better be a swift and nimble worker or you’ll find yourself out of a job with a lot of time on your hands.

CRITICISM

‘Mega fantastico! Or at least that’s what I thought until I played the game. Argh! One character block graphics, terrible colour and appalling sound. The game is far too easy. With ten lives, it just isn’t addictive and it takes you too long to get to the place where you finished the last game. At its price, it might be worth buying for the ‘scratching’ speech effects, and the other nice bits it has, but I wouldn’t fork out for the game itself.’

‘Dekorating Blues is a superbly presented game but is very basic and boring to play. The area in which the paint brush moves is very restricted and I felt that I didn’t know what had to be filled in and what could be left. The screen gives you all the information you’re likely to need during the game: score, level, time, paste left and so on, but this doesn’t enhance the thing at all. The screens are all made up in pretty animal and castle patterns, but as a person who got quite far through the game I can safely say that nothing changes. A nicely presented program, but the game itself is very disappointing.’

‘You may have guessed what sort of game this is by the title. I did find it strangely compelling and playable but these qualities faded out after a few goes. The programmers have obviously tried to tart this one up as there are lots of lovely effects on the title screen and at the end of each level. The game, however, isn’t half as good as these, which is a shame. The graphics are generally poor, the characters are small and undetailed and the backgrounds are boring. The sound, on the other hand, is quite good — there are some nice effects during play and a couple of tunes on the title screens. On the whole, I wouldn’t recommend Dekorating Blues as the game itself is very primitive.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: fair
Graphics: pretty, but, in the end, pretty boring
Sound: some nice effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: over 40
General Rating: Nice gloss, but becomes very monotonous after a while.

Use of Computer

70%

Graphics

34%

Playability

31%

Getting Started

33%

Addictive Qualities

33%

Value for Money

40%

Overall

38%

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

Producer: Central Solutions
Author: Barry Jones
Price: £0.99

The show is about to begin... but wait! Something terrible has happened. All the stars have been struck down with the dreaded lurgie. There’s only one thing to do — you’ll have to stand in for them.

Enter the ring as Tightrope Ted. Balanced on a unicycle, brave the high wire and its perils. Then, a quick change in the dressing room, and emerge as Sidney the Strong Man. Are you a wimp, or can you manage to pull a 100 ton truck? Succeed at this and assume the guise of Marvo the Mindreader — unscramble an anagram and type in the correct answer. Enter next as Co-Co, the Knife-Thrower. Try to score over ten points but make sure you don’t stab him in the bread basket! Next, risk life and limb by taking the place of Charlie the Human Cannonball. Make sure he lands in the net or there’ll be a nasty splat on the sawdust. Yuk!

Providing you last this long, all that remains is to dazzle the audience with your final act! Wonder what that can be?

CRITICISM

‘The keyboard response is good but the things that happen when you press keys are not worth playing for. The different screens are all basically very boring.’

‘This game, even for budget software, is below standard. The graphics are sloppy, single character blocks or large unanimated figures. The backgrounds, where there are any, are dull and uninteresting. The sound is poor — only a few spot effects here and there — and it is irritating as well because you can’t turn off the screeching effects on the title screen. There is not enough in this to entertain me for more than five minutes.’

‘Hardly what I would call the Greatest Show on Earth, despite the title. The colour schemes are terrible, the characters very basic, and the game generally lacks polish — but the idea is a good one. Although I would much rather have a better, and consequently more expensive game. TGSOE is a simply a cheap bit of fun.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: varies from screen to screen
Joystick: keyboard only
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: fairly colourful
Graphics: too basic
Sound: not very good at all
Skill levels: one
Screens: six
General Rating: An interesting idea but lacks finesse.

Use of Computer

31%

Graphics

28%

Playability

33%

Getting Started

49%

Addictive Qualities

32%

Value for Money

41%

Overall

31%

HEAD COACH

Producer: Addictive Games Ltd
Author: Simon J.C. Davies
Price: £8.95

As Head Coach, it’s your task to manage an American Football team to the heady heights of success. You need to keep a keen eye on the player market, getting rid of useless players and snapping up the odd bargain. Careful study of other teams is also needed to select a squad to counter the strengths of the opposition and take advantage of its weaknesses.

Initially, you are given a choice of one of the twenty-four teams which are grouped in fours, in six divisions. There are four skill levels: novice, rookie, veteran and all-pro. A thirty-two player squad is made up of kickers, quarterbacks, running-backs, defensive-backs, line-backers, offensive linemen, tight ends, wide receivers and defensive linemen. Players are numbered according to their positions, with offense, defense and special team groupings listed on separate screens. The team lists display various information on each of the 1500 players in the program — age, skill rating, fitness and form. Trading, the equivalent of the British soccer transfer system, takes place on weekdays.

Before each game, the comparative strengths of both sides are detailed on the screen. The pitch condition and wind velocity are also given before kick-off — important when deciding which ‘plays’ to go for. The success of a field goal depends on the kicker’s distance from the posts and his skill.

Matches are played out graphically on the green gridiron. Your team plays in blue against the opposition’s black. A red bar across the top of the screen indicates how much of the game has been played. If a game is drawn, there’s a tie-breaker in the form of extra-time — the first side to score wins.

After the final score has been flashed up on screen, the results of the other matches are given, followed by the league tables showing each team’s current position. This is sometimes followed by a news item suggesting new training techniques or that a player has become available on the trade market.

At the end of the twelve game season, six division winners plus one extra team from each conference enter the playoffs leading to the Superbowl final. A twenty day period follows, set aside for the six rounds of the College Draft in which about thirty players are available per round.

CRITICISM

‘On the whole I don’t really get on with games like this as they are often too complicated, brain taxing or just badly presented — this is one such. Head Coach does not require a great deal of user participation so it’s very hard to get into or play successfully — it gets quite monotonous. The program responds slowly to keyed input and there are long delays in between some screens because it’s written in BASIC. The graphics are generally sloppy. The sound is also minimal — a few spot effects during the game and a few trashy tunettes on the title screen or when you win. On the whole I didn’t find this game playable or compelling so I wouldn’t really recommend it.’

‘Well, it had to come sometime. How could anyone live without a follow-up to the mega Football Manager? Looking at Head Coach, I know that I certainly could. It’s got abysmal graphics, and is very difficult to get into, especially if you’re not heavily into American Football. Head Coach is fun to play, however, if you’ve got the time to get started and once into it I think it highly likely that it’ll be a long time before you’re out. Addictiveness is one thing that Addictive games do have, even if they are lacking in every conceivable technical detail. Worth a look if you’re a real Am Foot freak, but otherwise, unless you really flipped over Football Manager, I’d recommend you stay away.’

‘Now look guys! I knows a thing or two about American Footy, and you have quarters in the game. Head Coach doesn’t! It also tells you that your next play is the last one of the game. This is just not on — American Football also has two minute warnings, throwing the ball out of play to stop the clock and time-outs. The game is inaccurate, and the player selection is terrible... I was unhappy to see that you can’t pick individual players for each position, and you can’t give players names. Head Coach is not only inaccurate, but terribly boring to play. If people buy this thinking that they are getting an American Football game, they’ll be unhappy — it does nothing to enhance the image of the game in this country. Fancy an arcade Am Foot game? Get Superbowl. A bit more on the strategy side? You wouldn’t go far wrong with the ARGUS game, but Addictive have got it all wrong.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: most of the keyboard used
Joystick: not really needed
Keyboard play: slow responses to input
Use of colour: very BASIC, only necessary to decorate the text
Graphics: mainly text, with a few pwetty pictures here and there
Sound: few spot effects, with an awful Yankee Doodle tune
Skill levels: one
Screens: field screen plus menus
General Rating: Neither a very playable nor accurate simulation.

Use of Computer

22%

Graphics

31%

Playability

36%

Getting Started

28%

Addictive Qualities

36%

Value for Money

32%

Overall

33%

ICUPS

Producer: Thor Computer Software
Author: The Thor team
Price: £8.95

ICUPS, the International Commission for Universal Problem Solving, are looking for special agents of the highest calibre. Obviously, they feel they have to test the ability of any prospective agent and so this prominent organisation has devised two tests designed to assess just how well a would-be agent functions under stress. It’s no good having any Tom, Dick or Harry or even a Wally when there’s an important mission to complete. The game falls into two sections, both of which are designed to test you to the limit.

The action begins in a space tunnel with you in control of an Interstellar Escort Ship. The screen scrolls downwards as you travel up-screen through three sections of space which ultimately lead to the enemy starship. Along the way you must dodge and weave a way through swarms of remote control alien craft. At times it’s very much like aerial bumping cars as enemy craft, not lethal in themselves, try to nudge you into the concrete walls either side of the tunnel or into the more lethal yellow craft. A collision with one of these is enough to lose one of your four lives, and there are the usual torpedoes to avoid. The yellow flying saucers cannot fire but must be avoided as collision is fatal. The other yellow craft cannot be destroyed so it’s really a matter of keeping clear.

As you proceed through the three sections the score and the area (either A, B or C) are indicated. The tunnel walls of each section are different in colour so it’s clear when one section has been completed. A small window in the right hand corner shows a laughing face when you lose a life — just to rub it in. Lives are indicated by icons of the Interstellar Escort Ship in a panel on the left-hand side of the screen.

Following the straightforward shoot em up of the first part comes the second test. Having reached the enemy starship, you find yourself in control of a DEEN Mk II — a Hostile Environment Anthrobot no less. Four parts of a bomb which have been secreted somewhere within the enemy ship must be found. Insect-like nasties are determined to get in the way and need to be avoided or zapped with your laser gun... There are 64 screens in all so there’s a great deal of exploring to do and you can move in any direction using the same keys as previously. In the weightlessness of the enemy spaceship there’s an altogether different speed from the previous section. The robot floats up and down, turning this way and that in his attempt to find the four parts. In addition to the flying insects, he meets a Jaw-Head, a Bolt-Head, and a duck that sproings about in kangaroo fashion.

At the end of the two tests, an assessment is given of overall performance as well as a total score. Only by completing the tests to the examiners’ satisfaction will you be accepted as an elite member of the ICUPS team. Good luck!

CRITICISM

‘Thor have really let me down. Their stablemates Odin turn out really respectable games like Heartland and Nodes, now there’s ICUPS. Of the two stages the first is a very boring shoot em up, very similar to Spy Hunter and the second is like a very basic arcade/adventure resembling Sabre Wulf. I found both these stages uninteresting to play and not the least bit addictive. The graphics on both stages are detailed and large, and this is the only part of the game that is the least bit decent. The presentation is smart, and accompanying the bright title screen is another superb multi-channel tune. Not much game though.’

‘The first stage is easy, after a little practice, and the second part is better, with your android wobbling around the place with really excellent inertia effects. I think, though, that the game is let down by the necessity to play past the scrolling section to get onto the maze part. The blast em up bit is a little boring and, although looking very good, during play doesn’t quite move as well as it should do. Overall, ICUPS is not a bad game at all, but I really do expect something with more addictiveness and playability from a company associated with such classics as Nodes of Yesod and Robin o’ the Wood.’

‘At long last ICUPS is here and what a let down it is too. All in all, it isn’t a bad game but it just isn’t as original as it could have been. The first bit plays quite quickly but is very difficult to get through. The second part looks and plays a lot like the Yesod games although your character’s jet pack and its realistic inertia adds a novel touch. Graphically ICUPS is excellent on all counts: the backgrounds are well detailed, the characters are very nicely animated and there is plenty of attribute free colour. The sound is also first-class, with a great tune and some admirable spot effects. This game lacks a little in addictive qualities and playability, otherwise it is well worth its relatively high price tag.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: top row fire, second row thrust/accelerate, third row decelerate, alternate bottom row left/right
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: fast and responsive
Use of colour: very good, with limited amounts of clashes
Graphics: nice sprites, and good scrolling
Sound: ace tune on the title screen, with spot effects during the game
Skill levels: one
Screens: three areas in the first part of the game, with 64 in the second section
General Rating: A good game, but a disappointment coming from such a well established stable as Thor and Odin.

Use of Computer

78%

Graphics

82%

Playability

73%

Getting Started

80%

Addictive Qualities

73%

Value for Money

74%

Overall

74%

KANE

Producer: Mastertronic Ltd
Author: John Darnell and Simon Freeman
Price: £1.99

In the days of the wild and woolly West times were hard. If you happened to be the sheriff then times were doubly hard as people tended to have a healthy disrespect for anything or anyone in authority. In this game, Kane must try and make peace with the Indians and keep law and order in his town. Kane needs a steady hand, a sure eye and a fast gun. What with runaway trains, ghost town ambushes and the perils of the prairie, he really has his work cut out for him.

The game is divided up into four sections, each of which must be completed before you can progress to the next one. There is a practice mode, where you can flip through all the screens before playing the game for real.

Section one involves shooting birds with a bow and arrow — the feathered ones are traded with the Indians for lives in the later stages. Kane starts with ten arrows and loses one for every bird that is missed. Every time he hits a bird, the number of arrows in his pouch stays the same. The birds are shot by lining them up in the mobile sights before pressing fire. Points are scored for every bird impaled.

