Issue No. 36 1986/7

REGULARS

EDITORIAL

FEAR AND LOATHING
HUNTER S MINSON eats, drinks and merrily refuses to look back on the year...

THE CRASH SCRAPBOOK
A little festive fun, courtesy of the Doc Martened one and Cameron’s photo album...

FORUM
Catch Lloyd’s Hermes — in action, answering your latest batch of moans, groans and praise

ART GALLERY
Another quality collection of your binary art

HALL OF SLIME
Even more High Score gore

HANNAH SMITH’S PLAYING TIPS

LUNAR JETMAN
Seeing as it’s Christmas... a double dose of our loony hero’s crazy exploits

CRASH HOTLINE AND ADVENTURE CHARTS

TECH NICHE

TECH TIPS
Simon Goodwin peeks inside DATEL’s SNAPSHOT and ROMANTIC ROBOT’s GENIE PACKAGE for the Multiface I

ADVENTURE
JEWELS OF DARKNESS gets Smashed, and so does Derek as he gets into festive editorial mode

PLAY BY MAIL
Brendon Kavanagh looks at SATURNALIA

PREVIEWS

FEATURES

CRASH READERS’ AWARDS

LLOYD MANGRAM’S LOOKBACK
Lloyd casts his mind back over the last year and delivers his usual salvo of brickbats and bouquets

MUSIC FEATURE
Jon Bates makes sweet music with Spectrum

TAMARA KNIGHT
Part One of the bizarre odyssey of a teleporter salesbeing of the future...

FULL OF SPECULATION!
It seems the Spectrum isn’t the only computer capable of running Spectrum games, as SIMON GOODWIN discovers...

INTER-MAGAZINE CHALLENGE
The reviewers battle it out

A LIVERPUDLIAN INTERLUDE
The story behind the DENTON DESIGNS split

1986 INDEX
A handy guide to what went in CRASH last year

TAMARA KNIGHT
Part Two of Mel Croucher’s story of tomorrow’s yuppie

INSIDE LM
An overview of the people and the process which brought you the freebie...

GENESIS BIRTH OF A GAME
From conception through ‘pregnancy’ and now birth — KAT TRAP gets a full review...

DIY

WIN A FOOTBALL FORTUNE
£1,500 is waiting to be spent on a holiday. You could spend it...

THE STARGLIDER COMP
A monster glider to be won, plus lots of little ones

DEEP STRIKE
DURELL offers a radio controlled airplane, plus copies of the game

WIN A WALKMAN
HEWSONS offer a walkman and copies of FIRELORD

HOT OR COLD?
An INCENTIVE to go on holiday. £600 could be yours to spend

BIKES, COMPILATIONS and WALKMANS
Not one, but two chances to win, courtesy of ELITE

SOUND OUT
GREMLIN GRAPHICS are offering a MIDI HiFi and a GhettoBlaster; and games, of course

COLLECT A DISC DRIVE AND PRINTER
KONIX offer an OPUS Disc Drive and a Citizen 120D printer, as well as joysticks

ANOTHER CHANCE TO GO TO WAR
You could spend a day at Combat Zone along with PIRANHA

SHIRTS, RECORDS, BOOKS
Lots of goodies on offer from ARIOLASOFT

WIN A SOFTWARE WARDROBE
The Comps Minion has collected a host of goodies for you to win

SPEND SPRING IN PARIS
Well, a weekend at least; funded by INFOGRAMES

GENESIS — Birth of a Competition
Win an Oli original...

COLLECT A COMPACT CAMERA
Play Spot the puck in this XENO competition

Look out for the first CRASH of 1987. It’ll be in the shops on January 22nd

CRASH ABC FIGURE: 101,483 TOTAL
97,992 UK and EIRE

REVIEWS

- Academy CRL

- Adventure Adventure Software

- Avenger Gremlin

- Artist 2 Softek

- Breakthru US Gold

- Colossus Bridge CDS

- Contact Sam Cruise Microsphere

- Deep Strike Durell

- Eidolon, The Activision

- Fairlight II The Edge

- Future Knight Gremlin

- Jewels of Darkness Rainbird

- Kat Trap Domark

- King’s Keep Firebird

- KWAH Melbourne House

- Marble Madness Construction Kit Melbourne House

- Nosferatu Piranha

- Orbix The Terrorball Domark

- Rogue Trooper Piranha

- Shrewsbury Key Players

- Space Harrier Elite

- Speed King II Mastertronic

- Starglider Rainbird

- Tarzan Martech

- They Call Me Trooper CRL

- Terminus Mastertronic

- They Stole A Million Ariolasoft

- Zub Mastertronic

Publishers

Roger Kean, Oliver Frey, Franco Frey

Publishing Executive/Editor

Graeme Kidd

Assistant Editor

Lee Paddon

Sub Editor

Ciarán Brennan

Staff Writers

Lloyd Mangram, Hannah Smith

Adventure Editor

Derek Brewster

Tech Tipster

Simon Goodwin

Contributing Writers

Jon Bates, Brendon Kavanagh, John Minson

Production Controller

David Western

Art Director

Dick Shiner

Assistant Art Director

Gordon Druce

Illustrators

Ian Craig, Oliver Frey

Production

Seb Clare, Tim Croton, Mark Kendrick, Tony Lorton, Nick Orchard, Michael Parkinson, 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.

There isn’t a great deal to say at this festive time of year — apart from MERRY CHRISTMAS and a big thank you to everyone who has contributed to the fun.

It is traditional to speculate about the New Year and the goodies it will bring. We’ve seen the opinions of one or two people in the FORUM who reckon the Spectrum has just about reached the limits of its usefulness, given the capabilities of new machines that lurk just around the corner. Maybe the proliferation of high quality software that we’ve seen over the past few weeks will change the minds of these Scrooges — Spectrum owners are going to be spoiled for choice when it comes to Christmas shopping, compiling lists for Santa and spending present money in the January sales.

The Second Coming of dedicated Games Consoles, due any day now, is also supposed to be putting a nail in the Spectrum’s coffin. Unlikely, even if Ultimate Play the Game now prefer to be known as Rare Ltd and plan to commit software to the ROMs of game consoles to the exclusion of all else... The level of programming competence currently attained on the Spectrum isn’t suddenly going to be transferred to other machines, and there are plenty of people out there in the wide world who have not yet joined in the fun of playing games on the Spectrum. Now that software houses are paying more than lip service to the 128, games such as Starglider are beginning to show just what the race-tuned Spectrum can offer. Let’s just hope that Amstrad can sort out the teething problems that surround the integral cassette recorder before prospective purchasers look elsewhere...

We’re all looking forward to reviewing the new games of 1987 here in CRASH Towers. I hope you’re looking forward to playing them!

MORE PARTIES... AND A CRYSTAL BALL

The phone is ringing. “Got a little job for you, Minson. Like you to do an end of the year article. Make it double length. Plenty of time. Don’t need it till the end of this week.”

Goddam, they want me to wind up ’86, and because magazines don’t just appear out of nowhere, I’m still in the process of struggling with November. Okay, then — let’s tackle that before Hunter S gets serious and actually talks about (wouldja believe?) computing.

It was about this time last year that I got chucked out of the Savoy Hotel in London. The occasion was the National Computer Games Championship. Well, the Championship was here again, but the Savoy had refrained from potting its spruce until after the event, so no Xmas pin-up piccie, I’m afraid.

No — this time my problems arose from the labyrinthine nature of the Savoy’s basement. As I wandered I began to experience that feeling of despair, well known to adventurers who make the mistake of straying into the ‘dark forest by the roadside’ then find that ‘Go North’ no longer helps.

TERRY WEIGHT

When I finally did find my way out of the maze, it was into a blaze of light. Television cameras were rolling as Cuddly Dave Carlos, his beard specially trimmed for the occasion, announced the contestants. The effects was most amusing — rather like Terry Waite, to whom Dave bears more than a passing resemblance, compereing Miss World.

Talking of Miss World, the lovely Janice Gallagher dragged me out of the spotlights, explained that they didn’t want to do an in-depth interview with me quite at that moment, and propelled me towards the bar. She also told me that the game that was being used in the final was Cop Out, the brand new one from Mikro-Gen, who celebrated their fifth birthday while I was doing in depth research in Sweden (see the forthcoming article in LM — if I ever get it together).

This omnipotent organ had neglected to enter a contestant, so who won was almost incidental to the extremely well-stocked bar. Almost, I say, because though the victor was an Amstrad person (yawn), he was the official POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY candidate. Now, as the sharp eyed amongst you will know, I write for PCW. In fact, they were almost the first computer title to print my reviews, so I have a great sentimental attachment to them.

Better still, the champion David Litherland comes from Horwich, which lies next to Bolton, ’oop north in Lancashire. Bolton just happens to be my home town, and I know the cosmopolitan charms of Horwich too. So to David I say, congratulations... and don’t worry, you too may escape like I did!

Actually, I almost had much more to say to him, owing to an oversight on somebody’s part. You see, when it looked like The Battling Boltonian was a dead cert, Carlos started searching for a PCW representative... only to find there wasn’t one. Such are the pressures of producing a weekly, they’d planned to roll up at the very last minute!

Chaos reigned. It was even suggested that I should act on behalf of the magazine, but I declined and instead suggested that Carlos should get on the dog and bone immediately. Which he did, summoning the very lovely Christine Erskine herself. She arrived, slightly out of breath, to pat their man’s back.

JOYSTICK WIMPS

Competition of a different sort the following day. Mike Baxter, had invited the press, magazine advertising staff and even his Auntie down to that almost trendy cross between a restaurant and a television showroom; The Video Cafe.

The excuse for this bash was the Konix Speedking joystick, an object which resembles nothing more than that most tuneless musical instrument, the ocarina. For some reason, Konix wanted the gentlemen of the press to try and destroy two of these things.

Now there is only one way of killing a joystick for many people, and that’s that classic of wrist action, Daley Thompson’s Decathlon. And as an added incentive, whoever scored highest in this test of waggling could win a weekend for two in Amsterdam.

The whole lunch was most revealing. Everybody wanted to go to Amsterdam, of course. But when it came to coming forward — well, everyone seemed a little behind. Could it be that all these editors and star writers were shy of their games playing prowess?

The atmosphere was like a superpowers summit. Everyone was trying to do deals with each other. “Look, I’m brilliant at this game, but I won’t compete so that you can win but only if you promise to take me with you.”

But not for me such cowardly tactics. I’d been in training for this event for weeks. I’d been out jogging (once). I’d done press ups (four of them). I’d taken every type of anabolic steroid I could find in Boots. And... unfortunately, I’d neglected to play the game.

Yes — as I sat at a sweaty Spectrum I realised that I’d never played Decathlon before! I’d socked it to Supertest, I’d sweltered in the Summer Games; I’d waggled my stick all Winter... but I’d dumped out on Decathlon. This did mean that while I was okay on the tests of speed, like the sprint, I had no idea what I was doing when it came to the jumping events.

My performance was hardly Chariots of Fire. More Skateboards of Hot Air really. But it still placed me about fourth. Now, this all raises a question of journalistic ethics. Just how much do I tell you about the performances of my fellow hacks? I fear I must be discreet.

There was one journo who made a feeble excuse about having lots of work to do back at the office, just before his turn. No names, mind — just let’s say he was the ‘eminence gris’ of another Sinclair publication. Probably had to get back to await the arrival of the Loki and check the photofiles for more pictures of NEWSFIELD Reviewer-Champion Ben Stone at the ZX Microfair to print in his organ!