Section Two is a ride across the prairie. With his trusty steed beneath him, the sheriff must jump the obstacles which present themselves in his path. A misjudged leap results in the horse throwing Kane and a life is lost. If the treacherous patch of prairie is negotiated then Kane arrives in a deserted ghost town. But is it really deserted? Some mean outlaws start taking pot shots at you. You reach for your gun and start blasting.

Ten baddies in the town must be shot. The number of men killed is shown in red on the left hand side of the screen, while the number of mean critters left shooting at you is shown on the right. Kane has six bullets in his gun and must run to the right of the screen to get more bullets. Baddies pop up from the saloon, the bank and the general store and need to be shot before they disappear or shoot you instead. Once all ten baddies have been sent to Boot Hill, you can progress to the Train Journey in section four.

A train is out of control and only you can stop it and save the helpless passengers. Kane has to negotiate another nasty piece of prairie, strangely similar to section two, jumping over all the obstacles on his trusty nag. The train must be caught up with and stopped within a certain time limit and once the passengers are safe, the first level of the game is complete.

There are three levels to the game, each increasing in difficulty and speed. Have you the guts and determination to clean up the Wild West or will you end up on Boot Hill instead?

CRITICISM

‘Mastertronic seem to have taken their time translating this on to the Spectrum — and to be honest they shouldn’t have bothered. Eye-wise the game is fairly attractive, with lots of colour on the screen and some smoothly animated characters. Sound just consists of a few spot effects which are very accurate but sound lonely in a game that doesn’t involve too much frenzied activity. The first stage — shooting the birds, is very inaccurate and I found my arrows constantly going straight through the belly of the bird without affecting it at all. The first jumping stage is far too easy and getting past the ‘shoot-out’ stage is a doddle, but the final jumping stage proved far to difficult to warrant plodding through the first three parts. The game is very basic and doesn’t require any brains at all. Kane may appeal to the younger games player, but whether even they will be addicted enough to load it up again is very much in doubt.’

‘This game suffers from a lack of screens. It would be fun if there were about ten more sections to battle through. As it stands, there isn’t really any lasting interest after completing the first four screens, which are very easy. The graphics are a mixture of nicely animated lumpy characters and garish colours which, on the whole, fail to please the eye. The sound is also a bit limp. There are no tunes and only a few spot effects. I don’t recommend the game as it gets very monotonous after a short time.’

‘I can’t say I like Kane much. The graphics are pretty bad, and the game lacks enough content, despite its four stages, to make it addictive. Playability wise, Kane is fair, but even for £1.99 it doesn’t seem like much value for money. The horse riding sequence isn’t exactly difficult, and the gun fighting bit isn’t any good at all. The first part is probably the best, and even that isn’t up to much. Though it might just be fun for a while, I don’t think Kane is really worth the money asked for it.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q up, A down, N left, M right, Z fire/jump
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: Average
Use of colour: good, lots used
Graphics: not amazingly good
Sound: spot effects
Skill levels: three
Screens: four
General Rating: Not terrible, but nothing special, either.

Use of Computer

46%

Graphics

50%

Playability

46%

Getting Started

59%

Addictive Qualities

47%

Value for Money

53%

Overall

54%

KNIGHT GAMES 2

Producer: Black Knight Software
Author: Quantum Productions
Price: £2.99

An interesting approach to budget software, this one — it’s a compilation of three games: Protector, Syrinx II and Moonraker.

Protector is a Defender-style shoot em up which re-employs many features familiar to Defender fans, including a scanner, smart bombs and dematerialising capability. The aliens swoop down from the skies trying to pick up energy cells. Once captured, the cell is carried by the alien to the top of the screen where it regenerates the meanie into a higher life form that suddenly develops a powerful urge to locate your exact position and blast you out of the skies.

The green doobries pounce down on the harmless energy cells and drag them kicking and screaming into orbit to produce the more sophisticated red droids. The yellow blocks lay mines which cause dreadful problems later on unless they’re well and truly blasted. Maximum points are scored for killing the magenta aliens. If these are hit they explode, releasing lots of smaller aliens. Cyan oblongs locate the shuttle with pin point accuracy and one touch spells destruction.

The second game, Syrinx II, is full of dangers. Before you can extricate yourself from an unpleasant situation, fifteen keys have to be found. These are scattered around the maze-like tomb of Syrinx and take a bit of hunting out. The place is filled with lots of horrible monsters who guard the keys, and make life difficult.

You start your mission with 99% energy. Colliding with monsters loses energy. You have, however, been provided with a nifty laser, although indiscriminate use is unwise since it also uses up energy, and the game ends when energy is at zero. Collecting a key replenishes energy.

The last game in the trio comes complete with a separate program of instructions... A survey indicates that a moon at the edge of the galaxy contains rich mineral deposits. Rival mining corporations despatch teams of mining and fighting equipment to plunder this mysterious and wealthy place.

When the rival corporations arrive on the moon, the mystery deepens. For the moon is inhabited by machines and not humans. A desperate battle begins between the rival groups and the natives of the moon. The two-player game is played on a grid with each player controlling one of the rival mining corporations. Mines must be captured and the rival corporation prevented from capturing other mines by blowing up opponents’ Moonraker shuttles or taking over mines already used by the locals. And the robotic natives are understandably miffed at having to share their lucrative moon with a bunch of power crazed mining corporations.

Three different games, each with a different style of play and action, all rolled into one budget package — bit like the old days, really....

CRITICISM

‘This tape certainly offers great value for money; two playable arcade games and a strategy game for a quid each. None of the games are excellent, but they are all good fun for a couple of hours or so. The graphics on the whole are about average. The first game is a very playable Defender clone with small and undetailed characters, but they scroll nicely all the same; nice spot effects too. The second is a fairly unoriginal ‘fetch the keys’ arcade adventure that plays quite slowly. The screen scrolls in quarters so it can be quite hard on the eyes. Characters are small and they move about badly. The third doesn’t really appeal to me, as it is very complicated. On the whole I recommend this package as it will probably entertain you for as long as an expensive game, without costing so much.’

‘Protector, though looking like a game from the dawn of Spectrum time, is amazingly addictive, but I suppose that the credit for that ought really to go to the original authors of Defender. That said, Protector is a fair, if not brilliant clone. Syrinx II isn’t particularly stunning, but the last, Moonraker, though not graphically anything new or eye opening, has certainly a great deal of scope for play, especially for non-arcade freaks. Overall, for the price, Knight Games II represents quite good value for money, but if you buy expecting to get three supremely well programmed, professional, polished games, you’re going to be disappointed.’

‘Three games for two pounds — can’t be that bad, I thought. Protector is a not very accurate translation of the arcade game, but plays superbly and extremely fast on the higher levels. This game alone is worth the asking price. Unfortunately it’s let down by a couple of games that are much below the standard. Syrinx II is a very boring arcade adventure aggravated by quarter screen scrolling. Moonraker is a very complicated and time consuming affair consisting of very small, unimaginative characters. It may be three for the price of one — but to my mind, only one of the games is worth it.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: vary from game to game
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor,
Interface 2
Keyboard play: fairly responsive
Use of colour: attractive
Graphics: good on the first game and acceptable on the other two
Sound: spot effects on all games
Skill levels: 26 on the first game: one for each of the others
Screens: scrolling on Protector
General Rating: Interesting and appealing combination.

Use of Computer

59%

Graphics

50%

Playability

62%

Getting Started

52%

Addictive Qualities

70%

Value for Money

73%

Overall

66%

KNIGHT RIDER

Producer: Ocean Software Ltd
Price: £7.95

It’s here at last! Knight Rider has finally been released by Ocean. Michael, his co-ordinator Deven and the super car Kitt are once again on the trail of baddies. At their Atlanta HQ the duo receive a message from Deven, informing them that a bunch of terrorists are up to no good — Deven also hints that the terrorists may have designs on world domination... Eeek!

Michael and Kitt set off on a perilous mission to try and stop those darn terrorists from starting World War Three. The only trouble is, nobody actually knows where all this terrorist activity is taking place, so Kitt and Michael have to drive like mad things all over America at insane speeds, collecting clues before the time limit on the mission runs out.

At the beginning of the game you are presented with a map of the United States and a menu of cities which can be visited. Kitt passes on a message from Deven suggesting a city in which there is terrorist activity. Now it’s up to you and Kitt to zoom down to that particular city as fast as possible to see what’s going on. Kitt is a pretty unusual car and unstoppable. Once on the road, enemy helicopters rise up from the horizon trying to inflict serious damage. A meter on Kitt’s dashboard clocks up the damage and when the level gets too high you have to get Kitt repaired at the next town — which is rather time consuming.

Mike can drive with Kitt firing the lasers, or Kitt can drive (more slowly) and let Mike do the shooting. A digital speedometer reveals the rate of travel, and another milometer ticks down as the destination city gets closer. Lasers, of course, overheat and too much shooting leaves the car defenceless while the lasers cool.

On arrival in a city the view automatically changes. Mike enters a building patrolled by guards. The action is viewed from above, and as Mike never carries a gun, he must avoid the enemy by sheer skill and some speedy footwork as he picks a route to the other side of the maze. Contact with a guard sends Mike back to the beginning of the current location — very time consuming. New orders scroll across the bottom of the screen once a maze has been negotiated and it’s off to the next city, on the trail of those power-crazed terrorists.

The opening menu allows you to select a plot to the game, or the scenario can be allocated at random. A time limit, monitored by a clock on Kitt’s instrument panel, is set and the mission fails if the time expires before all the locations have been visited and maze problems solved. Then it’s back to Atlanta, and time to start yet another mission to save the world.

CRITICISM

‘Well, I wonder how many people will be disappointed with Knight Rider after waiting over a year. I didn’t really expect that much from this game, as American-all-action-TV-series games are normally pretty dire. This one was a shock! The graphics are appalling on the driving screen — the road jerks from side to side badly and the characters are poorly defined, but the graphics are quite nice on the other screens. The bird’s eye view works, and the characters are animated well. The sound is fairly good with a nice tune on the title screen and a few good spot effects. Overall though, there’s not much game when it comes to actually playing it.’

‘I felt that Knight Rider was very shallow in content. Graphically, the game starts off very promisingly with a superb loading screen but my hopes were soon dashed when I jumped into Kitt and found that driving through the States was like driving over the sea on a sandy road! I found the game extremely easy to play, and soon felt I had played all there was. The four plots are very easy to solve and most people would only spend a few days playing the game through. No doubt the Knight Rider name will ensure this game gets to Number One in a few charts very soon! I still wouldn’t buy it...’

‘If you’re more into enjoying the games that you buy, Knight Rider is one game that should be avoided. Really, after the amount of time spent developing this I’d have thought Ocean could have done a lot better. Gameplay is very simplistic, and quickly gets tedious — there’s no real impetus to keep playing once you’ve gone through a few driving and maze sequences and some of the graphics are just not up to scratch. Don’t buy it.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: W up, S down, N left, M right, Q fire, P pause, CAPS SHIFT and SYM SHIFT quit and restart
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: a bit plain, but no clashes
Graphics: dodgy on the driving screen, okay on the mazes and map
Sound: neat tune, adequate spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: map screen, scrolling road and maze section
General Rating: After the interminably long wait, a major disappointment — simplistic gameplay and nothing special on offer.

Use of Computer

56%

Graphics

60%

Playability

44%

Getting Started

58%

Addictive Qualities

39%

Value for Money

38%

Overall

39%

LAP OF THE GODS

Producer: Mastertronic Ltd
Author: Clive Brooker
Price: £1.99

Caught in a comet’s vortex, millions of light years from home, you are understandably not all that happy. After all, there isn’t much to do in a vortex is there? And to make things worse, you are powerless to do anything about it. As desperation begins to set in, the all powerful gods of Zzarn who rule the universe, reveal that they can in fact release you from your current predicament, but they want something in return.

Buried from sight are the crystals of Zzarn. These are quite essential to the gods. So essential, in fact, that the gods are prepared to strike up an unusual bargain with you. In return for finding the crystals of Zzarn the gods will transport you into the future and back to your proper time zone and throw in your freedom as well. This might all sound fine and dandy, but you are sadly poorly equipped to go around digging up lost crystals. Before you can begin to root around in the dirt some digging tools must be acquired. Once again the gods can help you out, but only if you give them something else... Scattered around the chambers are various effigies. These must be collected and placed in the tile-lined rooms for safety. In return for finding these objects you will be furnished with excavating tools — including slab acid for eating away the tunnel walls — and special magical powers.

As usual, there is a snag. The chambers are inhabited by hoards of very mischievous demi-devils who would like nothing more than to curtail your mission in its infant stages. Repeated encounters with these irritating nasties results in a loss of your essential energy. Each clash reduces energy, and death follows when energy levels get too low. The devils also suffer from an acute case of Kleptomania. If your droid manages to pick up an effigy and is en route to depositing it in the tiled chamber, the demons hound in on you. After three hassles, the devils gain possession of the effigy and you are left to face the wrath of the gods. The gods, angry at your ineptness, remove any magical powers bestowed on you and you have to win them back in order to continue the game. Points are scored for every effigy deposited in the tiled chamber and the current score is displayed at the top of the screen along with the number of energy points you have left.

You move around the chambers on a little cushion of air. Upward movement is available by using jet propulsion. Gravity takes over when the ‘up’ key isn’t being pressed and you float gracefully down towards the ground. Teleporters enable you to move from one chamber to another but can only be used if you are carrying an effigy. While holding the ornament the ‘activate teleport’ option is added to the menu. Pressing fire to get to the menu, and fire again takes you where you want to go and also drops the effigy. The menu options reveal the teleporter routes available.

Returning to your own space and time is only possible once all the effigies in each chamber have been deposited in the correct place and all the crystals have been dug up and given to the gods of Zzarn. That’s if the devils don’t get to you first...

CRITICISM

‘At last, a sequel to One Man and His Droid. Mastertronic seem to have got all the good bits out of Droid and compiled them into a very smart and addictive game. The graphics are extremely colourful and detailed. None of the characters are animated within themselves, only up, down, left or right which tends to make the characters look very boring. The inlay contains the usual Mastertronic stuff with good screen pictures which help with ‘impulse buying’ in the shop. The game is basically on the same lines as One Man and His Droid, but with better graphics and it’s a lot harder. I am fairly impressed with this odd piece of budget software, though it could get a bit boring after a while.’

‘This is certainly a very good piece of budget software. I reckon it is much easier to follow and therefore much more playable than One Man and His Droid. There is a lot going for this one graphically: the screen scrolls around nicely, the characters are well drawn and animated and there is plenty of colour splashed about the place with a minimal amount of attribute problems. The sound is also pretty good, with many sound effects during the game but no tunes. I recommend this one, as it is compelling and well worth the two quid that Mastertronic are asking for it.’

‘Another Mastertronic game. Another disappointment? No, surprise, surprise. Lap of the Gods is quite a reasonable game. A nice demo appears, and though the scenario is a little dubious, the game is fun to play and, to an extent, addictive enough to justify an outlay of £1.99. From some of their recent releases, Mastertronic have demonstrated their ability to produce games of a reasonable quality, but they always seem to mess up a run of quality games with an extremely dire one every so often, which is a pity. This one isn’t one to fall into the latter category though, so nip on down to the ol’ software shop, and check it out.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: A up, Z down, M left, N right, 1 fire
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Keyboard play: responsive, and easy to control
Use of colour: very bright, colourful, and attractive
Graphics: slightly jerky scrolling, but nice animation, and pleasant characters
Sound: not extensive. Limited, mainly to clicks and buzzes
Skill levels: one
Screens: 16 caverns
General Rating: A very good game, especially for the low price.

Use of Computer

78%

Graphics

83%

Playability

80%

Getting Started

73%

Addictive Qualities

81%

Value for Money

87%

Overall

80%

LERNON ESPERANTO

Producer: Lez Peranto Ltd
Author: Les Hartridge
Price: £15.00

In house language expert Tony Flanagan (well, he used to be an English Teacher), takes a look at a new package which aims to impart the rudiments of Esperanto....

Saluton readers! As you can vidas, mi estas lernanta Esperanto, per la help de Esperanto First Half, a computer audio cassette package. This has been produced for the Spectrum by Les Hartridge, a retired school master from Cro Croydon, who is one of two directors of Lez Peranto Ltd. For those of you not fully conversant with the subject, Esperanto is an international language which was invented just under a century ago by a Polish chappy called Ludwik Zamenhof. It was his desire that Esperanto would become a lingua franca (just as Latin had been in the past) so that nations would be able to converse in a common tongue. This, he believed, would foster good relationships between countries and contribute to world peace.

Esperanto is a phonetic system but unique in that one letter always corresponds to one sound and one sound only. There are twenty eight letters in the alphabet, twenty-two of which are the same as ours. Most of the word roots are Latin-based (but don’t be put of if you did Latin at school as there aren’t millions of declensions to memorise).

Somewhat refreshingly, Esperanto contains none of the irritating idiosyncracies which make our own language and that of other nations so problematic. You won’t find any silent consonants, irregular verbs or perverse grammatical constructions in Esperanto. The whole system is entirely logical. For example, all nouns end in ‘o’, all adjectives in ‘a’ and the present tense of all verbs in ‘as’. Identical to English, the definite article, ‘la’, remains the same whether the noun is masculine, feminine, singular or plural, which, if like moi, you hated French at school, has got to be a plus!

Esperanto First Half comprises three sections: Espotext, Espogram and Espoword, which are designed to educate the student to what in relative terms would be GCE ‘O’ level standard.

Espotext is a ten lesson course, which provides a thorough grammatical grounding in Esperanto. There is a short introduction on the origin and development of the language and then the lessons begin. The lessons detail the various parts of speech and their respective endings. Other sections deal with compound verbs, adverbs and other essentials of grammar. However, the grammatical slant of the program’s content is by no means obtrusive. The text avoids jargon and is easily understood — all grammatical terms are clearly explained and accompanied by useful examples.

Conveniently, you have some control over the pace at which you work — at every stage you have the option to continue or to return to the index where all the various sections are listed. The text, therefore, never disappears before you’ve had time to read it; indeed, you can read it as many times as you want before you move on. To consolidate the learning process, there are a variety of exercises designed to test grammar, vocabulary and translating ability.

Screen-wise, there is nothing novel about this program — most of the time it’s text on a blank background. Obviously, too much colour would only get in the way of text, so it’s probably just as well. In some sections, however, graphics are used to good effect to facilitate understanding. In the Prepositions section, for example, a colourful bridge scene helps clarify what these items of grammar are and how they are used in Esperanto.

Once you have worked your way through Espotext, you can test your grasp of Esperanto grammar by loading the Espogram program. In the lower half of the screen is the beginning of a sentence containing one, two or several blanks. Given at the top of the screen are twenty numbered suffixes. The blanks are filled in by pressing the appropriate numerical key and in this way you build up a sentence of which there are fifty stored. Any errors you have made are shown at the bottom and any corrections are briefly explained. Your score is also given at the bottom of the screen.

As well as improving your grammar, the package — as any language package should — aims to increase your vocabulary. This is where the Espoword program can help. It consists of 729 Esperanto words and their English translations all of which are relevant to everyday life. On manual display there is a choice of any of nine blocks (eighty-one words). In Auto display you can choose one-third part of any block, that is, twenty-seven words, and you choose the time interval before the answer is given.

Clearly, the written word is only one aspect of a two-horned beast. The audio tape, therefore, introduces the learner to the pleasures of spoken Esperanto. First of all, the Espohear section, demonstrates nineteen Esperanto sounds which are either new to the English ear or whose use is limited. These are then demonstrated using fifty-seven words. With Esposay, you are required to pronounce each of these. First the tape gives the word number listed in the notes, you pronounce the word and then the tape pronounces the word as it should be pronounced. Espoself and Esponext give some indication of what sentences of fluent Esperanto sound like.

Supplementing the tapes are detailed notes which reinforce and expand upon what has already been explained. These contain some marvelous ice-breakers for the avid party-goer — such gems like, ‘Do you eat water?’ or ‘is your mother a man?’

Still, it is easy to be flippant about Esperanto because it’s an ‘artificial’ language. But when one considers there are over 100,000 speakers world-wide, over 30,000 books published in Esperanto and approximately 50 national associations, someone somewhere must be taking it seriously. There is an idealistic thrust underlying Esperanto that alone sets it apart from ‘natural’ languages, and its adherents reveal something of a missionary mentality. Indeed, you may have found Les Hartridge spreading the word (or wordo) from his mini-stand at the PCW Show this year…

All in all, this package is bursting at the seams with information and is well worth getting if you are interested in mastering Esperanto. There’s even a brain-twisting arithmetical puzzle game thrown in for free — Flipit 86!

MOONLIGHT MADNESS

Producer: Bubble Bus
Author: John Cain
Price: £7.95

Another game from the author of mega-selling Booty! The story is set in a strange house owned by a mad professor who invents weird and wonderful gadgets. His home is full of them, and some are very sinister indeed as our hero finds out when he unsuspectingly pays a visit during Bob a Job week.

The hapless Boy Scout trots up the garden path full of good intentions and rings the rusty bell. An old man wearing huge horn-rimmed spectacles answers the door. Just as the lad is explaining that he’s come to do some good turns, the old man suddenly slumps to the ground whispering. “My pills, my pills...”

It’s a race against time to find the pills which are locked away in a safe. First, sixteen keys have to be found... and there’s a time limit: if you take too long then the Prof might not pull through.

Secret inventions hidden in the house are possessively guarded by bits of machinery, and the servants who help with the upkeep of the house don’t limit themselves to doing the housework and a bit of gardening. The old man’s minions are highly trained individuals who have been instructed to attack anyone who enters the house. With all this to contend with, the little Scout is going to have quite a hard time locating the keys and combination...

Each room in the house is filled with strange creatures and gadgets which are set on removing the young infiltrator from the premises. Three lives are supplied. Contact with the odd-ball staff is generally fatal, and jumping too far down onto lower platforms also spells death. To get around this irritating problem, the Scout must master the use of mobile platforms controlled by bellpushes. By pressing the appropriate button, a platform can be moved into place to bridge an all important gap or summon a moving platform to your rescue.

Secret passages link screens, but where they lead is a surprise in itself. Predictably, the keys and important items in the game are all carefully guarded by the scientist’s minions who have no idea that you are actually trying to help their master.

CRITICISM

‘I was expecting Moonlight Madness to be a fast all-action arcade adventure/come shoot ’em up, but on loading it turned out to be a slightly disappointing Booty sequel. After the usual initial struggle to master the controls and learn the ‘physics’ of the game, it became quite fun to play and even addictive to a certain extent. The graphics are large and colourful but there is a lot of character clash which does get on your nerves after a while. The sound is fairly well done: there are some nice effects and a tune plays continuously. Not a bad game, overall, but nothing remarkable.’

‘Booty was a real classic in its day, being easily the best cheapie of its time. Hasn’t John Cain come down in the world! Moonlight Madness isn’t anything like as good. The title screen plays a nice tune, and has got some pretty animation, but there were some pretty bad bits in the game. The main character moves at an amazingly varied pace, as if there’s a force ten gale blowing to the left. When any attempt is made to move right, all the moving characters on the screen slow right down, and the man really has to slog it out against this powerful ‘wind’. As far as drab, boring, unattractive, uninteresting, overpriced platform games go. Moonlight Madness is pretty good. By normal standards, though, it’s dire.’

‘Bubble Bus have been renowned for their great arcade/adventures, so when I saw that they had teamed up with the author of Booty, I was really looking forward to seeing what they had come up with — the end result is extremely disappointing. The presentation of Moonlight Madness is well up to scratch; great inlay story and picture, and a good loading and title screen — but the game leaves a bit to be desired. Bubble Bus seem to have put this game in the wrong range. Moonlight Madness should be in the Minibus range — it has all the makings of an average budget game. The graphics are none too exciting, consisting of colourful but flickery characters. The games drawing point is the sound, and there are a few good tunes — one continuous throughout the game — and neat spot effects. To my mind, Moonlight Madness is an over-priced little game that could be beaten by many a budget title.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable
Joystick: Kempston
Keyboard play: slow and unresponsive
Use of colour: lots of colour resulting in lots of colour clash
Graphics: small and uninteresting
Sound: little tunette plays throughout, good spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: 43
General Rating: A sequel to Booty which doesn’t seem to have progressed from the first game by John Cain.

Use of Computer

56%

Graphics

61%

Playability

55%

Getting Started

64%

Addictive Qualities

57%

Value for Money

55%

Overall

56%

NEXOR

Producer: Design Design Software
Author: Graham Stafford, David Fish
Price: £7.95

Ahhhrr, once again Earth is being threatened by nasties from outer space. This time however the situation is far from timid.

The interstellar battle between Andromedan forces and good ol’ Mother Earth has reached its climax. For years the war has raged throughout the universe in between aeons of stalemate. Earth’s commanders have decided to put an end to the conflict once and for all by attacking the crucial Andromedan lifeline, the Hyperspace route between Andromeda and Orion. Because it provides them with essential supplies without which they would be unable to continue the war, annihilation of this route would be disastrous for the Andromedans. A shrewd move on Earth’s part you must admit. However, in order to accomplish this daring attack Earth has had to devise a totally new sort of Super Weapon code named Nexor after the planet which was used to house its development. It is very secret indeed.

After many feasibility studies and an awful lot of planning Nexor eventually reaches committee stage. A date is set and all the Nexor Big Cheese staff potter down to Earth for a long and boring conference over lots of cups of tea. Nexor however, left in the hands of the minion workers, becomes a prime target for a counter attack by the Andromedans (not so secret after all). The dastardly enemy launch a huge attack on the unguarded planet, hell bent on seizing the Nexor plans. The attack results in carnage, and all the workers bar one are killed. This sole survivor of the Andromedan attack realises them is only one thing left to do. He must somehow locate the ten modules (scattered around the Nexor complex for reasons of security) that make up the Super Weapon and transport them down the Matter Transference beam to the nearest Earth space ship along with the all important blueprints.