And what about the editor who managed to come last? Perhaps he would be happier editing SMASH HITS after all! The weekend in Amsterdam went to the YOUR COMMODORE competitor though. Obviously a man who gives his right wrist lots of exercise.

The real winners were the joysticks. Not only did they stand up to the action, their easy switching meant that it was possible to go for that Coe burst of speed and maintain it. Driven on to greater things, Konix is at this very moment inventing a robot joystick destructor, and is inviting you, the public, to guess how long a Speedking will endure this bionic bashing.

If you’d like to win £100, whizz off your estimate to Konix, and mark it Daley Thompson’s Decathlon Test. Don’t forget your name and address and do mention that Hunter S sent you. You’d better be quick off the mark, because the big event is happening in early January.

“LUNCHBREAKS”

That brings us up to date, apart from one thing... it seems that Micronet’s Slasher has done a far better job digging up the dirt on Minson than the late, unlamented Shadow ever did in ZZAP!

From what I hear, he got the facts right, including how I used to howl with an obscenely named punk band who made the Mary Chain sound sophisticated, and (worse still) my involvement with an Amstrad word processor magazine!

Well done then, Slasher, I bear you no grudge at all, and certainly wouldn’t dream of being the Gremlin that blew your anonimity, now that you’re a Bourne-again gossip!

So that’s the way the year will end, if not with a BANG (RIP), certainly not with a whimper either. There’s just the round up of Christmas parties to come, and don’t worry — I’ll be there, drinking Bloody Marys and getting into dangerous craziness.

But before I get too out of my head on every heinous substance known to mankind, I want to try and look back at ’86. No I don’t. CRASH wants me to look back at ’86. I want to look forward into ’87.

The delectable Clare Edgeley, once an EMAP staff writer, now a RAINBIRD person. Hear her dulcet tones on the 128K version of STARGLIDER

CONSOLEATION?

1987, we are told, will be the year of the games console revival. Atari is back with the buggers, and Ariolasoft is putting its weight behind Sega’s machine, while the Nintendo contender is also on the way over here. 1987 or ’82?

What does it all mean? For one thing, the division between players and programmer is out in the open, once and for all. There was a great lie about computers: “But if I don’t have one, how can I learn to program, and if I don’t learn to program, I won’t be prepared for the (gasp!) Silicon Revolution.”

Now I, for one, have never been convinced that learning where LOAD and two quotation marks lie on a keyboard counts as programming. But it’s enough for all the people who use these three keystrokes to unleash the fearsome power of shoot em ups and adventures.

The plain fact is that many people don’t give a twopenny damn about how structured their BASIC is. And this is what the console manufacturers and distributors are counting on. Gamers just want to have fun.

Ahh, but I can hear the cries and shouts of the hacking brigade already as their champion, the charming Hannah Smith, takes up the challenge. “But what about the cheat pokes, which are amongst the most popular features in the magazines?”

Typing in twenty lines of code from a magazine is as much like programming as copying twenty lines of Romeo and Juliet is to becoming Shakespeare. It’s only a minority who actually analyse the code for the benefit of others. The consoles, with their vast RAMs and instant loading are set to kill the games computers with their limited sound and colour, like the Spectrum. Or are they?

1987 is supposed to be all explosions and wrecked joysticks, even if there are no more infinite lives. But by losing that minority of freaks, weirdos and eggheads who actually like to sit up all night, up to their elbows in code, the console manufacturers are also losing the people who have made the Spectrum what it is today.

Just take a look at a 1983 Spectrum game and you’ll see what I mean. Sure, it will still be playable — addictive for a while, even — but comparable with today’s programs? Do leave it out!

The history of Spectrum programming is littered with milestones; programs that did the impossible with the humble machine. Lords of Midnight with its apparently infinite landscape. Starstrike 3D with its superfast vector graphics. Even utilities like The Quill, which turned everyone into adventure writers. Sure, you can buy these titles on other machines. But they originated on the Spectrum, and there’s a sense of excitement about the machine — far more than any other micro. Back bedroom boffins sweated into the early hours to learn code, just so they could bring you Manic Miner or Arcadia. They pounded away at rubbery keys to push the machine forward.

ON THE BLOWER

But where are the consoles’ keyboards? If they become available at all, it will be as optional extras, at some unspecified later date. As to saving your efforts to tape — no way! This is the age of the EPROM blower. Even if you can afford that little extra, you could well find that you can’t sell your programs direct. First you’ll have to get a licence from the distributor. Who will in turn have to get the, ‘Ha-so! Ho-key!’ from Japan.

The consoles symbolise one of the things that is wrong with this world; the big boys taking over. But the big boys don’t necessarily know what you, the individual, want. At the moment they think it’s shoot ’em ups and driving games and platforms and ladders. Noisy shoot ’em ups. Fast driving games. Colourful platforms and ladders. But if you’ve already cut the teeth on the Spectrum, you’ll have been through that stage already.

If you want these games, they’re already available, a lot cheaper than they’ll be in cartridge form. And when you get tired of zapping the BEMs, your Spectrum lets you move onto something a little more sophisticated. They say that there are only seven plots in the whole of literature. That means there are about five in gaming. And the consoles want to restrict you to three of them!

THE MIGHTY FALLING?

Consoles won’t take over but big things seem set to happen in the world of computing. In the last couple of months rumours have abounded concerning the impending collapse of certain software companies. We are not just talking little league here, but about big boys. Companies which own several labels. Companies which used to top the charts. Companies who have been around since the beginning.

I don’t intend to name names. The software industry is always full of rumours, so it wouldn’t be fair. And there are the laws of libel to consider. But I wouldn’t be in the least surprised that in three or four months time things looked very different.

It’s another example of businesses getting too big; out of hand and out of touch. A big company has to put out products to convince the punters that it’s big. Unluckily it then screws itself by not giving the programmers time to develop games. It backs movies in expensive tie-ins... only to have the game appear nine months after the movie has flopped.

The year has produced some great games, but the weeks leading up to Christmas have produced some turkeys too! There have been games which have attempted to do the impossible, sadly proving that yes, the Spectrum does have its limits.

I don’t know what will happen in ’87 but I’m rather worried. The Spectrum is an old machine. We can only push it so far in any one direction before it shows its age. Perhaps the time has come for the bedroom boffins to get back to work, free from the pressures of tie-ins, and for more time to be spent on original game design. Because if this industry does contract, it means me, and many more like me, may have to buy their own liquid lunches!

A Merry Christmas and let’s hope it’s a Happy New Year too.

Hunter S Minson

Hannah goes shopping for a man and comes back with... Cam!

A rosy cheeked Girlie Tipster...

... keeps sharp with a pinch of Granny Grunge’s Ludlow snuff

‘I’d much rather have a cup of tea any time’ says Boy Sumpter, busking in his best frock

The Doc Martened One sports a No 1 crop...

... meanwhile here’s a hairy editor we prepared earlier

The photo the News of the World dare not print...

Mr Puniverse is lent a mystery hand

Lee Paddon prepares to get to grips with Sam Fox’s Strip Poker

EDITORS AT PLAY: 1

Failing to find a phone box, YOUR SINCLAIR’s Ed Kevin Cox gets into Superman mode

EDITORS AT PLAY: 2

David ‘Greta Garbo’ Kelly, SINCLAIR USER’s Ed wants to be alone

Before he got into labels seriously Ben Stone modeled Crash T shirts

... now he models tree frogs

EDITORS AT PLAY: 3

Oy, I told you not to let my octopus near that Old Flatulence Bitter — he’s nearly legless

The Christmas FORUM and not a single Christmas card! What a disappointment — but it’s still the middle of November, so there’s plenty of time left for people to send in cards for me to hang up above the fireplace in my cottage.

The big rush to get the Christmas Special ready in time is in progress at the moment, so without further ado, on with the letters... this month I couldn’t find a missive that really deserved the £20 prize — let’s hope the quality of letters improves in 1987!

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Dear Lloyd,
We own a computer fanzine called THE SPECTRUM BUG. These people work in it: John David (me); Simon Calvert; Russel Goulbourne; ‘The Packer’, who packs in our mail-order department and many more.

It contains news, letters, hints, reviews, programs, and loads more. It costs 50 pence a month or £7.00 a year.

It’s best to buy it for a year because if you buy it every month you might not get a copy ...
John David

I understand Hannah has plans to take another look at fanzines early next year, so budding publishers should make sure she has the latest issues of their magazines. Still no news on the YOUR SINCLAIR fanzine competition — even though our beloved Editor entered at the PCW Show having spotted a copy of CRASH in the collection of fanzines they used to illustrate the competition page....
LM

ROLE PLAY REQUEST

Dear CRASH,
After reading your magazine(s) since you started way back then, I felt that I should pen (type??) a letter.

I have noticed recently a trend towards role-playing, Play By Mail and so on. I am in some respects glad about this. Really, role-playing has lost its last reasonable forum. Most magazines are either very poor quality or house-based, making a bias towards the publisher’s products. So why don’t you publish properly a RPG/PBM magazine? I’m sure it will be nicely subscribed to — there is a need for it. So dear nice Newsfield how about it??

The PBM column is, I admit, interesting but it seems to make out that the professional money-making games are the only ones worth bothering about. How about the amateur ones, especially those run by fanzines. These are on the whole free, only costing a stamp. They are by no means ‘unprofessional’ but very interesting and enjoyable. Ones I play in are Toon II by Tome of Horrors; The Land under Sewars and I am about to join Karush in Telegraph Road.

So why not give the amateur games an outlet? How about making a games directory, listing all PBM games, costs and who to contact in a similar fashion to the software directory in the first few issues of CRASH, which listed all the games written before the magazine was published, remember the one?
Stephen Oliver

Just at the moment, everyone is concentrating on LM — and you should have spotted the results of all that effort by now! The New Year could bring some surprises on the PBM front, but The Powers That Be rarely tell me anything... except that I can’t have a pay rise!

As for amateur PBM games — if you run one, drop Brendon Kavanagh a line and tell him all about it. He’s already covered some ‘amateur’ football games in his column.
LM

ABYSMAL!

Dear Lloyd,
I am writing to tell you how abysmal your reviewers are, and not so amazingly brilliant as Paul Bell seems to think in his rather creepy letter in October (hoping to win his £20 of software). But I bet there are people like me who every month read your mag, see a CRASH Smash, think ‘oh great!’, buy it, play it and think what an abysmal game and think of the £10.00 that has just been wasted. A few games that spring to mind are: Starstrike 2, Zoids, Jack the Nipper, Pentagram, Gunfright, Nightshade, Batman, Winter Games and Sweevo’s World.

Don’t try getting out of it by saying I’m a miserable sod who doesn’t like anything, because there are smashes which are very good: Dynamite Dan 2, Robin of the Wood, Quazatron, Elite, Bombjack, Commando, Shadowfire and more.

But you cannot get away from the fact that your reviews are abysmal, and I think take too much notice of the Producer eg Ultimate for Pentagram, Ocean for Batman, Gargoyle for Sweevo’s World. Now can you imagine Ultimate getting anything but a CRASH Smash? Wouldn’t that be a surprise? But I bet it won’t happen no matter how abysmal the games are that they write.

While I think about abysmal games, Superbowl springs to mind. (85% indeed, I’ve never played such a ridiculous game). If any software houses are listening, please write an American Football game, in the same sort of way as Matchday and World Series Basketball. As American Football is becoming ever more popular in England I’m sure that a game like this would go down very well. The only company I could see doing this would be Ocean/Imagine.