This is problem enough, what with the complex gradually being invaded by Andromedan combat droids. But the sole survivor has another problem. The Matter Transference Beam has been damaged during the fighting and must be fixed before anything can be beamed to safety. Naturally there is a limited amount of time to achieve this before the Andromedans take over.

At the game’s start you are blessed with eight lives but contact with the invaders’ equipment or the invading droids themselves results in one of these being lost, so courage must be complemented with skill. The Nexor complex is made up of hundreds of separate rooms, each of which is an individual puzzle in itself. As the game progresses these rooms gradually become filled with Andromedan droids determined to prevent completion of your mission.

Apart from increasing numbers of Andromedans, the rooms are populated with an assortment of nasties which must be avoided. Some exits are inaccessible unless objects are used to reach them. Chairs and blocks can be picked up and dropped at strategic points to reach higher places. Conveyor belts take you right into the path of danger and seemingly harmless objects suddenly zap you right out of existence. Inanimate blocks spontaneously sprout legs and scuttle off in pursuit of something far removed from what you have in mind and try and flatten you into the bargain. Whether they’re Maggie Thatcher look-alikes or the more conventionally shaped droids, the nasties are all equally dangerous.

If a game is prematurely aborted a status report shows you how much has been completed and how many essential pieces of equipment you have managed to find.

The quest takes place in a vast three dimensional maze flanked with steep walls leading to more levels. These can be reached by way of rather unorthodox lifts which disguise themselves as bubbles or blocks. By jumping onto a lift it’s possible to reach new parts of the maze, thus getting you a bit nearer to safeguarding the Nexor secret for ever and certainly keeping it out of the clutches of those inscrutable Andromedans.

CRITICISM

‘Good stuff! If you’re into Filmation games, then Nexor will appeal to you in a big way, I think. The graphics are very good indeed, but some parts of the game behave rather unrealistically, such as when your bloke falls way down through fifteen screens and, on impact, walks off with no damage whatsoever. Despite this unfortunate aspect, the game isn’t bad at all, and unlike the Amstrad version, it is perfectly possible to die. In places, Nexor is very like Batman, though the latter is superior, due to a greater degree of playability. That said, Nexor has its fair share of both playability and addictivity. Worth a look, if you’re not yet bored by the mega millions of 3D games that have already appeared on the Spectrum.’

‘It’s all very well saying that 3D games are great, but after the amount that I’ve played I must admit that if it isn’t the best 3D game so far then I’ll easily get very bored with it. Nexor has all the potential to be one of the great 3D games but is let down by the fact that it is very unplayable — and as a result becomes boring after a few games. The problems that have to be encountered are easy to solve once you get to the room containing them. The only difficulty found in the game was the actual trudging around the maze of rooms. The graphics are definitely the best element of the game — very well drawn and animated. As 3D games go it’s well implemented, but unfortunately I couldn’t find anything different enough to make it stand out.’

‘I was slightly shocked when I loaded this one up and saw that it was in boring old Filmation. Have Design Design gone soft, are these the same people that brought us such fast and furious games as Dark Star and Rommel’s Revenge? After playing it for a while I was not surprised to find that it played in a similar way to all the other Filmation games — there is a nice feature though, sometimes you can walk from one room to another without a door. The graphics are up to usual Filmation standards, excellent, very large and well detailed and the Nexor complex has nice wall paper too! The sound is minimal with no tune and only a few inaudible sound effects. Generally if you like this sort of game then I recommend it to you, however if like me, you are bored to tears with Knight Lore look/play-alikes then stay well clear of it as there is very little here that is new or interesting.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: pleasantly responsive
Use of colour: the same ol’ monochromatic Filmation masking
Graphics: very good 3D, as usual in this sort of game
Sound: like most Design Design games, minimal
Skill levels: one
Screens: 128
General Rating: If you’re not yet bored of Filmation games, then check this one out.

Use of Computer

83%

Graphics

91%

Playability

77%

Getting Started

82%

Addictive Qualities

78%

Value for Money

80%

Overall

81%

THE OCTAGON SQUAD

Producer: Mastertronic Ltd
Author: Geoff Foley
Price: £1.99

Planet 54.7 has suffered an attack with deadly chemicals weapons, leaving only twenty-six survivors. They are all suffering from severe brain damage and, to make matters worse, are lost in a reactor maze. As the Commander of Octagon Squad it’s your job to rescue the survivors by beaming them out through the teleport fence. Luckily, you have at your disposal a team of Equadroids that must be used to block off maze exits and channel the zombie-like humans in the right direction. Tables can be moved to block corridors and doorways opened with the appropriate keys.

The display is split up into a number of sections. A dozen control icons occupy the bottom left hand quarter of the screen. A window at the bottom right gives a detailed view from above of the section of maze occupied by the character currently controlled. A wider view of the maze is given in the top right hand map window: a green square identifies the moving character; corridors are indicated by black areas, and walls or obstructions are shown in a light blue.

Selection of the multiple arrow icon allows you to move up, down, left and right depending on your position in the maze. Other icons allow you to pick up an object, take a drink (which counters the energy sapping chemical residue), and unlock doors providing you have the appropriately coloured key. There are also pause and quit options. The first icon however, makes it possible to select any of the seven available Equadroids and they can be identified by name when the face icon is accessed.

A multi-coloured bar across the centre of the screen indicates a character’s strength, and a variety of windows display the current mode, score, and the number of survivors still in the maze. Scrolling text messages appear on a horizontal window.

So, get your team together and get to work. Strategy and the coordination of the Equadroids is all important. Twenty-six people are in need of treatment and are relying on you to save them from the deadly toxic gas!

CRITICISM

‘Oh no! After Molecule Man and Universal Hero, I got the idea that Mastertronic had changed their tune, and started producing good games. Why then, do they bung out a game like Octagon Squad? One of the game’s worst features is the traditional Mastertronic instructions, or lack of them. If more had been explained about the game, then maybe it would have been more enjoyable, but as it stands, it is very hard to get into, and even harder to play well. Though original to an extent, very little about Octagon Squad sticks in the mind, apart from its distinct lack of playability and addictivity. Even for £1.99, Octagon Squad is one game that everyone who likes good games should keep well clear of.’

‘Remember in the good ’ole days when people could write? Well, those days have been forgotten by the folks at Mastertronic — I can’t remember the last time they gave some decent instructions. I’m sure that the game has some good bits in it somewhere, but whether or not you’ll play that far is a different matter altogether. The game seems to be a classic ‘I wonder if that will work,’ or ‘Well.... what do I do now?’ game. The graphics are very mixed, with a good character set and border graphics, but the maze and play area are very basically designed. Once you realise that you can actually do things in this game then it urges you for another go — keep at it and you will be rewarded.’

‘I’m sure that I’d find this one immensely playable if I knew how to play it, but as it suffers from the inevitable Mastertronic 50 word scenario-come-instructions, there isn’t really much to go on. It all seems very complicated, so getting into it would probably take ages and require a fair amount of patience. The graphics used are colourful and large but they are not animated at all well and the ‘microscreen’ scrolls diabolically. The sound consists only of spot effects. There is no tune, which is a shame as it would have added to the atmosphere a little. After the initial confusion of playing this game had subsided somewhat, I found myself quite enjoying it. If you like a challenge (and believe me, working out how to play this one is) go out and give it a try.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q up, A down, N left, M right, 0 fire
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: fair response times, but the fire button is too far from the rest of the controls
Use of colour: good, lots used
Graphics: very jerky and hard to follow, but with nice characters
Sound: spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: very jerky scrolling over a fairly large maze area
General Rating: Difficult to get into, and it’s doubtful whether the effort is justified.

Use of Computer

56%

Graphics

53%

Playability

48%

Getting Started

20%

Addictive Qualities

47%

Value for Money

50%

Overall

49%

OLYMPIAD ’86

Producer: Atlantis
Author: B Jones
Price: £1.99

Here’s another sporting simulation designed to test your skills in five events, this time at a budget price. Weight lifting, canoeing, the 200 metre sprint, shooting and discus throwing all feature, and what’s more you don’t need any fancy equipment or months of pre-season training to compete.

At the start of the game three lives are supplied, and a life is lost each time the player fails to qualify in an event. After each event the scoreboard appears on screen, updating the points won and number of lives remaining, and at the end of a circuit round the five events, a high score table monitors performance and medals won.

This pentathlon commences with weight lifting, and a well timed press of the Q key is needed to build up enough strength to heave the weights off the ground. A hand on the power clock at the top of the screen whizzes round and has to be stopped at the ‘noon’ position for maximum power. If a lift is successful, you keep going until the qualifying weight is reached. Failure costs a life and a smug helicopter flies past with a banner that reads “rubbish”.

To get through the canoeing event the O and P keys are used to manoeuvre a kayak down a slalom of boulders which poke out from beneath the water. A meter at the bottom of screen shows how much of the course is left to get through, and contact with a boulder results in failure.

The 200 metre sprint has your runner scooting along a seemingly never-ending track. Speed and distance bars show how the race is going, and the power clock method is used again, this time to build up speed — misjudge the timing of the prod on the Q key and speed is lost, but get it right and the runner accelerates. At the end of a race the qualifying time and actual time taken are shown, and the rude helicopter pilot flies past if you fail...

Skeet shooting puts the player in control of a cross hair sight and the idea is to blast the qualifying number of skeets out of the air. Little meters at the bottom of the screen reveal how many skeets are yet to be released and the number of shots remaining. Skeets whizz into the air, launched alternately from a position behind trees on either side of the screen. As usual, the chopper pilot is waiting to the wings to mock....

The fifth event, the discus, involves two little power clocks — one has to be stopped dead on ‘noon’ with the A key to determine the angle of the throw, and another stopped with the Q key to determine the power behind the throw. And yes, the pilot’s waiting!

CRITICISM

‘This game is bad in every sense of the word. The graphics are awful, the colour is messy and unattractive, the scenario unoriginal, and the whole thing is just one big lump of unplayability and unaddictiveness. It’s not a joystick-killer — but the clock stopping is rather inaccurate... Hint: prod the Q key when the needle is at the 10 o’clock position during the sprint for maximum power, rather than when it is at noon. Even for a couple of pounds this game is poor — you might want to persevere until you’ve seen all five screens, but I doubt you’d want to come back to it.’

‘The graphics are some of the best Atlantis have ever produced — not such a hard feat — and consist of a good loading screen and some fairly large, smoothly animated characters. The sound is very basic, involving some sound loops up the musical scale, and then some down the scale — WOW! What variety... Olympiad 86 contains very little to keep the armchair sportsman interested further than seeing the loading screen. I expected more keyboard/joystick bashing, all I got was a consistent pressing of keys at long intervals. I didn’t even feel panicked, never mind breaking into a sweat!’

‘The trend for track and field games ended months ago and this latecomer doesn’t add much to the genre, even at the low asking price. The gameplay is very slow and on two of the five screens you only have to use one key so it all gets very monotonous. There are no tunes, the spot effects are minimal and the gameplay is hardly exciting — a mix between unplayability and impossibility. I’d keep well clear of this one if I were you, as it is very primitive.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q, A, O, P, SPACE: varies from event to event
Joystick: not applicable
Keyboard play: not always an accurate response
Use of colour: lots of it; a bit garish
Graphics: nothing special
Sound: BEEPy spot effects
Skill levels: gets progressively harder
Screens: five one-screen events
General Rating: Even as a budget title this game adds nothing to the decathlon/sports genre.

Use of Computer

31%

Graphics

28%

Playability

21%

Getting Started

39%

Addictive Qualities

23%

Value for Money

31%

Overall

26%

PAPERBOY

Producer: Elite
Price: £7.95
Author: Steve Lamb and Tony Mac

In Elite’s conversion of the arcade game Paperboy it’s up to you, as an all American skoolkid, to deliver the early morning newspapers fighting against fantastic odds. Negotiating your BMX bike around what seems to be a rather unsavoury neighbourhood, hazards have to be avoided — but lots of points are waiting to be won for accurate lobbing of newspapers.

Certain households on your round don’t order the Daily Sun, the paper which you are so diligently trying to deliver. This is sad, but you can get your own back on these non-subscribers. Pedalling through the diagonally scrolling landscape, points can be collected by bunging a newsprint missile through a window on a house with a dark door — the occupants don’t take the Sun. Well-aimed newspapers can result in broken window panes, chopped up tomb stones and ruffled dustbin lids, too. If you’re feeling particularly vindictive then grannies can be zapped out of their bath-chairs as they take the morning air, boys can be knocked off their mopeds and flowers flattened.

Households that order the newspaper get special treatment — their newspapers must be accurately thrown so that they land in the mail box. Two hundred and fifty points are scored for each paper safely delivered. The papers in your delivery bag are displayed on a panel to the right of the screen, and extra ammo can be collected by cycling over the boxes of newsprint dotted around the pavements.

But there’s more to being a paperboy than just chucking papers around the town. Careful cycling is called for to negotiate a variety of obstacles including dustbins, fire hydrants and garden ornaments. And then there’s the people... old folk seem to walk into your path deliberately; workmen can’t hear you because of their ear-plugs, and have to be avoided. Skateboarders can be fairly lethal as they scoot around at breakneck speed, and runaway tyres and exploding bombs also crop up from time to time. Contact with the nasties results in a crash and the loss of one of your five lives — as in the original, a scrolling message reminds you what a silly boy you have been...

Each day of the week, the paper round has to be attempted before paperboy can go out to play on the BMX track at the end of town. Bonus points can be collected for hitting targets dotted around the BMX course with a well-aimed newspaper.

At the end of the day’s work the paper shop prepares a report on progress. For every paper wrongly delivered, a house cancels its order and if too many of the houses cancel it’s the sack! However, on subsequent rounds if all the papers are correctly delivered you win back one customer, but the game gets that little bit harder on subsequent days. It really is mean on these streets...

On the BMX track at the end of town. 250 points have just been awarded for a direct hit on a target, the paperbag is full and there are ramps ahead...

CRITICISM

“Paperboy is one of the arcade games that just didn’t appeal to me. Elite, as usual, have done an excellent job of converting from the original — the game is quite pretty, and the action is generally fast and furious. The graphics are carefully detailed, scrolling smartly in 3D, and the characters are well animated. The colour is unfortunately in boring old blue ’n’ black-o-vision with a little bit of magenta thrown to add a touch of colour clash. The sound is good, with lots of spot effects and a couple of tunettes. I didn’t find this game as addictive or as playable as it should have been, but it certainly is worth a look if you enjoyed playing it in the arcades.”

“This game is well wicked. The graphics are a bit of a wimp-out on the part of Elite, but the game has a strange amount of addictivity to it. Though losing a lot in comparison to the original arcade version, Paperboy offers a good deal in the way of long term entertainment. Things like the racetrack and the old grannies make the game all the more fun to play, and the level of frustration is just right. When a drunkard comes wobbling down the road and knocks you off your bike, the urge to try again is still there. Though not as good as the Ghosts and Goblins and Bombjack conversions, Paperboy is still a pretty good game, and worth the asking price.”

“Although the game doesn’t contain lots of different things to do, Paperboy, like most of the Elite games, is fiendishly addictive — and once you’ve started there’s no stopping. The graphics are extremely well drawn, and despite them all being very small, most of them are recognisable. I felt more use could have been made of the Spectrum colours. Control was quite hard to get used to at first, but after realising that you can’t brake and turn at the same time, things became quite fluent. The presentation is quite bare, apart from the high-score table and the very well drawn front page of the Daily Sun. The sound was more informative than good. I’m sure that anyone buying Paperboy will play it for hours — but come away with the feeling ‘not much to that!’”

Approaching the graveyard, a bomb explodes. Fortunately the bundle of replacement papers is unscathed. Nasty neighbourhood this!

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q accelerate, A brake, O left, P right, N throw paper
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: fast and responsive
Use of colour: monochromatic, for the most part, so as to avoid clashes
Graphics: nice characters, with fair scrolling
Sound: tunes, with the usual spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: scrolling township
General rating: Another slick, playable conversion from Elite

Use of computer

84%

Graphics

86%

Playability

89%

Getting started

91%

Addictive qualities

87%

Value for money

86%

Overall

88%

RESCUE ON FRACTALUS

Producer: Activision Inc
Author: Dalali Software Ltd
Price: £7.99

Air Pilots are suddenly in demand and they’re badly needed on Fractalus, a remote planet in the Kalamar system. Apparently the Jaggies, Kalamar’s space adversaries, are using Fractalus as a stronghold. The System’s highly trained Space Pilots just can’t cope with it. What’s worse some of them are stranded on this highly inhospitable planet. It’s your job to rescue them!

This is not as easy as it sounds. For one thing, the horrid jaggies have built a fairly sophisticated and potentially lethal defence system which may seriously zap you — so watch out! The planet also has a very fast rotation rate — one day lasts nine minutes — and an atmosphere thick with cyanitric acid! Fortunately, Valkyrie fighter ships are at your disposal with their computerized instrument panel. With these you have a chance of saving the stranded Pilots.

Descending from the flashing multi-coloured tunnel of the Mother Ship you enter the yellow fog of Fractalus. From your window a panorama of craggy mountains stretch before you. Having fought a way through the jaggie defence system, the next task is to locate the Space Pilots scattered on the planet’s surface. Using the instrument panel it is possible to find each one as they wait patiently in their wrecked spaceships for your arrival. On landing, you must turn your engine systems off and let the pilot in by opening the airlock... then it’s on to the next one! How you land and take off is also very important as it is quite easy to destroy one of the pilots by accident. Occasionally, aliens disguised as pilots attempt to board your ship so beware. Once all the pilots have been picked up, you must return them, safe and sound to the Mother Ship.

The more notice taken of the instrument panel, the more successful your mission will be. Amongst other things, this displays thrust level, altitude, energy level, radar facilities, shield strength, and the number of enemies destroyed and pilots rescued. The long range scanner is vital as this registers a stranded pilot’s emergency signal by an intermittent beep. A V shape at the base of the scanner indicates the view from your window — when you get near to a pilot the scanner begins to beep. Quite frequently, the Mother Ship avails herself should you need an energy boost. Flashing text in the top left-hand corner of the screen indicates when Mommy is in the vicinity. A row of lights in the bottom centre of the instrument panel go out when an enemy gun emplacement locks onto your ship. Immediately after, one by one, they come on again. When all six are lit up the enemy gun emplacements will fire and only evasive manouevering of the ship can break their hold.

Points are awarded for various things. Every second of flight, for example, earns you one point, whilst every pilot returned to the Mother Ship earns five hundred. Destroying gun emplacements, alien saucers and just picking up a pilot all earn extra points, and extra points are given for each level completed.

The lives of the Pilots rest in your hands. Only by taking confident control of the Valkyrie and steering it in the right direction will this be possible. The Jaggies are getting stronger everyday and Fighter Pilots are precious. Can you ensure the future survival of the Kalamar System?

CRITICISM

‘It seems that Lucasfilm have made Rescue on Fractalus as good as possible on the Spectrum, but I don’t think the game is really suited to the machine. The graphics are quite reasonable, but the mist effect isn’t all that good because mountains start appearing from nowhere, and that messes up a lot of the effect. Overall, the game is averagely playable and addictive, but the graphics, which I think were one of the distinguishing features of the original, are a let down — but that’s not the fault of the programmers. I can’t say Rescue on Fractalus is one of the games I’d buy, but other people might like it.’

‘The Spectrum version of this game is as good as can be expected and very easy to get into. The graphics are all animated relatively quickly considering the amount of screen that is moving about and the sound exists but doesn’t excel. I found the game good fun to play at first but very hard to do anything spectacular apart from shooting everything that appeared, but persistence opened up what is a very deep and involving game. Rescue on Fractalus has all the appeal of Zzoom in the way that you can go around shooting all your mateys; but if you want to play seriously, a lot can be had out of the game.’

‘Rescue on Fractalus at first sight looks extremely ugly as there is a great deal of unsightly garish colour floating around the screen, so you could be forgiven for turning a blind eye to this one. After getting over my initial shock I really began to get into Rescue, in fact I am a little reluctant to give up playing... although the surface of Fractalus scrolls badly and the characters are blocky. The sound is very poor, with only a couple of spot effects during the whole game. Generally this isn’t a bad game once you get over the colour problems.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: cursors keys, with 0 or space to fire
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: a bit difficult to get used to
Use of colour: lots used, bordering on the garish at times
Graphics: very jerky, but good fractal technique
Sound: nice title tune, with spot effects in the game
Skill levels: 16
Screens: scrolling cockpit view over a large landscape
General Rating: A good game, but one that’s not best suited to the Spectrum.

Use of Computer

77%

Graphics

72%

Playability

77%

Getting Started

76%

Addictive Qualities

78%

Value for Money

74%

Overall

75%

REVOLUTION

Producer: Vortex
Price: £9.95
Author: Costa Panayi

Vortex has an enviable reputation that spans virtually the entire history of Spectrum gaming, largely thanks to the programmer Costa Panayi (Android, Android II, TLL, Cyclone, Alien Highway and Highway Encounter) whose preoccupation with 3D representation has made each game outstanding and usually innovative. Now he’s turned his talents to something completely different with Revolution.

In this 3D game you control a versatile bouncing ball and the idea is to solve various puzzles on each game level. The action takes place on huge platforms suspended above bottomless ravines. Gaps of varying distance separate each platform, some are small and easily bounced over, while others are vast and take a lot of bouncing to get over. Being a bottomless ravine, going over the edge always ends in death for your ball. You move around by either bouncing or rolling. If for any reason the ball becomes stationary then you can get it bouncing again by using extra super bounce. A red bar indicator is provided to show the height of bounce being achieved, letting you estimate the amount of strength needed to reach an objective.

But what about the puzzles? They’re all identical in concept and consist of deactivating two grey boxes set a distance apart from each other. Touching a box with your ball turns it white and deactivates it for a short length of time. Next you must get your ball over to the other grey box and turn this white as well before the first block turns grey again in order to complete each puzzle. All fine and dandy. However, apart from the extremely short deactivation time limit, each puzzle contains various nasties, some animated some not. Like all nasties, they’re convinced that what you’re trying to do is wrong and are all out to stop you.

The animated ones scoot around just above the ground at great speed and any contact has disastrous results — your ball may be given a swift nudge, knocking it off course or even be sent over the platform edge to its doom.

Despite their savagery, the stationary perils are probably the hardest to negotiate. Arrows on the ground scoot your ball rapidly towards the direction in which they point. This either keeps you away from the block you’re aiming for, or once again sends you to your death off the edge. Solid patches of grid act as super bouncing plates and might fling you off the side or sproing you in completely the wrong direction again. The furry nasties with their waving flagella-like protrusion are instantly lethal and if your ball touches any of these then a life is lost.

Each level must be completed before an automatic lift transports your sphere to a higher grade. There are nine levels in total in the game, each with progressively more and harder puzzles. The position of puzzles on a level is indicated by red circles on a map, shown on at the start of a level. During play the map screen can be accessed by pressing the M key. Your starting position (which is rarely the same) is also shown on this map by a yellow rectangle.

Five lives are provided for each game. When you lose one a new ball is shunted out of dock and automatically placed on the lift. This carries the ball up to the correct level and it’s then up to you to control where it goes.

On higher levels the deactivation time limit gets shorter and there is an overall time limit to each game shown by the descending green bar at the bottom of the screen. Beside it sits the score chart showing how many puzzles have been completed. A set amount of points is scored for each puzzle depending on its difficulty.

Just because you’ve managed to complete the game once don’t think playing it through is a doddle — each time a new game starts the puzzles and their positions are redistributed amongst the levels randomly!

The map screen. On the left is the stack of levels that must be worked through, while a plan of the current level is revealed on the right

CRITICISM

“I’ve been waiting for Costa Panayi to come back to the Spectrum scene since I finished Highway Encounter, and he certainly has come back well. Revolution is excellently presented with most of the ‘Costa Magic’ which means it’s very good and addictive. However its addictivity only works in short bursts. Most time is spent wandering around a lot of black background, and when I got to a problem I found I could often spend ages trying out the same boring method tens of times. The ball moves around pretty effectively, although it seems too accurate and doesn’t give the realism of Bounder or the playability of Gyroscope, which it vaguely resembles. It’s certainly nothing like HE and is quite original in what content there is. Many people should be quite addicted by the problem solving and random level layouts, but I couldn’t see enough in it to compare with Costa’s previous game.”

“What a pretty game, but what would you expect from the person who did the graphics (and programming) for the Highway games. Not only has this game got pretty graphics it also has plenty of addictive qualities and plenty of playability. It’s set in a very original playing arena and provides tasks which get progressively harder to complete as you go up the levels. The graphics are exquisite, your ball is excellently animated and well detailed as are all the other characters. Sound is a little lacking although there are a lot of nice spot effects but no tune on the title screen. The control is a bit dodgy at first but after some persistence it does get easier. I strongly recommend this one as it is exceedingly playable.”

“Another 3D game from Vortex, and what a good one it is, too. The puzzles are very difficult to complete, but this only makes the triumph on completing them all the more satisfying, rather than frustrating, as in some games. The graphics are superb, and Costa Panayi deserves a hefty pat on the back for them. The whole thing is very good indeed. Whilst being a departure from the old games by this author, Revolution still seems to have something that relates it to the Highway games. I like it!”