I somehow don’t think you’ll publish this, but show this letter to your reviewers and see what they think.
Nick Clemons
PS I do think that your reviews are very good, long and detailed — they’re just ALWAYS WRONG.

ALWAYS WRONG indeed! What about the reviews for Dynamite Dan 2, Robin of the the Wood, Quazatron, Elite, Bombjack, Commando, Shadowfire ‘and many more’.

Then you go on to say that the reviews are very good... some internal inconsistency in your argument here, I think. No doubt other readers will wish to have their say in due course.
LM

DOING THE SUMS

Dear Crash!,
Do I have a story to tell or do I have a story to tell? Sitting comfortably are we, then I shall begin.

It all started a week before Issue 34 of CRASH was due to be in the shops. I usually receive my CRASH a week before the shops (I don’t know if other folk do also), so as you can imagine I was eagerly awaiting the rattle of the letter box. Well I waited and waited but it didn’t come. I thought this very strange, as CRASH have been very good in delivering to my door. Anyway, as I was thinking over the situation in the living-room, I happened to glance at the local newspaper and Gasp! Shock! Horror! on the front page in bold writing it said ‘Postal Strike Hits Dundee’. Pulling my hair out in desperation I took it for granted that this was the reason why my CRASH hadn’t been delivered. So I waited patiently ’til the strike was over thinking I would receive my CRASH any day, but, after a few days I still hadn’t received it and decided to investigate.

More problems hit me as I couldn’t find the piece of paper with my Mystical Number and when my Subscription ran out. Luckily I remembered I had written my number on an offer in the magazine months ago but hadn’t sent it, so digging through past copies, I found my number and remembering the Mystical formula for finding out if your subscription is running out, I added 11 to my number which started CP22, and found to my dismay that it had indeed ran out and CRASH wouldn’t be coming through my door till I sent another cheque through the post. So here is a warning to all other CRASH subscribers. Don’t let this happen to you and always check your number.
Luv and kisses, G Brown

A cautionary tale indeed, Mr Brown.
LM

THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE

Dear Sir,
I am writing in defence of the Spectrum 128, and also to tell PA Rosbotham to read manuals and books before making crap statements about computers of which he knows nothing about.

1. If Spectrums (48K) are so outdated, why do software companies still write brilliant games for them? I admit that the sound on the Spectrum 48K is not up to scratch but the graphics are improving all the time. Take Lightforce — somehow there are no attribute problems, and it looks as good as anything on the Commode (whoops!) Commodore.

2. With regards to the 128’s sound, I admit that the first few games lacked imagination, but after buying Glider Rider I forgot about those. If you talk to the sound chip using OUT commands you can control the three channels in 128 sound and also control BEEP at the same time, meaning you could have 4 to 5 channel sound — better sound than the C64. The 128 sound chip can play while pictures and text are running on the screen.

3. I would also like to point out that both the 48 and 128 Spectrums are more ‘user’ friendly than any of the Commodores could dream of being. This is because of the old fashioned BASIC that Commodore have included in their machines.

4. A last word for P A Rosbotham. Before dragging Sinclair’s name through the mud, think about how many Commodore computers have been unsuccessful or crap!. On the crap side there’s the VIC 20. On the unsuccessful side there’s the Commodore 128. Mr Rosbotham should learn to read and listen before he writes next time.
Matthew Martin

A strong rebuttal of Mr Rosbotham’s views indeed, Matthew. Another letter from the pen of Mr R appears in the FORUM this month — he anticipated the outcry his last missive would generate...
LM

‘PROPER REVIEWS’ REQUESTED

Dear Lloyd,
I have brought CRASH since Issue No 1 and never had any complaints before, but Lloyd what’s happening? Glider Rider by QUICKSILVA received a review rating of 92% for the 128K version and wasn’t CRASH Smashed. To quote CRASH “If only software houses would write games for the 128 it might become as popular as the 48.”

Well come on CRASH, if only you gave 128 games proper reviews, then the 128 might become accepted by games freaks.

Also, at the top of reviews could we have an indication as to machine compatibility as per the old days eg. 48k — 48/128K — 128K, as I have purchased several games reviewed by CRASH which will not load on the 128.
128s rule, A R Woodley

We decided that putting a CRASH Smash logo on the Glider Rider review might have lead to confusion as it was only the 128K version that was worthy of the accolade. This month, you will notice, Starglider from Rainbird is a Smash for both versions of the Spectrum and we have made this as obvious as possible.

As for supporting and reviewing 128K games, cast your mind back to our review of Knight Tyme — the ‘first 128K Smash’. The whole question of machine compatibility is complicated by the fact that there have been several issues of the 128K machine already and it is difficult to be definitive. All new games should be compatible with most 128s and the 48 Spectrums — it’s the older games where the problems seem to lie.
LM

FOOTBALL DEBATE

Dear Sir,
As a subscriber for two years running, and a loyal fan of CRASH magazine, I decided to send you this letter to complain about a certain review in Issue 33 regarding Addictive’s Head Coach. I purchased this game some time ago at the PCW show, and was astounded by its qualities in keeping the user totally involved at all times by calling the plays and deciding match tactics, as well as by trading deals between matches. What amazed me the most was the up-dating each season of the statistics, including the player’s ages, season record, overall record, super-bowl victories and so on.

On reflection, your adverse comments coupled with pathetic ratings in the various categories baffled me completely. If you cast your mind back to the Football Manager game, one can find many annoying elements — each season, players’ skills/energy get changed and also the graphics are no better than your flimsy review of Rugby Manager. Yet Head Coach at least gives the user a fair representation of the game, if indeed it is only stick men graphics.

While on the subject of comparisons, the league fixtures in Football Manager leave a lot to be desired as a team is only played once and not home and away. And as for the other teams’ scores, they sometimes resemble a rugby league match. Meanwhile at least Head Coach attempts to make some effort by printing out decent scores, and by randomising league fixtures so that there is a constant variety of opponents, depending on league success.

Anyway putting these various points aside, my main bone of contention is that if you can give Football Manager a 100% review or thereabouts, then Head Coach should follow close behind. Before I sign off, my personal opinion is that Head Coach may lack some of the rules of American Football (such as 4 downs to make 10 yards), but I’ll reckon 80% of the fans of American Football would love this game. I suggest you pick another wally who at least likes American Football and give the game what it deserves... A DECENT REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!
J T F Hooley

The best thing I can do in the circumstances, is to hand over temporarily to Dominic Handy — our in-house American Football afficianado and the driving force behind the review in question...

I’m sorry that you didn’t like the review of Head Coach John — I can assure you that all the reviewers like American Football and I, at least, am sure of the rules and know plenty about the game. When comparing the Football Manager to Head Coach, you must realise that there was a completely different review team then, with a different editor — and the magazine was relatively new. You must also take into account that programming techniques and knowledge have improved since 1984. The review of Head Coach was written as an assessment of a simulation game. To be a good simulation game, the program must be written accurately with proper attention to the rules and regulations of the sport involved — and it has to be said that Head Coach is very inaccurate as far as rules go — you say that it lacks the rule allowing 4 downs for 10 yards. This is the backbone of the whole game: the whole point of it is to progress down the pitch in the right number of downs. You also say that the graphics are as good as, if not better than Football Manager, yet the ratings are worse — surely if all reviews were compared to old games then most new games would be Smashes? I think it is much better to compare with present day standards. As to 80% of American Football fans liking it, I must disagree, as any knowlegable fan would be annoyed with the amateurish way in which it was written. You only have to look at Argus Press Software’s American Football to see how good the game could have been. Lastly, I must stress that the criticism that appeared in our review was a personal opinion from American Football fans.

Thank you Dominic.
LM

REPAIRSHOP BLUES

Dear Lloyd,
A Warning: All spectrum owners with joysticks, printers or anything else which uses your expansion port please read on...

I have sent my Spectrum to Mancomp LTD, three times (unreliable Spectrum). The first and second times they did a good job of it and I was pleased, so when I had another problem I sent it to them again. This time when it came back, horror of horrors, I found a piece of printer paper saying that I couldn’t use my joystick, printer or anything else for three months (that’s why this letter is typewritten and not thermally printed). What can I do for three months without my peripherals? (answers on a postcard please...).
Trevor Wright

It seems a few repair firms are putting stickers over the expansion port when they’ve fixed a Spectrum. An awful lot of faults are caused by people connecting or disconnecting peripherals while the power is on, or wobbling the connection during a frantic session of alien-zapping. This tends to cause the tracks to short out, and can result in damage to the works of the computer.

I don’t think Mancomp actually mean you CAN’T use a printer — it’s more likely that they mean they won’t repair your computer under their three-month warranty if you do plug something into its expansion port. Whether this approach is entirely ‘fair’ is open to question. Any repair firms like to comment?
LM

DOWNSIDE UP

G’day Sport!,
I must say that I find your magazine interesting, full of hidden messages and cryptic information.

F’rinstance, from page 162 of your November issue it’s obvious that Palace Software’s Sacred Armour of Antiriad was programmed down under in good ol’ Oz. Ah well, back to the old amber nectar.

Cheers, Bruce.
Martin Dunn

No. Just a slight Antipodean inclination (LMLWD) ‘down’ in ART!
LM

CHARTWATCHING

Dear Lloyd,
Having read all the complaints about 3D games, Ultimate, and the complaints about reviewers and how they review, I decided to compile the overall CRASH Hotline Top 30 chart for all 33 issues, and it turned out like this.

1. Elite 92%

2. Bombjack 92%

3. Commando 94%

4. Batman 92%

5. Jack the Nipper 93%

6. Lunar Jetman 95%

7. Green Beret 88%

8. Everyone’s a Wally 93%

9. Jet Set Willy 93%

10. Atic Atac 92%

11. Match Day 86%

12. Ghosts n Goblins 95%

13. Codename Mat 93%

14. Exploding Fist 92%

15. Quazatron 94%

16. Knight Lore 94%

17. Shadowfire 96%

18. Spy Hunter 89%

19. Alien 8 95%

20. Frank Bruno’s Boxing 86%

21. Sabrewulf 91%

22. Fairlight 93%

23. Manic Miner

24. Underwurlde 92%

25. Starstrike 93%

26. Zoom

27. Chequered Flag

28. Hypersports 92%

29. Starquake 96%

30. Jet Pac

Out of the first 17, only 2 didn’t get a CRASH Smash, and out of 30, only 7 didn’t receive his great accolade. Four of the seven were so close that people shouldn’t be complaining about having the reviewers’ names (initials) next to their comments, because the ‘jury’ of three usually get it right. The other three games I do not think were reviewed, but if they were I am certain that they would have got exceedingly high marks, because they were all very good games at the time they were brought out.

Then there are all the people who complain about Ultimate. If you look at the Top 30, Ultimate have 7 out of the Top 30 games. Who says they don’t produce brilliant games? The people who read CRASH voted for this chart so you can’t complain.

The three games which have had most of the arguments against them are all in the Top 30, so it isn’t surprising that Ultimate, and other companies like them, are using this format.