The REVOLUTION ball bounces with anticipation as another problem zone is approached. A mobile furry nasty, moving cube and bounce-distorting floorpads are amongst the hazards that must be negotiated

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q/A forward/back; K/L left/right; Z to N or SPACE for bounce energy
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: combination key presses allow for diagonal movement, making control tough at first
Use of colour: virtually monochrome but effective
Graphics: great animation, generally excellent
Sound: good spot effects, no title or game tunes
Skill levels: progressive
General rating: An unusual and good looking game that provides a real challenge

Use of computer

89%

Graphics

91%

Playability

90%

Getting started

87%

Addictive qualities

93%

Value for money

88%

Overall

91%

RUGBY MANAGER

Producer: Artic Computing Ltd
Author: J. Wilson
Price: £2.99

The aim of this game is to win promotion to the first division — no mean feat. There’s plenty of competition, so you have to be on your toes. Having chosen a club to manage, a breakdown of your squad is given, with a numerical assessment of the skill and ability of the players.

To start the match, the cursor is moved to the matchstick icon on the main menu and then you simply watch your team perform. At the end, the final score is given, with details of attendance, gate receipts, players’ wages, and loan interest. This is followed by match results for the whole division, and the current league table.

By choosing the pound sign icon you can find out about the club’s financial situation. Loans can be used to buy a player to build up your squad. The transfer list is brought up by choosing the pen and form icon. This gives details of the player for sale: his skill and energy rating, the sellers, his current value, and whether other clubs are interested. Alternatively, you might want to give a player the old heave-ho, in which case, you choose the boot icon on the menu.

The season is long and hard, and only the most determined manager can hope for promotion. Only you, as rugby manager, can discover if you’ve got what it takes.

CRITICISM

‘Artic should have stuck with their all-action International Rugby (Union) and not tried (forgive the pun!) to go into the Rugby League with a very poor copy of Football Manager. The presentation of Rugby Manager is very smart — using a cursor for options — but the game itself is very poorly structured. The actual match is badly done, with the same three defenders against one attacker on every attempt.’

‘There is nothing in this one that is mildly interesting and I certainly couldn’t play it for longer than one game. The graphics are well below average, the characters are small and undetailed, and the use of colour is so bad that you can hardly make out the other team from the pitch. The sound is pitiful — if you are lucky you may hear a beep or two during the course of the match. I didn’t feel I was actually participating.’

‘Rugby Manager is nothing more than a joke. The graphics are abysmal, the sound non-existent and the whole game very boring indeed. The cursor is the best bit because icons, strategy, entertainment value and all the usual stuff are just not there. Even at the price, it’s awful value for money, and it’s not in the least bit addictive.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q up, A down, O left, P right
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: bad clashes on the match screen
Graphics: unadventurous
Sound: virtually non-existent
Skill levels: one
Screens: six
General Rating: Only for avid rugby fans.

Use of Computer

34%

Graphics

27%

Playability

26%

Getting Started

36%

Addictive Qualities

27%

Value for Money

37%

Overall

31%

SCOOBY DOO

Producer: Elite
Price: £7.95
Author: Gargoyle Games

Yikes, Scooby Doo the cowardly pup with the voracious appetite suddenly finds himself in a tricky situation. Shaggy, Velma, Daphne, Fred and Scoob are driving along in the beaten up Mystery Mobile when a strange rattling beneath the bonnet forces them to pull over to see what’s wrong. “It’s no good,” said Freddie “we’ll have to get help from somewhere.” “What about that big castle over there?” said Velma pointing to a dark gothic house silhouetted against the moon. “We could knock at the door and ask them if there’s a garage or something nearby.” she continued. “Yeah, that’s fine, like Scooby and I will er wait in the van in case someone tries to uhh, steal it, right Scoob?” said Shaggy, looking distinctly nervous. “No, all four of us will go and Scooby can stay behind in the van,” said Velma. And the four of them started walking towards the dark forbidding looking castle, leaving Scooby sleeping in the back of the Mystery Mobile.

Little do they know but the castle on the hill is owned by a mad professor who likes nothing more than to lure victims back to his deserted lab and chop them up into little pieces and store them in specimen jars for future experiments. Double yikes!

And surprise, surprise that’s exactly what happens to Shaggy, Velma, Daphne and Fred. That dastardly professor ensnares the gang in his evil plan and leaves them, apparently trapped forever in his draughty, lonely castle.

And they’d still be there now if it wasn’t for that canine coward Scooby Doo behaving in most uncharacteristic manner and trying to release his pals from their predicament. Perhaps it was hunger that drove Scooby from the beaten up van, or maybe the eerie way the wind moaned around the roof. Whatever it was, Scooby decided to see what was going on inside the castle...

However, when Scooby enters the professor’s castle he has a shock in store for him. The castle seems to be haunted by all manner of nasty spooks and ghosties. He’s about to run back to the van for all he’s worth when he spots a Scooby Snack on the ground and realises that his friends must be in mortal danger.

There are four levels to the game and concealed on each level is one member of the gang trapped inside a specimen jar. Scooby has to locate his chums and release them.

However, Scooby Doo encounters a strange array of beasties on each of the levels and they are all determined to stop him from releasing his friends. And of course these nasties are all controlled by the evil professor himself.

On the first floor of the castle — which contains Velma — Scooby encounters horrible floating ghoulies which jump out from behind closed doors and are very menacing to the poor pooch. Hooded figures sidle up to him silently and try and knock him off his paws. The only way which Scooby can defend himself against the nasty inhabitants of this castle is by using his cumbersome paws which come in very handy for bopping the spectres on the bounce. Scooby can only hit his victims if he’s not moving, and if they get him first he faints with fear and loses one of his six lives. When all these lives have been lost Scooby joins his friends as a future experiment for the professor. Evil cackle. However, Scooby can reclaim a lost life by picking up a Scooby Snack on the ground and eating it.

Level two of the castle is full of springy, sproingy things. These bounce out of cupboards and dumb waiters and sneak up on the dynamic doggy from behind. Skulls litter the floor and must be bounced over and floors are separated by ladders which must be climbed. But be careful ... the nasties have a habit of scooting down the stairs and knocking poor Scoob for six. Level three hosts some very wicked looking monsters. Ghoulfish float around exercising their huge elastic jaws. The ghosties from the first level make a re-appearance, and tatty bats screech around at head height causing Scooby to bend down and cover his eyes with fright!

The final level is guarded by bulbous monks with no faces. Flying dumbells and rolling bowling balls are just some of the hazards which Scooby has to negotiate in the quest to release the last of his chums.

At the beginning of each level Scooby gains an extra life, but lives lost in the previous level are not given back to him ... For once, this hungry dog gets the chance to play the hero.

Covering his eyes and ears with his paws, Scooby ducks to avoid a bat. Soon he’s going to have to cope with a marauding Ghoulfish

CRITICISM

“First time I saw this on the Amstrad, I thought that it was an extremely playable game. The Spectrum version is equally so, if not more. The scrolling isn’t super smooth, and the lack of tune is a little disturbing, but the graphics are excellently animated, and the game plays superbly. Addiction is almost certainly to be found, and the game represents very good value for money. Even though it’s been ages in the making, and the finished version is completely different from the screen shots seen all those long months ago, Scooby Doo is a really cool arcade game, well worth getting.”

“This is obviously not the game promised by Elite some time last year, but it was definitely worth the wait as it is tremendously playable and ever so compelling. The graphics really are first-class: the many large and well defined characters move around the castle admirably and the castle itself is very pretty. Sound wise this game rates fairly highly as there are many excellent spot effects during the game — sadly there isn’t a tune on the title screen but the front end is so good that a tune isn’t really necessary. I strongly recommend this game as it is addictive and great fun to play too.”

“After the long wait for Scooby Doo it would take something fairly special to justify the time spent on it. This game manages to impress after the first couple of goes but it doesn’t contain anything to keep the brain cells electrified for long. I found Scooby Doo looked very attractive to the eye and the idea of buffing and boffing all the characters — which didn’t look too much like ghosts — proved quite exciting for a while, but this required no real skill. The animation of all the graphics is very smooth and accurate, and the screen scrolling is very silky (!?!). Scooby sound is not very startling and has very little tunewise. The game bases itself on the TV series superbly with all the folks from the team in it. Unfortunately I didn’t find it extremely enthralling ... but it’s certainly playable. Have a look before you buy.”

Poor old Velma’s been trapped inside that red phial. Can Scooby fight off a Mad Monk and free his friend?

Scooby prepared to bop one of the wibbly wobbly nasties on the second level...

COMMENTS

Control keys: left, right, up/jump, down/duck, fire/punch — redefinable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: very responsive
Use of colour: mainly monochrome
Graphics: excellent
Sound: neat effects; no title tune
Skill levels: one
Screens: four scrolling levels
General rating: Yet another highly playable game released by Elite

Use of computer

89%

Graphics

93%

Playability

92%

Getting started

90%

Addictive qualities

91%

Value for money

90%

Overall

91%

STRIKE FORCE COBRA

Producer: Piranha
Author: Five Ways Software Ltd
Price: £9.95

The World is in mortal danger from an evil genius known only as The Enemy. He has hacked in to the world’s defence computers and is now threatening to unleash the world’s nuclear weapons and destroy everything and everybody unless his demands are met.

The Enemy has kidnapped top computer boffins, and holds them hostage in his four-level headquarters complex. Each of the scientists knows one digit from the secret code which opens the entrance to the fortress’s main computer room. If someone was courageous enough to penetrate the complex and destroy the computer, then the The Enemy’s plans would be thwarted...

The Powers that Be decide to fight back, and a force of top commando fighters is assembled, code named COBRA. Eight commandos are in the team and your first task is to select a quartet to undertake the mission. As the Strike Force enters the fortress the alert is sounded and The Enemy’s deadly computer program starts running: the countdown to oblivion has begun!...

The aim is to explore each level of the complex, working as a team, and locate the computer scientists held prisoner. Pressing the appropriate number changes the team member under the player’s control. Each commando is equipped with a DLB, a digital lock breaker, which can help crack the combination that gives access to the main computer. The more of the code you have in your possession the quicker the DLB can break the combination. At least six digits are needed to give a realistic time scale, and whenever a commando finds a scientist, another digit is collected.

The scenery scrolls in 3D as your agile commandos leap, roll and walk along the corridors. Windows can be leapt through and some doors can be kicked down, while others are operated by switches, like the inter-level lifts. Switches are marked with a D (Doors) and L (lifts) and are often some distance from the door or lift they activate — teamwork is called for.

Guards and droids patrol the corridors and rooms, and need to be avoided or taken out with a quick burst of machine gun fire or the lob of a grenade. Some rooms contain fiendish auto defence systems, such as mobile lasers and electro-blocks, and puzzle-solving skills are needed to get through safely.

Details of the digits already collected and the status of each member of the team are given onscreen together with the number of the commando currently controlled and the time left before oblivion. Extra time can be won by disabling remote computer terminals, and first aid kits can be use to build up the strength of wounded fighters.

Good luck prospective agents, you’ll need it!

CRITICISM

‘It’s not often that I play a single game all afternoon, but I just couldn’t pull the plug on Strike Force Cobra. I found the gameplay very complicated at first, but after a while it all became very clear. Controlling your commandos is a little on the tricky side to start off with but it soon becomes fairly easy. The graphics are detailed although they are not as clear as they could be. The characters are nicely animated and full of detail. The sound is a bit of a disappointment as there are no tunes and only a couple of spot effects. I enjoyed playing this game as it is very original and compelling.’

‘Strike Force Cobra is an extremely complex game that takes a lot of time to get into. It’s very well presented with lots of pretty graphics, and a screen that contains quite a lot of colour — without any colour clashes. The 3D effects are very good and give a feeling of distance and perspective. There are lots of touches that bring the intended atmosphere to life — kicking doors and jumping through windows adds to the flavour of the expedition. I was a bit disappointed to see that the game suffered from locking up on you when there was a bit of activity on the screen, or when it was trying to make a few feeble sound effects — this made the game very awkward to play. I think that Strike Force Cobra has a very promising game in it somewhere — but whether you’ll get to find it is another matter!’

‘The very first time I played Strike Force Cobra, I didn’t rate it all that much, but perseverance has really opened my eyes to a good strategy arcade game. The Piranha label is obviously going to be one to be reckoned with. First, they launch a quality fun game like Trapdoor, and then a good strategy shoot-blast-bash ’em up like this. Strike Force Cobra, I think, isn’t a game that you see in a shop and say ‘gorra get a copy of this like soon’, but if you buy it, I think it’s a pretty likely bet that you’ll play it for a good while, and enjoy it.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: up/left E, R, T; down/right D, F, G; up/right Y, U, I; down/left H, J, K: jump W, O, S, L; dive Q, P, A, ENTER; shoot gun V, B; throw grenade CAPS SHIFT, SPACE; crouch C, N: stand X, M; kick Z, SYM SHIFT
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Keyboard play: needs practice, but responsive
Use of colour: neat
Graphics: good animations, tidy 3D effect
Sound: spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: scrolling play area
General Rating: Complicated, and tricky to get into but well worth the effort.

Use of Computer

84%

Graphics

87%

Playability

81%

Getting started

75%

Addictive qualities

84%

Value for Money

81%

Overall

83%

STRIKE FORCE HARRIER

Producer: Mirrorsoft
Author: Rod Hyde
Price: £9.95

Strike Force Harrier is a flight simulator set in a Harrier Jump Jet along with a full battlefield mock up. There’s strategic planning to be coped with as well as competent control of your aircraft. And of course this only comes with practice.

Your mission is to destroy the enemy HQ and set up your own ground sites at the same time. To make things a mite harder, enemy tanks and aircraft are gunning hard for you. Tanks must be destroyed before you can set up the site. Once a site has been established the tanks start to threaten your new won ground and so on...

After loading, you are presented with a menu of options. To begin with it is probably advisable to watch the Demo mode and then select a practice option until you get the feel of things. Once competent at handling the craft it’s on to Combat duty and that’s when things really start to hot up. As you can imagine, handling a Harrier requires a lot of controls. A joystick or the keyboard can be used, but even with a joystick, keys are needed too. The game comes with a 27-page booklet packed with instructions and flight movements. Although a daunting prospect it’s a good idea to have a quick read through or else you’ll find that your missions are curtailed rather quickly.

Strike Force Harrier can be played on two levels. It can be a shoot em up on one level, but for people really into flight simulators, it can be played as a mock up of a real battle with strategic objectives. For the committed games player the instruction booklet is essential to get a full grasp of what’s going on.

Overlaid on the cockpit view is the Head Up Display. This shows your vertical speed indicator, air speed indicator, the gyro (reveals your direction of travel), height and your pitch above or below the horizon. The HUD can also display additional information when the relevant key is pressed.

The Harrier carries an impressive inventory of weapons. You have two Sidewinder air-to-air missiles with a five mile range that automatically home in on a target selected by a sight on screen. Three 1,000lb bombs and 250 rounds of cannon shell with a five mile range are also on board. The cannon is a bit tricky to fire correctly because (low technology stuff this) you need to be pointing more or less directly at your target should this be a tank, then obviously you’re diving straight for the hard ground...

The air attack radar indicates the position of enemy aircraft within a radius of five miles. The Friend or Foe tracking radar situated at the bottom of the screen indicates enemy aircraft positions, mountain peaks and your own moving track so you can tell whether you are closing with or fleeing from the enemy. Tanks and ammunition sites are also shown.

Three types of take off are relevant to the various ground conditions. If the airstrip is prepared, then a conventional take off is sufficient. From unprepared ground a short take off is necessary at an angle of 45 degrees. The Harrier, however, really comes into its own when there is no take off space since it can lift off vertically. A hovering mode is also possible and there are three types of landing as well (conventional, short and vertical).

Three levels of combat difficulty are provided: Pilot, Commander and Ace which make different demands on the skill of the pilot. It’s up to you to master the controls and prove your abilities...

CRITICISM

‘Flight simulators aren’t the most immediately playable games on the market, I can tell you, but Strike Force Harrier is comparatively easy to play. The graphics are jerky, a feature all too obvious in most games of the genre, but Mirrorsoft have done a fair job of making an enjoyable game in a field where there have been too many duff efforts. Though by no means the best on the Spectrum, Strike Force Harrier is quite reasonable. As a flight sim, this is pretty good.’

‘What yet another Flight simulator? That makes two in two months. Strike Force Harrier is not nearly as boring as many other flight sims I have played recently. There are loads of nasties to shoot down so it isn’t just a case of learn how to fly and then shoot down a couple of planes — this is really action-packed stuff. The graphics are pretty much run-of-the-mill for this type of game, with some sloppy characters and jerky screen scrolling. The sound is sparse, no tunes and only a few spot effects. If you like flight sims or you think you will if the right one comes along then you’ll probably get on with this.’

‘Now this is more like it! After my disappointment with ACE, I was glad to get my hands on a proper, fun-filled, action-packed flight simulator. Strike Force Harrier has all the makings of the best fight simulator on the Spectrum — even as good as Spitfire 40, another superb flight sim from Mirrorsoft. A superb manual is included in the package containing simple, easy to read instructions with neat diagrams to explain all the possible movements you can use for avoiding missiles, attacking HQ and so on. The manual is an essential read, but can be skimmed over if you’re very eager. The graphics are excellent and add to the realism. The plane itself is very fast reacting and behaves as you would expect a Harrier to behave — you even get your wings ripped off if you descend too fast. Strike Force Harrier is as near as most of us will get to flying a combat plane — and it’s a mighty bit cheaper and safer!’

COMMENTS

Control keys: almost every key on the keyboard used!
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: straightforward but effective
Graphics: jerky scrolling, but otherwise fast and realistic
Sound: average
Skill levels: three
General Rating: A flight sim with plenty to do — rather more demanding than most.

Use of Computer

83%

Graphics

81%

Playability

82%

Getting Started

85%

Addictive Qualities

84%

Value for Money

83%

Overall

83%

TENNIS

Producer: Imagine Software Ltd
Author: Choice Software Ltd
Price: £7.95

Did you thrill to Wimbledon this year? Do you dream that one day you too will beat Boris Becker or thrash Martina Navratilova in three straight sets? Well, Tennis, Imagine’s conversion of the Konami arcade game might help realise your dreams to some extent.

In this version of tennis, the computer can play singles with one player or doubles against two players fighting for keyboard space. Alternatively, two humans can fight it out, head to head. The scoring and rules are taken from real tennis, except the computer acts as umpire too, flashing decisions onto a central screen at the back of the court. There’s no room of argument: if the ball lands on a line then the shot is ‘in’; if it lands outside a boundary line the shot is ‘out’.

Players take it in turns to serve, with the service changing after each game. To serve, press fire to lob the ball into the air, and fire again to send the ball flying over the net. The timing of the second press of the fire button is crucial as it determines where the ball lands. If the ball lands ‘out’, the computer flashes a message onto the umpire screen and the server gets a second go. If you muck the second serve up as well then the point goes to your opponent.

The screen shows a tennis court as seen from the stands at one end. The direction keys or joystick control the movement of the player(s) on the court, and a prod of the fire button at the appropriate moment makes a shot — the stroke played depends on the direction in which the volleying player is facing.

During each game the score for each player or team is shown on the right of the court, and at the end of game the score is transferred to the main score board.

The audience watches anxiously from the very top of the screen. You must play your best as they’re all rooting for you in amongst the bottles of bubbly and strawberries and cream.

CRITICISM

‘After the delights of Imagine’s Ping Pong, I was hoping for an equally great follow up. Being both an avid table tennis player, and a bit of a tennis nut, I find it difficult to get excited about this game, especially as its sister program is so good. Compared to a good, challenging game of the real thing, Imagine’s version is more of a ‘knock the sponge ball over the washing line with a plastic bat’ game. Okay, so it scores correctly, follows the rules and has got all the lines in the right place, but the game itself is strongly lacking. Maybe fans of the arcade game (which I haven’t seen) will flip over this, but speaking as a fan of the real thing, I don’t like it much.’

‘Ping Pong was a bit of a let down for me, so I didn’t really expect much from this game and didn’t really get much either. As sports simulations go Tennis is about average in most respects — it doesn’t really bear much resemblance to the real thing but it is fairly good fun to play in short doses. The graphics are disappointing: the characters are undetailed and the pitch is dull. The sound effects are also a little on the bland side with only a few effects and some very annoying little tunes. I would only recommend this one to hardened sports simulation freaks, as it isn’t too compelling.’

‘I’m the self-proclaimed Number One fan of Match Point, and I felt my favourite tennis game could be under threat from Imagine — who have come out with loads of good sports simulations on the Spectrum. After playing their conversion of Konami’s Tennis for quite some time, I came away feeling that the game was lacking, both in the overall number of shots you can play and in overall realism. I found you had very little control, if any, over the type of shot you could play. The game always seemed to be on the move — if the computer player wasn’t moving frantically between 8 and 10 pixels to the left and right, it was the constant, uncontrollable tapping of your player’s foot on the court. I found this extremely irritating and tiring on the eyes. Tennis didn’t play properly: it takes a while to get used to the ball bouncing at different heights at the most unreal moments, and the players seemed to like the idea of running and hitting the ball at the same time. Graphically, this game far outbashes the old Psion game, but as to who gets the Match Point... Need I say more?’

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable: up, down, left, right, fire
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: mainly monochromatic
Graphics: not wonderfully detailed
Sound: burbly tunelet and spot beeps
Skill levels: one
Screens: just the court
General Rating: A disappointing tennis game — not the strongest of the Konami conversions by a long chalk.

Use of Computer

66%

Graphics

64%

Playability

59%

Getting Started

66%

Addictive Qualities

58%

Value for Money

59%

Overall

60%

TRAPDOOR

Producer: Piranha
Price: £7.95
Author: Don Priestley

It’s no fun being a minion — all that scampering around after a tireless master, very tedious. Poor old Berk the chef! Shut away in the bowels of a damp and gloomy castle, his sole vocation in life is to wait on his hungry master’s every whim.

The castle is very messy as well as being very damp and cold. With only Berk to tidy things up and lots of minor minions scampering around untidying it, the place soon becomes very disorganised. Berk must move around the rooms in the castle collecting the objects he needs to feed the boss. He can move left and right and in and out of the screen — much as the central character in Don Priestley’s previous games, Popeye and Benny Hill’s Madcap Chase moved around the playing area.

Berk’s master is a very impatient sort of fellow. At the bottom of the screen an Angry Meter monitors Thing’s mood — when the hungry one gets really furious on account of the delay, it cancels the order and demands something else.

A large trapdoor nestles in the start location, and all sorts of nasty beasties lurk in the dank region below it. Berk needs a specific trapdoor monster to complete each task. Apart from the useful objects and creatures, there are a lot of pests beneath the trapdoor.... Every time Berk opens the portal he has no way of telling what might leap out — it’s just a question of opening the hatch quickly and slamming it shut pronto if an undesirable beastie shoots out. Ghosts say Boo and startle Berk so much that he jumps to another room in the castle — they only go away if they’re fed. Watch out for the flame thrower monster because he’s very unkind to our Minion.

Cooking utensils and useful objects are scattered around the castle. Most are cunningly hidden inside other objects and Berk must pick things up and tilt them to get at hidden items. By using his small blue brain he must use objects and trapdoor monsters to produce the correct meal for Thing.

If Berk loses a vital object by dropping it down the trapdoor then his task cannot be completed, and he has to commit suicide by throwing himself into the void below the trapdoor...

Apart from the foes in them thar vaults, Berk does have some friends. Boni the skull is quite intelligent for a bodyless bag of bones. If Berk picks him up he usually says something useful and gives Berk a clue, but each bit of advice costs points. Drutt is a yellow spider that spends its time eating worms and generally being a pest. Other monsters and creatures wriggle and squirm their way around the castle, and some of them are ingredients!

At the end of the week, if Berk has correctly completed all his chores then he gets paid. Unfortunately, Thing is not a very trusting soul, and Berk’s wages are sent down in a fortified safe. If Berk wants to get at the money and have a wild night on the town with other Berks, then he must find out how to get inside the safe and claim his loot.

Berk starts out life in the castle as a trainee minion. If you choose the Superberk option them all manner of nasties leap out and make life incredibly miserable.

There’s just no pleasing some Grumpy Things.

Pink worms abound as a giant monster bounds around, frightening poor old minion Berk

CRITICISM

“With the immense, bright, colourful characters, Trapdoor is one of those games that grabs you immediately. Even though the game gets a lil’ bit monotonous after a few long sessions, you can always sit back and admire the terrific animation and amazing lack of colour clash. Most of the problems are relatively easy, providing you don’t mistake any objects for others. This can, and often does happen, and when it does, is very frustrating. Basically, Trapdoor is a very playable and addictive excellent game, with great graphics and fantastic colour.”

“To begin with, I must say that Trapdoor is not the game for serious people! The whole look of the game is extremely colourful, and Berk’s animation is excellent and smooth. The game is very simple in its layout, but very well drawn with lots of other squiggly colourful characters to follow you around and get in the way. The game seemed to me to be aimed at the same market as the TV series due to be broadcast this Autumn — young. It’s a pity really, as the idea of the game is very good but doesn’t involve any in depth thinking. I can’t really say that I went wild over Trapdoor, but the game is very smart in all aspects, including a cute tune. A game for the young and young at heart.”

“What a great game Trapdoor is! It is based on a very original idea and presented in an entertaining way, which makes it very playable and quite compelling. The graphics are astoundingly large and well defined: the characters move around agreeably and the backgrounds are detailed. The sound is on a par with the graphics — there are only a few spot effects during the game but the tune on the title screen is fantastic. The game at first is very easy... on the learner Berk level there are no nasties to kill you so you can have a good old stomp around the castle looking around and learning the layout of the rooms. I enjoyed playing Trapdoor as it is a playable and original game.”