So stop complaining because you can’t do anything about it, and for a change can’t we have some constructive comments?
John Hewitt

An interesting statistical analysis, John. I am forced to agree with all your sentiments. The next correspondent, however, puts forward a different viewpoint...
LM

BAD OLD DAYS

Dear Lloyd,
I agree with Robert Hayden’s letter in last month’s CRASH. I paid out a fiver for games like Maziacs and Escape which are pure garbage. The only quality the games had was the artwork on the inlay cards. I don’t know why people grumble about games costing £10.00 — take a look at some of the new budget games available. I have recently purchased Molecule Man from Mastertronic and Pro Golf from Atlantis which are two of the most accurate and enjoyable games I have ever played. At only £1.99 they are both great value for money.

Lastly, you’d better get your comp’s minion seen to by a doctor. The Shaolin’s Road spot the difference competition only seemed to have one difference!! (probably a printing error) which was a tiny dot on the man on the right hand side’s head!
Ronald Henderson

Generally you get what you pay for. Sometimes you get more than you pay for — in the case of Knight Tyme perhaps — and other times you get less — Great Space Race et al.

The lack of differences wasn’t really the downtrodden Minion’s fault — someone ‘Up in ART’ was doing his very best to present the drawing in the most gorgeous way and slipped up, putting the same picture in twice. Words have been exchanged, and the competition re-run. Sorry for the eyestrain it caused...
LM

AGEIST COMPETITIONS POLICY!

Dear Lloyd,
I must write to you (which I already have) concerning competitions in CRASH — the problem is age groups. You see, although many readers of CRASH are pretty old, (17+) I am only 11. I have been reading CRASH since Issue 1, and have every issue so far. I love entering competitions, and I enter quite a lot of them, but now I am wondering whether should carry on, because every time I enter, I’m beaten by people who are about 10 years older than me (especially in drawing comps). I have no chance. Okay, I am quite good at drawing and answering competitions, but not as good as people who are twice as old. I have written before about age groups. That is what you need! (10–15, 15–20, 20+). Please consider this point, because there are other young kids out there!
Nick Drewett

A reasonable point, Nick. I have a feeling that our Competition Minion would panic if we told him that from now on there would be three age groups for event competition — the extra administration involved in effectively running three competitions for every one would be enormous!

As it is, we do try to have a mix of competition types, including simpler wordsquares and spot the differences, where age isn’t really a barrier to winning. Admittedly, the older you are the better you are likely to be at drawing and we do try to take into account ages of entrants when compiling the list of runners up. I seem to remember a six-year-old getting an ‘honourable mention’ in a Frank Bruno Boxing competition many moons ago, for instance.

I’d be interested to hear other readers’ comments on the subject of competitions.
LM

CRASH MEGA-BEINGS

Dear Lloyd,
I am writing to you in confusion. I recently decided to purchase an NLQ printer, and with it a ‘shiny’ new wordprocessor, to replace my ageing Tasword II.

In the search for enlightenment as to which wordprocessor to buy, I delved through my CRASH back issues and came up with the August 1986 TECH NICHE.

I avidly pored over the pages, absorbing the wisdom there abounding, but to what end? I was still as uncertain as to the best purchase.

Now I am well aware that, as with most things, it is very much a case of each to his own. But surely having been locked in a broom cupboard for a few days with only bread, water and a Spectrum (man cannot live by bread alone), Mr Handy could have come up with something less ambiguous than:

At the end of the Tasword III review, “There is no doubt in my mind Tasman have now definitely got the top spot as far as wordprocessors go”.

And then going on to say at the end of The Writer review, “Any self-respecting Spectrum owner who wants a wordprocessor should definitely go out and get The Writer”.

So which is it? buy both and use them on alternate days? We mere mortals look toward the omnipotent mega-beings at CRASH, keepers of the ‘Eye-of-Oktup’ for guidance. Surely, since Mr Handy (maybe not so handy after all!) had the opportunity to give these packages a good going over, he could have made a closing recommendation, and left the final decision to us.
S Young

I think the final decision is still probably up to you. Dominic was clearly very impressed with both packages, and as something of a wordprocessor collector, is the kind of fellow who would have purchased both....

Dom tells me that both packages can drive a printer through the RS232 port on Interface I — and reckons that Tasword III would probably be the better bet for you, seeing as you already have Tasword II. Thus speaks a Mega-Being...
LM

BARBARIC CRUELTY

Dear Sir,
Why did you review the Ole Toro computer game from Americana? And why did you not condemn the subject matter? I enclose a recent review of the game from one of your rivals, C&VG magazine, which should have been your attitude to this appalling game.

In your next issue, perhaps you should print a full page colour picture of a scene from this ‘sport’, or perhaps send out videos of a bullfight. CRASH readers will then be able to see what really happens here, with the BLOOD and the GORE and then make up their minds whether or not they should buy Ole Toro.
R C Fortune

Hmm. Like Tim Metcalfe, editor of C&VG who wrote the review, you obviously hold strong views on cruelty to animals — and sign your letter ‘Project Basilisk’. You do have a valid point about bull fighting, which I would never seek to defend, but I cannot agree with your suggestions. I don’t much like being told what my attitude should be, either.

We reviewed Ole Toro because it is a computer game — a computer game which doesn’t glorify the violence of bull fighting. Had it done so, we may have felt it appropriate to pass comment. You and Tim are both entitled to your opinions, but ‘reviewing’ a game and doing nothing but condemn its subject material doesn’t seem very positive to me. 0/10 across the board because you disagree with the basic scenario of a game seems very negative...

To take your argument to its logical conclusion, we should print horrific pictures of human mutilation with every wargame reviewed in FRONTLINE — pictures of SS torture with the review of The Great Escape, and pictures of the results on human beings of aerial bombing with just about every flight simulator. And so on. The magazine would become a catalogue of horror and mutilation if we looked for a literal message behind every game scenario.

Sadly, many computer games feature violence, but the violence that takes place between pixels on the screen of a computer is, to my mind, much less harmful and much less ‘de-sensitising’ than the images brought into our homes by television and newspapers.

What do other readers feel?
LM

EL TORO

Machine: Spectrum
Supplier: US Gold/Americana
Price: £2.99

A sick “sport” becomes a sick “game” thanks to the Spanish Dinamic programming people. They’ve taken their national pastime of butchering bulls in public and turned it into the nastiest bit of “software” I’ve seen for some time.

Just like the real thing the idea of the game is to get your little matador to butcher the bull in the most “artistic” manner possible.

The people who created this game ought to have THEIR ears chopped off — and US Gold ought to be ashamed of themselves actually releasing it.

If you see this on the shelves of your local computer store get them to take it off and put it where it belongs. In the bin. It’s a crude and barbaric game that should never have been released.

Tim

- Graphics 0

- Sound 0

- Value less than 0

- Playability 0

GIANT EGOS

Dear Lloyd,
Please, please, please print this letter for me or CRASH popularity ratings will go down by one! Thank you. The reason I want you to print it is because I seem to be left out a bit (Ahhhhhhh).

My cousin, namely Sean Doran, got his name mentioned twice in Issue 34 — for the ‘Joe Bug’ cartoon in the FORUM and he was also a superhero for Master of Magic. All this seems to have gone to his head. So much so that he is having difficulty getting through the door (sorry for stealing your joke John). My pen pal, John Wilson is a regular Superhero and has given himself the nickname ‘El Supremo’. All this is making me so mad, and so determined to get my name mentioned in the most popular computer mag in the world.

The main point of my letter is about the poor state of budget software. Why do so many budget software houses market such totally crap games? Most games are hardly even worth 50p never mind two or three pounds. One glowing example of crap software was Bump Set Spike in Issue 34. Not one of the ratings was above 45%. I think that speaks for itself! Yet, after budget software houses see their new release flop, they release another crap game and watch it flop too. Surely they would have the sense to produce better games than were doing rather than filling computer shop shelves with rubbish. I think that some budget software houses just about manage to scrape up enough money to keep their company going and my advice to them is, stop trying!

Not all budget software houses are like this of course. Mastertronic and Firebird are two of the best around at the moment. I remember when Mastertronic wrote games like Alcatraz Harry and Apollo 2. Now they have come out with big hits with Universal Hero and Lap of The Gods as have Firebird with Olli and Lissa and Thrust. Both of these houses deserve the highest praise, even if they do come off with the odd crap game or two!

Why do popular budget software houses not advertise their new releases?
Thomas Johnston

No-one’s perfect! Budget games have always been a mixed bag — but there seems to be a good market for poor games as well as good games on the budget front. Despite consistently poor reviews of late, one budget house we know of is doing ‘very nicely thank you’ in terms of volume of sales.

Obviously, there is less money to spend on product development when you are only charging a couple of pounds for the finished item, so it’s bound to be a matter of ‘win some, lose some’.

Read the reviews before buying to avoid disappointment...
LM

MISUNDERSTOOD!

Hello Lloyd!,
I get the feeling that a large number of readers will mis-understand my letter in issue 34, and think that I’m slagging the Spectrum off. This isn’t true.

I think the best way to explain my viewpoint is to draw parallels with another of my hobbies, cars. I own a 1978 Princess. Now there’s nothing wrong with my car — not everyone may like it, it may be getting old, but it still does the job which it was designed to do. Similarly, I own a Spectrum — some people despise them, it’s getting old, but it still works.

However, were someone buying a new car today, I wouldn’t expect them to buy a Princess, even if it were still available — I’d expect them to buy a car with a more modern style, and more economical performance.

Similarly, I wouldn’t expect anyone to buy a new Spectrum. It could be argued that the Spectrum Plus 2 is a better machine, but my own view is that it’s just the old Spectrum with bits bolted on. Putting a turbo and a few spoilers on my Princess wouldn’t turn it into a modern car.

If the Spectrum Plus 2 had something fundamentally new about it, it could be considered to be a Montego rather than a Princess, but it doesn’t, as I said in my last letter. The biggest sin of all is that the 48K mode is not fully compatible with all the 48K programs.

I have nothing against the 128/Plus 2 in theory. I agree that the only way forward in a world full of computer buffs with large software libraries, is to build machines which are more modern and efficient, while incorporating emulators so that old software can be used.

However, where the 128/Plus 2 falls down is that it isn’t modern and efficient, and the emulator is far from perfect.

So, I hope his has cleared up any misunderstandings of my letter — the Spectrum is a fine machine — but it is a crime that it is still available as a new machine.
P A Rosbotham

A crime! There are a lot of people out there who have yet to experience the fun of owning a Spectrum — what’s criminal about giving them a chance to join in the fun?

Your analogy about cars doesn’t quite hold true I’m afraid. The basic mode of transport for programs, the Spectrum, might be considered a little outdated nowadays, but there is such a thing as a classic car! I’ve always maintained that it is how a machine is used by programmers that counts when it comes to providing entertainment. In car terms, you could still have a lot of fun driving your old Princess, especially if a competent team of mechanics looked after it and continued to improve its performance.

Take a look at the Starglider review this issue if you need any more convincing...
LM

POINTLESS LETTER!

Dear Lloyd,
I thought it’s about time I wrote a letter to you. So I painstakingly (good word that, see LMLWD) analysed past FORUMs to try and find one indisputable link between all the letters. I found it: it’s the fact that they all have points (heavy, medium or light but always points). So this letter will be different: no matter how carefully you scan these words you won’t find the slightest hint of a point. No, no point in this sentence! Nor this! Neither this!

Well there you go then, a totally new and refreshing letter.
Tom Evans
PS Please print a double-sided photo of Hannah Smith, suitably positioned (knoworimean) OOPS! that’s a point.

Refreshing?

Perhaps you’re missing the point, and reading the wrong kind of magazine...

Another year draws to a close, and with it comes the third anniversary of CRASH. The changes I have seen since first setting up my Hermes in the CRASH office and starting work on the Playing Tips column are immense — for one thing the Towers is now bursting at the seams with magazines and people.

The only aspect of CRASH that hasn’t improved, to my mind, is my salary. Maybe 1987 will be a good year for me. I hope it is for you. Don’t forget, I’m here waiting for your postal missives — and the more I receive, the better my chances of negotiating a pay rise!

Despite the Xmas postal chaos, Brendon Kavanagh brings news of some new releases and an overview of Saturnalia — a game of quest, exploration and fantasy

Christmas is once more upon us, and now the dear old Post Office has upped its postal charges, it is time for the sorting office to hibernate for the winter. This is a cruel time of year for those trying to meet PBM deadlines, let alone keep on top in open ended games, for it takes noticeably longer for those crucial communications to get from A to B and back to A again. Fortunately, GMs are aware of the Chrimble postal delays and deadlines are deferred, allowing addicted PBMers to relax while trying to figure our where to replant this year’s Christmas tree...

SATURNALIA — A GAME OVERVIEW

Saturnalia is a low priced, open ended fantasy role playing PBM game run by Sloth Enterprises of Southampton. The game is set upon the mysterious landmass of Saturnalia which, with its varying climates and wonderous creatures, is something like a cross between Europe, Middle Earth, and CRASH Towers. Saturnalia has no really original features — in fact, as fantasy games go, it has little special about it at all. Having said that, Saturnalia fans certainly enjoy their escapades in this game.

The (very good) rulebook is split into simple sections covering religion, economics, magic, combat, scouting and movement.

Religion and Magic are two very important parts of this game. Your character is recommended to follow one of the land’s fourteen not-so-mythical Gods and Goddesses. Following each God has its pros and cons: believing in the Weather God, Somol, may give you fine travelling conditions, but this doesn’t help you very much against Destu, God of Darkness! Your choice of religion influences your character’s ability to learn various types of spells, so a careful choice of religion proves to be very important if you intend to use a lot of magic in your game, since your character may learn only a limited number of these spells.

Economics only enters Saturnalia in the crude form of Supply and Demand influencing artefact values. Money exists in various tenders, and is (of course) very valuable — some finance is required to buy tools, food and weaponry for yourself.

When you join Saturnalia you are asked to design your character. The first stage of this process is to distribute 250 Ability Points among your character’s five abilities (combat, magical, vitality, scouting and perception). The higher the weighting, the greater the ability — simple! The second stage is to describe your character’s appearance, habits, trade, family background and so on. As the game progresses, all of these variables change. Ability points rise and fall with use/abuse, and your character’s description changes, should he (for example) turn away from being a merchant to being a thief. A sixth numerical rating exists for your character — Fame. This fluctuates as you do good or bad deeds of varying degrees, and this is a true reflection of your character’s honour and compassion!

As in most games, Saturnalia features a hexed landscape (with about ten terrain types), an efficient movement system, and a GM-controlled combat method (for which the GM uses such variables as relative abilities, magic, terrain suitabilities, and so on). Saturnalia is a simple but enjoyable game to play. Sloth Enterprises have run this multi-player game successfully for nearly two years now without any major problems that immediately spring to mind. Start up costs £5.00; this fee also includes the rules and your first five turns. Each turn costs £1.25 thereafter and there are no hidden charges. If you enjoy role playing games, you may well enjoy Saturnalia.

THE ARTIST II

Softek International Ltd, £14.95 (48K), £17.95 (128K)

The front screen to THE ARTIST II, showing the pull-down menu system

Back in September ’85 Softechnics, a division of Softek International, launched a graphics package that seemed to make any other type of utility redundant. The Artist had some really excellent facilities which made it stand out from the crowd, but was sadly put in the shade by the launch of Art Studio from the now defunct software house, OCP. Art Studio brought a fresh whiff of Macintosh air to the Spectrum with the introduction of the mouse and window environment.

Softechnics have now come back with a vengeance, launching Artist II which combines the multitude of revolutionary facilities of the original with the now obligatory mouse-come-window technique. Artist II should mouse itself to the top of the league despite the strong contender, Art Studio, which is now marketed by Rainbird.

PAGE MAKEUP

If electronic looks could kill...

Ever since Eddie Shah, who brought the merits of electronic page composition to the national newspapers of this country, computer page makeup has tumbled from the megabucks mainframe environment right down to the top-notch personal computer scene and everyone with an inspiration of becoming a Murdoch Kidd (sorry, -ED, I just couldn’t resist) has had to buy a new Habitat desk to support their Desk Top Publishing hardware, with which to ambush a willing or unwilling readership. Coming soon at your local Spectrum ... Yes, included in this package is Page Maker, which lets you create a full size page of text and graphics on an equivalent area of 96 lines of 64 characters length.

No, you’re quite right, it doesn’t fit all on one piddling Spectrum screen — you have to work on 4 separate blocks of two screens. Each set of screens is printed out at a time. And no, Page Maker does not drive a laser printer, yet ... Spectrums driving laser printers, that’ll be the day!

The cassette contains Artist II, the graphics designer program; Sprite & Font Designer — utilities to create (still or moving) sprites and fonts; Page Maker — the program which could have reduced Eddie Shah’s loan requirements (and probably his colour resolution), and Screen Compressor, the Scrooge of memory.

First of all, the question of hardware compatibility; Artist II file handling copes with the Opus disk drive and the Sinclair Microdrive as well as the usual cassette recorder. Configuring to disk or Microdrive media provides access to features such as CATaloguing and ERASEing from within the program. Other interfaces may be accommodated, as Softechnics thoughtfully have a BASIC driver routine, that allows softies such as me to change the load, save and verify instructions to suit the specific hardware. In fact, in view of the review period, I even managed to save Artist II on Microdrive by altering the BASIC cassette load header.

Moving onto mice, Artist II will work either with the Kempston or the AMX mouse. Less fortunate users will be pleased to know that Artist II happily can be operated from joystick or keyboard using Q,S and I,O keys for direction and N and M keys for setting/selecting or erasing. Joystick freaks without a Kempston joystick interface can get their rusty old programmable interfaces out of the cupboard.

On the printer front, things are not so easy... Artist II is designed to work immediately either with the Kempston ‘E’ printer interface or the Opus Centronics output of the disk drive. Strangely, Artist II seems to neglect the AMX mouse Centronics port altogether. Here comes my first and only gripe. Neither AMS, makers of the AMX mouse, nor Softechnics provide any useful information to the unfortunate user wishing to access the Centronics interface. This is more annoying since Softechnics have made it possible to modify a simple BASIC program.

Some help could have been provided in initialising the printer interface and setting up the correct printer commands. Perhaps a look at the competition wouldn’t be such a bad idea — Art Studio allows you to enter the appropriate code to change the line pitch and set up the 8-bit graphics command; information which can be gleaned from the printer manual.

Having sorted out the hardware aspects, it’s all song and dance. All functions are accessed via a mouse and window technique. Fixed origin and concatenated (LMLWD) lines, circles, ellipses and boxes are available in the selected brush mode and with and without fill routine. Drawing is accomplished according to the selected drawing mode, accessed in the MODE window. This can be set for mono work without affecting the attribute data in inverse, over or normal mode, either with solid fill or pattern fill, or in colour mode, with the preset colour choices.

There are three ways of changing colour. Selecting palette in the MODE pull-down menu provides for entry of ink, paper and border colour with choice of bright and flash. Similarly, pointing and clicking the colour swatch at the bottom right of the screen shows the same result. The last option is to use the keyboard: 1 and 2 for ink, 3 and 4 for paper, 5 for bright and 6 for flash. Different brush sizes can be selected by clicking the brush icon.

Thirteen brushes are available, including 8 square, 1 round, 2 italic slant, a spray can effect and a blank brush. The blank brush is useful for filling areas without hard edges. The brush patterns can be redesigned with the font designer residing in the EXTRAS menu. Painting and filling areas can be done by using any of the 28 patterns, which include a solid and blank pattern. Again, patterns can be redesigned. Up to six different fonts are available in text mode. Each font can be redesigned using the font designer in the EXTRAS menu. The brush designs are held in font 6.

Detail work is best dealt with using the magnify mode. The screen is divided into two areas, the normal-sized image on the left and the magnified image on the right. Pointing and clicking the mouse over the area to be worked on moves the magnification to that spot. In normal mode the screen is partly covered by the icon selections. Access to this area is reached by scrolling the screen up or down using the SCREEN menu. Full view of the screen is gained with the VIEW function. An UNDO function avoids any dramas of wrecked pictures due to silly mistakes. To avoid clearing wanted work it is best to OK the current state of the picture from time to time.

The STORAGE menu provides all the functions for saving and loading of screen designs and fill patterns. It also provides output to the ZX printer or dot matrix printer. Two different print sizes are available. Apart from the straightforward dumps there are also two grey scale dumps with stippling effect giving a mono representation of the colour screen display.

The two real beauties of Artist II are the CUT and PASTE and the WINDOW facility. CUT and PASTE provides the facility of cutting out any shape segment from the current screen or from a saved screen design and transferring it to any location on the existing screen. The cut-out can be scrolled into position, inverted, mirrored, turned, blended or mixed into the main screen. To help with the cutting out of the image there are circle, line and fill functions to tackle the most complicated segments to be transferred. Screens can be composed from any screen source on record.

WINDOWS provides a set of functions which manipulate a screen sector designated by a window boundary. Using the window icon a relevant screen area is framed and a number of functions are at your disposal to manipulate the specified area: this includes functions such as CLEAR, TURN (90 degrees), INVERT, MIRROR, SCROLL within the window and global setting of paper and ink colours. Special functions include THICKEN, which thickens lines and dots within the window area and OUTLINE, which outlines any change of ink and paper (excellent solarising effects). INSERT allows insertion of another screen detail from storage and is equivalent to the cut & paste option.

Page Maker combines the graphic facilities of Artist II with the text facilities of The Writer to provide a modest Page Makeup system. Page Maker can handle a print area of 96 lines 64 characters wide which represents approximately an A4 page. Due to the restraints of the Spectrum screen the work is divided up into 4 blocks of two Spectrum screens side by side providing a scrolling display area of 24 lines by 64 characters.

To begin, load the text from a Writer file. Forward planning is required, as the text has to be laid out in advance in the correct position within the specified display area.

Page Maker supports up to 5 character sets called up via special font commands embedded in the Writer file. Similarly, special commands provide underline and inversion of text.

Once the text is in place, blocks of graphics can be inserted by creating window areas and loading previously generated screens. The graphics can be scrolled into the correct position and fixed. There is no limit to the number of graphic areas on the 2-screen block area. When satisfactory, the block can be output to the printer and the next block tackled. Each block can be saved to tape or disk/cartridge for later use.

The Artist II package includes a very useful sprite and font designer — Sprite II — which allows creation of up to 6 x 6 character square sprites. It provides the facility of loading a complete screen design and grabbing only certain areas for the sprite design. The sprites can be animated by displaying the individual sprite frames in sequence at various speeds, and the sprites can be mirrored, inverted, scrolled, thickened and outlined. Sprites can be finally saved as raw bytes for further programming.

A Screen Compressor is also included in the package, which reduces memory requirements for screen designs.

Summing up, The Artist II is the most comprehensive graphics utility on the Spectrum scene. The introduction of the mouse and window technique has improved its user friendliness, but keyboard slaves need not despair: operating the variable speed cursor without mouse or joystick is just as much fun. Artist II rightly deserves a CRASH SMASH!