Berk and the little yellow nuisance, Drutt the spider, are in the room with the trapdoor. Boni looks on inscrutably as a pink worm scampers off

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable: left, right, forward, back, drop, pick up, tip
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: good, responsive
Use of colour: excellent
Graphics: superb big characters, and great animation
Sound: very good title tune, with some nice in game effects
Skill levels: two: learner berk and super berk
Screens: 6
General rating: A very neat and original game with endearing graphics

Use of computer

89%

Graphics

91%

Playability

88%

Getting started

89%

Addictive qualities

85%

Value for money

86%

Overall

88%

TRIVIAL PURSUITS

Producer: Domark
Price: £14.95
Author: Oxford Digital Enterprises

If for some strange reason you didn’t get a copy of the board game Trivial Pursuit last Christmas then fret no longer. Domark have just brought out Trivial Pursuit — The Computer Game! It’s based very faithfully on the original board game with a few additions and adaptations for the computer.

Like the board game, the basic idea is for players to travel around the board answering questions and trying to collect six wedges, one for each subject. Instead of throwing dice, when a player has a go the fire button must be pressed to release a dart which lands in a numbered section of the screen. The player can then move his or her counter to the highlighted space on the board. Once a player’s token lands on a square a question is asked.

Well, the question isn’t actually asked by the computer but instead by a very cute little character called TP. TP dons different caps depending on which subject you are attempting. Questions in each subject can be straightforward text, graphical or musical, and when your choice is made, the little master of ceremonies scampers across to the school room and fires the question at you. TP is an agreeable little chap and is full of congratulations if you answer correctly and full of commiserations if you don’t. There’s no typing in to do — shout out the answer before the time limit expires and you are asked whether you got the correct answer or not. Keying Y for yes or N for no allows the game to progress.

An option menu heads up the game. The first thing to do is enter the names of the people playing, which governs the order of play. A game can be continued or restarted. To make things just that bit more competitive you can alter the amount of time available for answering a question. The real star of the show is TP, but he can be sent to bed if you want a bit of peace and quiet — after all his job is very tiring! You can also turn the sound down if you’re planning on playing late into the night and don’t want to keep the neighbours up.

Even though there are lots of questions in the basic game, eventually you will have attempted them all. When this happens, a new block of questions can be loaded from the second cassette in the package — and further cassettefuls of questions are promised.

The screen layout is very similar to actual board game. There are six sections, each representing the different question subjects which are Art and Literature, Science, Geography, History, Sport and Leisure and Entertainment. At the top of the screen in the right hand corner a chart shows how many wedges each player has won. When a set of six wedges has been collected the aim is to try to get to the centre of the board and complete the game by winning.

As in the board game, a player can only compete for a wedge when the counter has been landed on one of the subject headquarters. In the schoolroom TP asks you questions. A clock shows you how long you’ve been playing and a candle reveals how much time is left to answer the current question.

One feature on the computer game that isn’t present in the tabletop version is the score board which keeps track of each player’s performance and can be consulted at any stage to see how everything’s going and who’s currently in the lead.

Now, which sport was it in which there was an outcry when skirts were raised...?

One of the more visual questions asked during Domark’s conversion of Trivial Pursuits

CRITICISM

“Surely there isn’t anyone out there who hasn’t played the board game? Everyone who has ought to get into the computer version pretty quickly — it’s an excellent game. The most obvious problem of the questions occurring more than once in the same game seems to have been avoided quite well, and the option to load in more questions from cassette is there if you feel the need. Graphics are quite good, and though the board game of course has no sound. I think that the Spectrum version would have been better off without any, as some of the tunes are nigh impossible to recognise. Despite this, Trivial Pursuits is an excellent game, and everyone with a combination of brain and Spectrum ought to get a copy of this.”

“Trivial Pursuits seems to be the kind of game that will keep hundreds of families attached to their computers. I’m sure that it will have quite a cult following, but I feel that Trivial Pursuits is the kind of game that you either love or hate! The computer game is an excellent translation of the board version and keeps all the player participation that is so crucial in games of this ilk. The game features lots of useful options like the sound on/off and TP in action or not, and of course the option to load new questions which I felt was necessary if you were going to play the game more than once. TP is a very cute little character, and the way that he changes his hat for different subjects is a nice touch. As board games go, this is the best on the Spectrum, but you’ll have to be a dedicated player to enjoy it, as games can go on for hours if you’re not too clever.”

“Sadly Trivial Pursuits is one game that I have never played as it always seemed to be a bit of a waste of time. If the computer version is anything to go by, the original must be a scream. Graphics and sound are not usually hot points in games of this nature but they have really been made into a large part of this game, I think the success of playing this game largely depends on the people you play with, so if you don’t think you’ll be able to play in a large group you shouldn’t really cough up the fifteen quid that Domark are asking for it.”

The main board screen — TP has just lobbed the dart on Cam’s behalf and the lucky fellow is going to get a six!

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable: up, down, left, right, fire
Joystick: Kempston
Keyboard play: no problems
Use of colour: tidy
Graphics: clear — fine for a boardgame
Sound: basic, nothing superb
Skill levels: one — but additional question tapes will be available
Screens: main board screen plus menus and ‘visual’ questions
General rating: A very competent conversion of a classic game

Use of computer

88%

Graphics

87%

Playability

92%

Getting started

91%

Addictive qualities

92%

Value for money

86%

Overall

91%

UNIVERSAL HERO

Producer: Mastertronic
Author: Xcel
Price: £1.99

Captain Burt has only 7 seconds in which to save the world. How will he do it? Slowly the captain swivels his chair around and stares at you coolly. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says in a macho voice, ‘I have a plan…’

Poor old Burt is in a right pickle. A space freighter is out of control and determined to blow up. This in itself is quite an alarming prospect, but to add to the dilemma, if the freighter does go K A P O W then poor old Captain Burt will be stranded on a horrid asteroid and will never get back to Mother Earth. Not ever.

What a terrible position to be in! But there’s more. The space freighter is up in space and Burt is stuck on the asteroid. His only means of transport is a rather decrepit shuttle which just so happens to be broken. Contending with a pressing time limit, Burt must repair the shuttle, zoom off to a neighbouring planet, collect the spare parts for the ailing freighter and mend same before it explodes. Gasp! And all in seven seconds. As we said before, how will he do it?

The spare parts to mend the shuttle are scattered all over the asteroid and must be collected in order to get the shuttle back on the road, to mix a metaphor. This should be an easy task but most of the vital pieces of the shuttle are possessively guarded by various alien horrors and contact with them results in Burt’s valuable air supply being sapped away. At the start there are four air bottles, but these are used up pretty quickly as he hurtles around the space rock. However, to make sure Burt has something useful to inhale, new air bottles can be picked up along the way. Oxygen status is displayed at the top of the main screen. When the chart reaches the red section on the fourth bottle you know it’s going to be curtains for Burt very shortly.

Not all the objects on the asteroid are helpful and often you don’t know this until they are safely tucked up in Burt’s space suit pockets. Some are lethal such as the lump of Plutonium; some simply uncomfortable like the rough glass. Objects are picked up and stored by using the defined cursor keys and with nine pockets nine objects can be carried at one time. Objects can also be dropped and used when required and to know what’s carried, a key press reveals the Inventory.

To move around, Burt is equipped with a jet pack that can propel him to great heights or carry him over large chasms. The asteroid consists of a series of underground caverns, as well as the knobbly surface which hides many surprises and many dangers. Watch Captain Burt as he battles to save the world (and himself of course!) in all of seven seconds. Gee, what a hero!

CRITICISM

‘I was pleasantly surprised with Universal Hero. I found it very easy to get into and exciting to play. All the characters are extremely well detailed, with a great drawing of a Spectrum Plus in the Computer Room. The game revolves around putting items together and then using them to get other items, and is consequently very addictive, involving as it does the need for a quick mind as well as accurate moving. The ‘feel’ of the way that Burt moves around is excellent, but rather annoying when you actually bounce off ceilings and do not hover properly. Universal Hero is surprisingly smooth in its movement and is completely flicker free. A mass of Spellbound problems in a very complex game. Well worth the meagre two quid.’

‘Molecule Man was a very good game, excellent at the price. Looking at Universal Hero, I begin to ask myself, have Mastertronic turned over a new leaf? This game is good, not mega hyper ultra brill, but good, and excellent value for money. The puzzles are maybe a little simple, but the game plays well, and has addictiveness that more than justifies its meagre price. This is well worth buying, even if only because you won’t have to save up for it.’

‘It’s been a long time since I’ve seen cheap software as fun to play and as compelling as this. It plays in a similar way to many other problem solving games although the problems, initially simple, get very hard towards the end. Graphically this one rates quite highly as the backgrounds are very nicely detailed and the large and porky characters whizz around well. Colour, too, is used to maximum effect without any attribute clash. The sound would have been greatly improved if there was a tune on the title screen, but there are some spot effects which are reasonable. Universal Hero certainly offers great value for money, so I recommend it.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: great, very responsive
Use of colour: excellent
Graphics: very nice characters and good backdrops
Sound: nothing revolutionary
Skill levels: one
Screens: 128
General Rating: Well done Mastertronic!

Use of Computer

81%

Graphics

81%

Playability

84%

Getting Started

87%

Addictive Qualities

84%

Value for Money

90%

Overall

83%

ZYTHUM

Producer: Mirrorsoft
Author: David O’Conner
Price: £7.95

Into the mystical lands you must venture in search of the secret potion of Zythum. This is a very ancient type of beer which gives the partaker mystical powers and possibly even eternal life. It has been lost for centuries in this weird and wonderful landscape and many have searched for it before you, but it has never been found. One of the main reasons for this is that the country in which it is hidden is inhabited by various guardians who possessively guard the elixir.

Four separate landscapes have to be crossed during the journey to the potion location. Three lives are available, and a life is lost each time you make contact with one of the guardians that pursue you mercilessly on the journey — you return to the start of the current land when death comes...

Setting out with a burning desire to locate the Zythum you are equipped with a fist full of fire crackers and a limited number of bombs. Firecrackers seem to go on forever, but use the bombs sparingly because once they’re gone there ain’t no more. A magic staff that wards off evil spirits is amongst the useful objects that can be collected on the way: a chalice confers the power of levitation and a crucifix gives short term immunity from the custodians. Money bags and treasure chests are worth bonus points.

There’s no time to hang about and enjoy the scenery, however, as each of the four levels must be completed in just eight minutes. Take any longer and it’s back to square one. Apart from the custodians and guardians this country contains many natural dangers. Quicksands suck a hapless traveller to a sticky death while bottomless pits must be skillfully jumped over or else — wheee! Dead. Marsh mud sticks to your feet and temporarily saps jumping abilities, while spring pools send you cavorting into the air. Hidden landmines, buried in a sneaky attempt to get rid of unwanted travellers also have to be avoided. The vegetation is also a bit weird because some bushes make you invincible for a short while.

The action takes place in a scrolling window in the top half of the screen. An arrow points to your position on a map along the base of the screen, below the status area. It’d better be a good brew, this Zythum — you’ll need a good drink on arrival!

CRITICISM

‘At first, Zythum held a reasonable appeal for me. After playing for a length of time, though, things started to get crazily frustrating. The game seems to have been written so as to make it as unaddictive as is possible. If that was the author’s objective, then he’s certainly succeeded. The graphics are pleasant enough, but you really start wanting to belt the life out of your Spectrum when it kills you off pixels before the end of a stage and sends you right back to the beginning, time and again. The idea for Zythum isn’t the best ever conceived — but is definitely not the worst — though after playing the game you might need some convincing of that. Quite good in all its facets except addictivity. This isn’t a game I would recommend.’

‘I found that Zythum was well presented but lacked a very challenging or addictive game. The graphics are very detailed but the colour is completely wrong. The blue on white screen is very hard to see and strains the eyes. I felt that you had to be good at the game to really enjoy it, because the distance you have to cover to get anywhere in Zythum is quite large. The graphics are the most impressive part of the game, as they are large and recognisable but could have had some better animation to bring them alive. The game didn’t consist of much to keep me playing for long — it was just a case of judging distances and shooting baddies. Zythum is a very basic ‘up and down’ game that requires little mental ability and is very easy to leave.’

‘Oh no. Oh no! I can’t play this game any more; its just sooooooo frustrating, it’s unbelievable! A split second of misjudgement, and it’s back to the beginning again. Okay, so some games are equally as demanding in their necessity for accuracy, but they don’t penalise mistakes quite as harshly as Zythum does. The fact that it’s so maddening is quite a pity, considering the game has got so much potential for playability. Graphics are passable, and the scrolling is a bit unfortunate, but visually in every other respect, Zythum has no serious downfalls. Playing the game soon makes you realise that not everything that looks okay plays well. Such a pity, after the excellent Dynamite Dan II.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: mainly monochrome
Graphics: large and wiry
Sound: minimal effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: scrolling play area
General Rating: Zythum is a game which you may find appealing at first, but is frustrating when played to any great length.

Use of Computer

67%

Graphics

68%

Playability

66%

Getting Started

66%

Addictive Qualities

52%

Value for Money

53%

Overall

59%