DATEL SOUND SAMPLER

Producer: Datel Ltd
Price: £49.99

We first reviewed the original Datel Sound Sampler way back about June 1985. This is the 1986 upgrade (alas we had only the 48K version), and I’m sorry to report that there really isn’t a large amount of improvement. Okay, it’s not so noisy and the reproduction of the samples is notably better, but I really think that Datel could have also put some effort into the software and presentation of the package, especially as the sampler ‘war’ is hotting up with Cheetah and RAM/Flare getting in on the act.

The on-screen keyboard display from Datel’s sampler — play back your sounds and be moderately amazed...

So what do you get for your 50 notes? The usual hardware box and cheapo microphone plus software. Load up and away we go. Big “oops” here as you’re only told how to plug in the incorrectly labelled hardware at the END of the instructions — and I’m still baffled by the little trim pot on the back. The options are very much the same as the old Datel product and work very much in the same manner — with a few extras.

Record uses an automatic sound sensor that triggers the sampling above a certain threshold of sound. Trouble is, it’s too sensitive by half and is not adjustable. Datel seem to think that you are blessed with three or more appendages as you need to hold down the ‘R’ key during recording. Great for things like guitar, flute and anything percussive where two hands are needed — not to mention one to hold the microphone. As it is so sensitive and awkward to use, you often have great big gaps before and after your sample.

The technical wonder of actual sampling is not so wonderful anymore, and we should now demand easily manipulative facilities from any self-respecting sampler. What ain’t we got? That’s right. You can’t do a damn thing with it as regards editing. The unit will actually show you the wave of the sound sample just like the original version did: this option was useless then, and it still is. The lack of editing really relegates this product to the second division.

Datel’s SOUND SAMPLER: set up and ready to start taking samples... another anonymous black box to plug into the back of your computer

Four Part Sound one ray of hope is the option to record four different sounds and play them back from the numeric keys. This is fine, but you can’t alter the pitch in this mode of operation.

Playback the playback mode proper is quite good in that it displays a static piano keyboard on screen to be played from qwerty keys, and it has an amazing 9 octave range which will defy the human ear. Anything you play is automatically stuffed in a real-time sequencer which will play back your first 100 notes (albeit not quite as faithfully as Datel might claim as the timing alters from your version). I would suspect too generous a quantisation here — that is, the ‘rounding up’ function found on drum machines to correct minor timing errors.

Sounds may be played in reverse or stuffed through some novelty features like ‘Riser’, which replays the sample 8 times at a higher pitch each time, or ‘Chop Play’ which replays the sample 8 times at the same pitch only shortening the length of the sample on each repetition. I’d rather have some editing instead of the digital whoopee cushion provided by these redundant features.

Echo offers nine preset echo effects. You have to return to the main menu each time to change them — rather annoying!

Microphone Level Tester simply routes the signal straight through to the the output and to your amplification.

Load/Save samples can be dumped to tape or Microdrive.

In practice, you have very little control over what the Datel sound sampler does. Sure, it samples and does some party tricks with the sound, but you, the user, are pretty well subservient to some dogmatic software with very little room to manoeuvre. There is no MIDI option or synchronisation facility and in the light of other samplers now available, this package is very bovine indeed. It demands some drastic software rewriting to justify its price in face of the competition.

RED BOXES

Guest techie Paul Gardner takes a look at what could be the ultimate add-on for your Spectrum. It’s all in a little Red Box from ELECTRONIC FULFILMENT SERVICES

What do you think is the ultimate add-on for your home computer? How about another computer... New from Electronic Fulfilment Services LTD is the Red Box system, a home computer specifically designed for house-hold automation and security.

The Red Box system starts as a set of three devices that you can plug into your household mains supply. Red Leader’s a small computer system with a built-in programming language. This can communicate with and control the other two boxes supplied with the starter package: Red One, effectively a mains extension lead with an enclosed remote control relay, and Red Two, a thermal movement sensor that can detect the movement of people within a room and transmit this information to Red Leader. The devices communicate with each other by transmitting radio frequency signals along the mains wiring in your house.

The system arrives neatly packed in polystyrene and each device is a self-contained unit which simply plugs into any standard three-pin mains socket. Each device is fitted with a quality moulded plug which also contains a fuse of the correct rating. Instructions are included on how to change these plugs if your house has non-standard sockets.

A slim (50 page) manual is included which gives very clear instructions on how to set up the equipment. For the Spectrum this is very simple. Power up your computer in the usual way and enter the command LOAD ""

Connect the enclosed lead, which is similar to a standard cassette lead, to your Spectrum (red plug in the EAR socket) and the other end to Red Leader, then plug in Red Leader.

The computer in Red Leader detects which type of home computer it is connected to and starts up accordingly. On the Spectrum, this means that Red Leader sends a program from itself to the Spectrum as if it were a cassette player. The program auto runs and you are presented with a menu screen like that shown in Figure 1.

I had no trouble getting this far with the system and I was quite amazed to see the signal being sent from Red Leader to the Spectrum at precisely the correct ‘volume’.

There are two ways of operating Red Leader: you can use the menu driven system or you can write programs using the built-in BASIC programming language. The Spectrum is only used from here on as a keyboard and screen for Red Leader, and as a a route for program storage — programs written in Red BASIC can be saved to tape via your Spectrum.

Figure 1

The menu system shown is very easy to use. It lets you tell the computer about new devices on the system and allows these devices to be turned on and off via the SET option. Each device has to be ‘installed’ by telling the computer the device’s security code and logical address. As this is a fairly tedious process to have to repeat, you can save all the current device information to tape using the KEEP option from the menu.

From this menu you can set devices to switch on and off at specific times of the day. The system has its own built-in clock which has to be set each time Red Leader is powered up.

It is also possible to make one device dependent upon another. For example, you can arrange for whatever is plugged into Red One to be switched on whenever Red Two detects a movement.

As the starter pack only contains two controllable devices, the applications are fairly limited. It is possible, for example, to have the system switch your electric blanket on and off at preset times every day — or you could use both devices to give you an ‘intelligent’ porch light... anytime someone moves close to the sensor a light can be switched on.

If you want to use the system for more complicated applications you will need to purchase some of the optional extra devices available and also learn how to program the system using the built-in BASIC.

Figure 2 is a listing of a BASIC program that I wrote to have the system perform as a simple home security device. The two devices in the program are referred to as ALARM, for the mains powered alarm bell that I plugged into Red One, SENSOR, for the thermal movement sensor and finally, SENSW, for the small reset switch which is built into the movement sensor.

Figure 2

10 REM SAMPLE PROGRAM FOR HOME SECURITY
20 FOR N = 1 TO DEVICES:ERASE 1:NEXT N
30 REM SET UP ALL THE DEVICES TO BE USED FOR THIS APPLICATION
50 LET NORING = 0: REM STATUS FLAG
60 READ NUMDEVICES
70 FOR N = 1 TO NUMDEVICES
80 READ N$,A,B,C,D
90 INSTALL(N$,A,B,C,D): REM THIS INSTALLS THE DEVICE
100 LET ST = TELL(N$, OFF) : REM RETURNS NON ZERO IF NOT PRESENT
110 IF ST = 0 THEN GOTO 160
120 PRINT "CANNOT COMMUNICATE WITH-";N$
130 PRINT "PLEASE INVESTIGATE"
140 INPUT "PRESS ENTER TO CONTINUE"; A$
150 GOTO 100
160 NEXT N
165 REM SETUP EVENT HANDLING ROUTINES
170 WHEN 2 GOSUB 210 : CONTINUE
180 WHEN 3 GOSUB 310 : CONTINUE
185 REM THERE IS NO ACTUAL PROGRAM JUST WAIT IN A LOOP
190 GOTO 190
200 END
210 REM EVENT HANDLING ROUTINE FOR THE MOVEMENT SENSOR
230 LET RING = TIME 10
240 IF TIME RING THEN GOTO 240
250 IF NORING = 1 THEN GOTO 280
260 TELL("ALARM",ON)
270 LET NORING = 0
280 TELL("SENSOR",OFF)
300 RETURN
310 REM EVENT HANDLING ROUTINE FOR SENSOR SWITCH
330 LET NORING = 1
340 LET DELAY = TIME 10
350 IF TIME DELAY THEN GOTO 350
370 RETURN
380 DATA 3 : REM 3 DEVICES
390 DATA ALARM, 1, 860849, 2, 1628250627 : REM CODES FOR RED ONE
400 DATA SENSOR, 1, 204976, 1, 781711363 : REM CODES FOR RED TWO
410 DATA SENSW, 1, 204976, 2, 781711363 : REM RED TWO SWITCH

This set up worked as follows. I would arm the system by connecting the Spectrum to Red One and running the program. The Spectrum can then be disconnected as it is no longer required. The movement sensor had a field of view that covered my front door and hall. On the way out of the house I had to walk past the sensor, so as I passed it I would press the small switch located on the sensor, thus gaining 10 seconds to leave its field of view . The program is written so that I can gain entry to my house without setting the alarm bell clanging. When I return to the house the sensor detects my movement, but gives me a delay of 10 seconds during which I can press the small switch on Red Two to disable the sensor for a further 10 seconds. This gives me time to leave the sensor’s field of view. Then I can leisurely stroll upstairs, reconnect the Spectrum and stop the program. Unfortunately, the sensor is so sensitive to thermal movement that one of my cats was sufficient to set the alarm off!

THE HARDWARE

Red Leader is a fully functional computer with a 6502 processor, a 6220 VIA, 16K Bytes of ROM (an EPROM in the review model) and 8K Bytes of RAM used for program and data storage. You need to connect another home computer to it to provide you with a keyboard and screen.

Inside RED LEADER — the chippery-pokery that talks to the Red Squad and co-ordinates their efforts

In all three devices there is one chip which is the heart of the communications system, an LM1893N. This is a mains transceiver which transmits serial data on a radio frequency carrier wave along the household Earth and Neutral wires. The range of communication mainly depends on the amount of outside interference, but I tested the review model along the length of a long suite of offices — certainly, you should have no problem in a standard size house.

Red One contains a mains socket which is connected to its mains input via a 16 amp relay. This relay is controlled by Red Leader but the setting can be switched locally by using a small reset switch on the side of the box. This small switch is set flush to the surface and is unlikely to be pressed accidentally.

Red Two contains a thermal detector, the fluctuating output of which is used to detect thermal movement. This detector is housed at the centre of a crude plastic lens system to give it an extended field of view. If Red Two is mounted in the corner of a room it can detect movement almost anywhere in the room except directly below the unit when it is mounted above head height. The detector is particularly sensitive to movement from side to side across its field of view, but I could approach Red Two without it detecting my presence providing I approached head-on. It ignored me until I was less than two feet away.

The devices communicate very reliably with each other and seem to be fairly insensitive to the household appliances that usually generate interference (drills, washing machines and so on.)

THE PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE

Red Leader supports a powerful programming language which has the feature of being ‘event driven’ by the external devices. That means that you can have a program running, and whenever one of the devices sends a signal to Red Leader it stops what it is doing and executes a subroutine relevant to that device.

You program the subroutines for each device and can activate or deactivate ‘interrupts’ from these devices at any time.

The language is very similar to BBC BASIC but it is an Integer only version of BASIC. Various commands utilise the screen handling capabilities of the computer you are using as the keyboard and screen for Red Leader.

The RED BOX team in formation...

The BASIC supports long variable names and is fairly fast — it also has some element of structured programming support by having REPEAT-UNTIL loops and event-driven interrupts, but for reasons I shall explain, I don’t think many Spectrum users would attempt any ‘serious’ programming on it.

PROBLEMS

The review model I received was supposed to be a full production version and not a pre-release model, but inside Red Leader there were some fairly messy hand-wired ‘patches’ on the circuit board. The first Red Leader I was sent stopped working after one day of intermittent use, and investigation showed that the main capacitor on the low voltage power supply was not actually soldered in place, but simply rested in the lead holes in the board! However, a replacement was sent within a day (well done GPO) and the new one worked fine.

The circuit boards in Red One and Red Two are very neatly done and don’t appear to have any last-minute fixes on them.

In practical use, the most frustrating aspect of the whole system is the Spectrum. (Don’t complain yet!) The problems lie not with Spectrum but with the machine code program that has the Spectrum act as the Red One terminal. Apparently, an ex-Sinclair programmer wrote most of this code and then left it unfinished for some other unfortunate programmer to complete.

It is quite an appalling piece of code. Judging by its operation the keyboard appears to have been so thoroughly ‘de-bounced’ that you cannot type faster than four characters per second on it. If you want to repeat a key, the auto repeat occurs almost a full second after the first key press and repeats at about half-second intervals. So it takes about four seconds to back-space over an eight character spelling mistake!

I talked to one of the technical bods on the Red Box team who explained some of the reasons behind these problems. He assured me that they would be sorted out in a later model.

The Spectrum implementation also does not let you send anything to the printer (a programming language that doesn’t let you list the program on paper!) and when you try and save a program written in Red BASIC to your cassette (Microdrives not supported) the Red Box downloads the program into the Spectrum memory and then prompts you to swap the Red Box leads over with your cassette leads before supplying the prompt ‘press any key to continue’. However, it doesn’t wait for you to ‘press any key’. It just starts the tone immediately. So you have about half a second to swap the leads over and release the pause button on your cassette recorder.

I was so amazed at how bad the practical aspects of using the Spectrum were that I had a go using the Red Boxes on another computer, the BBC (Hiss!). Not surprisingly, it worked beautifully — keyboard type-ahead, printer, disks — everything you would expect.

Suspicious characters might be tempted to think that the Red Box system was developed for the BBC and had been hurriedly amended to support other machines in order to capture a wider market.

When speaking to some of the designers of the system, I learned that they intend to release another two versions of Red Leader to overcome some of these problems. The next version will have a 32K Byte ROM and should be able to contain some better terminal routines for the machines supported.

Yet another version is intended to have a straightforward RS232 interface and so be able to communicate with any computer that supports a simple ASCII terminal program.

FORTHCOMING EXTRAS

As the original system is clearly limited in scope the designers have several new Red Boxes planned which can be add to the basic ‘starter’ system.

Red Alert is intended to be a fully-functional burglar alarm control system, which will be battery backed and capable of communication with Red Leader, providing inputs from simple window and door switches.

An RS232 unit is envisaged to allow you to let different home computers communicate with each other or devices like printers along the house wiring at a speed of 2400 baud.

Finally a 2 channel A/D converter unit under development will take inputs from simple analogue devices like temperature sensors and communicate the information to Red Leader.

CONCLUSION

Clearly the Red Box system is under development. At £130 for the 3 unit starter pack I don’t think it has much to recommend it to Spectrum users until the problems with the terminal emulation program are sorted out. When the manufacturers take the Spectrum seriously enough, and when there are a few more devices available, we’ll take another look.

PRICES

Red Box starter system: £129 including Red Leader, Red One and Red Two
Extra Units: Red One and Red Two £35 each
New Units: prices to be announced

Plug-in devices to save and alter programs are all the rage. Simon Goodwin presses the button on Datel’s Snapshot 2 and checks out the Genie package for Romantic Robot’s Multiface 1.

SNAPSHOT 2

Datel have just launched Snapshot 2, a new plug-in gadget to save programs in memory onto tape or Microdrive at the press of a button. There are several similar devices — Multiface 1, Interface 3, SpecMate and the Mirage Microdriver. Even a few disk systems, such as the Beta and the new Disciple, offer this feature nowadays, so it’s obviously a busy market.

Some of these devices have — quite legitimately — annoyed software houses because they make it very easy to steal programs. The Datel, like the Microdriver, is less prone to this criticism than other models, because you must have the interface fitted to re-load a file. This doesn’t stop people borrowing software and making copies, but it’s the best Datel can do to discourage theft. This is a tricky issue, as I feel that piracy does reduce the volume and — especially — the variety of software that honest souls can buy.

Then again, high prices and inconvenient protection methods do not encourage honesty. I believe that people have a right to transfer software that they have bought onto disk or Microdrive, and this kind of device is often the only way you can do that.

Datel feel that the Snapshot has three main selling-points, besides the obvious one I’ve dealt with above: there’s a built in Kempston-compatible joystick port; you can modify bytes in memory; and the price is low — just £24.95, or £5–£15 cheaper than similar devices.

The Snapshot comes in the usual black box, with a red button on the left and the joystick port on the right side. You need the joystick socket even if you’ve already got an interface, because there’s no through-port on the back. The documentation was folded under the interface — and consists of five white A4 sheets, with text printed in a dot-matrix font on one side of the paper. You also get a program, on cassette.

USING SNAPSHOT

Snapshot 2 is not immediately useful when you plug it in, because it does not contain any built-in software — you must load a small code file. It takes about a minute to load the supplied tape — you can transfer the code to Microdrive if you know how to convert the loading program, but the utility will not do this for you, and there are no conversion instructions. The code seems to load into memory hidden behind the Spectrum’s ROM, so you can’t access it except by pressing the button, which causes it to run. There’s no information about the memory access mechanism in the documentation, which is a pity.

The software saves entire programs with their screens, to tape or Microdrive — there’s no support for disk drives, although it should be easy enough to produce new software as an add-on. Datel say they intend to do this, but they don’t say which interfaces they will support or when the code will be ready. They also promise new software to copy screen images to a printer at the press of a button, as Multiface 1 can do. They plan a package to control the speed of programs, rather like Nidd Valley’s Slomo, but again there’s no sign of the feature yet.

Once you’ve loaded the Snapshot software you can load the program you want to transfer to tape or Microdrive in the normal way. The Snapshot does not appear to use any of the standard 48K memory.

NO JOY JOYSTICK

Your program should load and run as normal with the Snapshot connected. I did find one strange problem with the built-in joystick port, which would not give a ‘move left’ signal if I plugged in a Cheetah Mach 1 microswitch joystick!

The Snapshot interface worked OK with an older and nastier Quickshot 1, but I could not work out why the Mach 1 was incompatible. The stick works fine with a genuine Kempston interface, Multiface 1 and all the other makes of computer that litter my office, even including the wonky ports on Amstrad’s Plus Two, so I’m inclined to blame Datel for this incompatibility. I’ll contact Datel and Cheetah, and should be able to get both replies into print next month.

I had a look inside the Snapshot to see if there was an obvious fault, but I couldn’t see anything likely to cause the problem. The internal construction of Datel’s interface was rather nasty — the red button was only held in by a blob of glue on the circuit board, although the joystick socket was securely fitted. A bare wire was soldered to the underside of the board, passing within a millimetre of several soldered connections that it was clearly not meant to touch.

A Snapshot of Datel’s SNAPSHOT. Note the blob of glue holding the red button on!

Anyhow, I carried on with the test using the Quickshot. When the red button is pressed the computer immediately stops whatever it is doing and prints a blue and yellow menu on the top eight lines of the screen. There are five options, each selected by a single key-press. S saves the contents of memory onto tape or Microdrive. A second prompt appears to ask you which device is to used for the save, and you are then asked to type the file name. For some reason the program selects Caps Lock — all capital letters — as you enter the file name. I’ve never understood why computer enthusiasts are so keen on WRITING EVERYTHING IN CAPITALS, so I pressed Shift and 2, which normally cancels Caps Lock. This it did, but not before printing LOAD "", rather disturbingly, in the input window. I tried again and got Caps Lock back, but LOAD "" popped up somewhere else. This does suggest that Datel have not tested their software very carefully. One good feature is that ENTER on its own gets you straight back to the main menu.

The A menu option lets you alter or examine memory. The prompt ‘Address’ appears, and you must type in the number of the memory location that you want to change. The computer then prints the present contents of that byte, and asks you to type a replacement value. If you press ENTER on its own, the computer steps on to the next address, and so on.

This feature is very useful if you want to put POKEs into a game without messing around with the loading program. You can stop the progression through the memory by typing a full stop, when you are asked for a new address. Values can be printed and entered in decimal or hexadecimal. You must type a hash character at the start of the address if you want to use hex. Press ENTER on its own to get back to the main menu.

The next option, G, lets you go back to the current program — the top part of the display is restored as if you had never pressed the button. You can only return to the exact point at which you stopped the program — you can’t jump to a specific address.

The L option is used to load a file that has been saved previously with S; ENTER on its own loads the next file in this case, but you can break into the load in the usual way.

K ‘kills’ the current program, resetting the computer but leaving the Snapshot routines in memory.

TESTING

The biggest problem with the Snapshot is that it doesn’t seem to work with most commercial programs. I tried it with a collection of games, and Vortex’s aging Android 2 was the only one that was transferred properly.

Snapshot can compress programs to reduce their disk or tape storage requirement, and Android 2 was condensed into a single 29K file, including the screen, in 25 seconds. I’d like to give more examples, but I didn’t manage to copy anything else!

On The Run, from Design Design, and Micromega/Derek Brewster’s Codename Mat started to save, but the screen filled with gibberish after a few blocks had been written to Microdrive and the only way out after that was to pull the plug.

I spent quite a while re-loading these games and trying again, pressing the button at various points after loading, but I never managed to save anything useful. At one point I pressed the button while On The Run was playing and the machine crashed without even printing the Snapshot 2 menu — about half of the ‘Alter’ menu appeared, then my trusty Spectrum locked up.

I tried to transfer Cheetah’s SpecDrum program to Microdrive; this is a prime candidate for conversion from tape. Again the machine spun the drive for a while, then locked up. Repeated attempts gave the same result, so I used Romantic Robot’s Multiface 1 — the only other such utility I have — and everything went smoothly. If Android 2 had not copied properly I would have suspected a duff Snapshot interface. Since Multiface copied the test programs without trouble it seems likely that there’s something wrong with Datel’s software.

SNAP DECISION

Snapshot 2 has a lot of competition, and it doesn’t seem to work very well. Unless you’re very short of cash, and you only want to convert simple programs, I can’t recommend this product.

GENIE

Romantic Robot have been selling a Snapshot-type device for a while now. Their Multiface 1 is something of a Rolls Royce compared with the Snapshot 2, and has a price tag to match — five pence short of forty quid. The Multiface consists of an 8K ROM and 8K of RAM, providing the instant SAVE facility for most disk and tape systems, plus options to examine and POKE memory. It can also call any address or print out the screen display. Besides the magic button you get a through port for other peripherals, a Kempston joystick socket and a switch to make the interface undetectable to the computer.

One very nice feature of this system is the way that you can load your own applications into the 8K RAM, independently of the standard 48K, and call them up at will while a program is loaded. Romantic Robot give full instructions to help you do this, although the facility is only available to machine-code programmers.

Rom-Rob have just launched a package that uses this feature; as such it is worthless unless you’ve got Multiface 1, but I have found it so useful over the last few weeks that I think it might even justify the purchase of a Multiface to some people, especially keen hackers.

The package is called Genie. It lets you stop and start any program at any point, and examine its operation in great detail. In effect, it is a small but well-designed machine-code monitor that is compatible with absolutely everything. Genie costs £9.95 and consists of a cassette, containing about 5K of code, and six neatly printed, well written A4 pages of documentation.

Genie loads into the RAM on the interface — the instructions tell you how to copy it to Microdrive or disk and configure it for different printers; Genie will print via any device connected to the Spectrum’s channel 3, including the ZX printer, the Spectrum 128 serial port, and most plug-in interfaces. You must tell the program whether or not your printer expects ‘line-feed’ characters at the end of each line.

Once Genie is installed you can call it up by pressing the red button. Instead of the usual Multiface menu, an eight-line window appears at the top of the screen. You can call up the normal Multiface menu by typing BREAK as you press the red button, but you MUST reload Genie before you press the button again. Everything Genie does appears in the eight-line window. The colour-scheme is bright but readable unless your telly is playing up — characters are white on red or black on yellow. The top part of the window lists keys that work in most modes, while a two line menu bar carries the main options, rather cryptically listed as ‘DIS’, ‘TEXT’, ‘NUM’, ‘Z80’, ‘FIND’ and ‘RET’.

Z80 shows you the values of all the Z80 registers, including the program counter. You can alter any value, and turn interrupts on or off, but you can’t display or change the interrupt mode. So what, I hear you say!

FIND will search the whole 48K RAM for a sequence of up to 24 bytes. Searching is very quick, and you can step from one match to the next by pressing a key. This is great for looking for specific instructions but not so hot for messages, because the values to be found must be entered as numbers — not text.

DIS is a full Z80 disassembler — a routine which converts stored numbers into machine-code mnemonics, whether or not they are really part of a program. You can start and stop disassembly at any address.

DIS has several nice features — it sifts out the ‘error code’ bytes which follow RST 8 instructions, and decodes the undocumented Z80 instructions, like SLL C and SUB A, IXH, which confuse lesser disassemblers. The display can be made to scroll continuously or print a new line when you press ENTER. At top speed, or if you hold the key down, the information rolls by very fast indeed.

The TEXT option is similar but interprets memory as characters. Unprintable codes appear as full stops. TEXT is very useful if you feel like changing a few messages in your favourite (or least favourite) program. NUM prints the numeric values in memory.

All of the Genie options let you switch from decimal to hex input and output at any time: this is achieved by pressing the H key. The border colour changes from blue to cyan to signal which number base is currently selected. Addresses actually change their form on the screen when you press H!

It takes a while to get used to the way Genie accepts numbers — you don’t have to press ENTER if you type the maximum number of characters (five for a decimal address or three for a byte value.) I found it a little irritating that leading zeroes are always printed.

You can print the contents of the window at any time by typing C for Copy, and relay all output to the printer between presses of P. The G option lets you go backwards through the memory: it takes DIS a few bytes to work out what has happened thereafter, but most disassemblers have this quirk.

You can change any data in registers or memory by pressing A for Alter, as corresponding values are displayed. You’re asked for an address, but ENTER gives the last one examined. You have to type new values as single-byte numbers.

Finally, the ‘RET’ option returns you to the program that was interrupted, restoring the old display on the top 8 lines of the screen. If you have altered the value of the PC register, the program re-starts at the address you set. The instructions illustrate how you can return directly to ZX BASIC.

There are a few missing features that I would have liked, such as conditional search and replace and some facility to enter text directly into the machine, rather than as numbers. However, Genie has to fit into the Spectrum’s memory map with the Multiface ROM and 48K of program to be examined, and the limited space has been well used.

Real hackers will love Genie, but it’s pretty meaningless unless you understand machine-code. It will not necessarily be useful for debugging your own code, unless your programs are so large that there’s no spare RAM for a conventional monitor. However, it is absolutely wonderful for getting inside someone else’s code. if that’s what you enjoy, you’ll find Genie a very professional tool — simple, effective and unique.

CLASS OF ’86

1986 will not be remembered as the year of the adventure, even if many people, bored with the transient thrills of arcade did suddenly discover the more lasting satisfactions to be found in adventuring. The biggest game of the year, Lord of the Rings, based on the famous Tolkien work (and representing the next logical step for Melbourne House who turned The Hobbit into a classic adventure), was to many a huge disappointment as it failed to live up to the expectations raised by its pedigree. It was again Philip Mitchell, and again Melbourne House who were wrapping it all up and selling it, but the end product just wasn’t in the same league as Tolkien’s masterpiece. In a sense, Lord of the Ring’s failure as a major piece of software was symptomatic of a broader malaise in the adventure world, as if adventuring had lost its way and was not quite sure of the path ahead.

Level 9, of course, continued to champion the cause of imaginative adventuring with their much respected releases, Worm in Paradise (the final part of the Silicon Dream trilogy) and The Price of Magik. Their success is justified, as a lot of time and effort has gone into honing their own adventure system to give adventure just as much pride in the technical innovation stakes as arcade. Hand-in-hand with the technical competence is a desire to provide coherent storylines and gamesplay so the player becomes as involved with the game as with a good novel. Because adventuring is a more difficult market, Level 9 have quite sensibly diversified as much as possible within their chosen field: versions for each game span almost every known computer, and they have not been averse to dipping their fingers into many different pies, as in their link up with Mosaic’s Adrian Mole books. The other big name of 1986 was undoubtedly Fergus McNeill of Delta 4 who mined quite a different seam. Humour was always an area which the medium of adventuring could develop to its full, and Delta 4 were not slow in spotting this simple fact. The Quill, for once, provided a useful vehicle to express a budding comic talent. Delta 4 had always secured a loyal following among adventure freaks, but this year saw the outfit’s rise to fame and chart respectability epitomised by the tremendous amount of interest in The Boggit, a game which successfully lampoons the Melbourne House classic.

However, in summing up this year it is worrying that a great number of individuals have thought it feasible to set up software houses, and then devote a great amount of time and money to launching Quilled games that are neither innovative nor remarkable in any way. There are two conflicting thoughts which cross my mind as I wade through these games every month. The first thought is one of sadness that anyone can think that a profitable, or even a break-even situation, can be gleaned from such lack-lustre product. But my second thought is one of hope and optimism; if adventuring can stimulate such ground-level enthusiasm in the form of experimental software releases, adventure clubs, and small circulation magazines, perhaps this could be the avenue to encourage the development of really challenging adventures.

From the enthusiast’s domain, one or two mail-order products did make it to the larger software concerns and the mass market. In this area there can be no doubt that the advent of budget software has kept adventuring alive when no full-priced games were in the offing. Mastertronic, Atlantis (not least with their famous Mafia games), and more recently Players (a derivative of Interceptor who have recently rejoined the full-priced adventure scene) have all released very reasonable adventures. Mastertronic’s efforts are all the more remarkable when their no-Quilled policy is considered. With programs such as ZZZZ, experimentation with icons was not beyond this budget software producer. However, let us not forget a company which saw the same market, and was large enough to rival Mastertronic in sales of budget adventure. Firebird’s Seabase Delta was an enormous hit, following on the heels of the highly successful Subsunk.

The mighty Ocean games empire developed their own adventure system, seen in the competent releases Never Ending Story and Hunchback the Adventure. This system used the novel idea of forming a colourful collage of backdrop, with events and objects superimposed over it. Activision turned out the highly impressive, if more traditional, Mindstone, while PSS and Mikro-Gen went a little astray in their efforts to try something new with Swords & Sorcery and Shadow of the Unicorn respectively.

Despite the fact that adventuring has a dated image, with interest in pre-1986 games matching that shown for games of this year, I still think that it has a future. In fact it’s encouraging to note that if authors have the presence of mind to mould together innovative programming with inventive stories, they can be assured of producing a game which will be remembered long after arcade games released around the same time are forgotten.

Certainly, as with pop music, tremendous sales are there for those who cynically milk the teen market, but, as with pop music, there are also significant prizes for those who cater for a broader appeal. I hope the success of Trivial Pursuit, the computer adaptation of the cult board quiz, is significant, and marks a greater inclination on the part of software houses to look afresh at the whole world of games play.

ADVENTURE

Producer: Adventure Software
Author: Nigel Brooks
Price: £1.99

Believe it or not, this game is based on THAT famous mainframe original. To the author’s credit, this game has a third more locations, a completely new 30 location introduction, and is 100% machine code with over 50% compression of the memory used up to house the text (whew!). Further, the vocabulary is developed enough to take on board the sophisticated GET ALL and DROP ALL commands, and location descriptions can be FULL or BRIEF. All the major problems have been reworked, and a great many of the old locations have improved and expanded text. Add to this a new ‘end game’ and you in to wonder why the game didn’t cut any remaining links and call itself by a totally new name!

It is Summer. You are a lowly farmhand on ditch-digging duty while everyone else is gathering the harvest. Suddenly you uncover a buried casket. Inside you find some keys, a map and the mildewy remains of a book. It is the journal of an uncelebrated, but clearly successful explorer.

Apart from the opening, much of this adventure is the same as Colossal. I’ve left the best of this adventure to last. What makes any adventure special is the amount of real effort put into making the gameplay more interesting, and in this adventure much thought has been brought to bear on old adventuring ways. Most interesting is the way in which the game has tackled the much-maligned problem of object carrying. Clothes may be REMOVED or WORN, objects are weighted (eg a nugget counts as two weights), and to add a degree of realism, pockets have been added to the clothes whereby PUT KEYS sees the keys, or any other pocket-sized item, safely in your pocket. I must admit I couldn’t work out how to get the keys back out of the pocket without dropping them — a most inelegant solution, but no doubt this is only a minor omission from the instructions. Other refinements include a GET ALL which doesn’t work in the dark, FULL and BRIEF location descriptions, full versions creating a new location as this is a feature to get the adventurer quickly used to the terrain, and five instant RAM SAVES, which come in very useful.

Adventure is the most unoriginal name of the whole bunch, and on the face of it another version of Colossal is the last thing we want.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: playable
Graphics: none at all
Presentation: very readable redesigned character set, and that’s about it
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: fast
General Rating: Interesting.

Atmosphere

88%

Vocabulary

76%

Logic

86%

Addictive Quality

79%

Overall

84%

JEWELS OF DARKNESS

Rainbird, £14.95

Jewels of Darkness follows the usual rules of naming software, ie make it sound like everything else. In fact this unoriginal title covers a trilogy of very famous games, games which go back to the very earliest days of adventuring. Colossal Adventure, the first of the three, is a direct descendant of the Crowther and Woods mainframe jaunt. This was the bane of many an academic computing fraternity in the late seventies and early eighties. Adventure Quest, the second tape, is played out on the same ground as the first, but is a Level 9 original, while Dungeon Adventure completes the trilogy with the most original story and feel of the lot.

All three have been completely overhauled and updated since their first release, with extended text descriptions, enhanced language manipulation, and, most noticeably to a Colossal veteran, pictures. Even if these do only amount to the usual Level 9 minimalistic art school, they still add some colour to these text classics.

The packaging is of the very highest standard with full instructions (which even go so far as telling you how to wrestle with the firm plastic casings), and a novella by Peter McBride indicating a high regard and a great confidence in the product by Rainbird. I tend to go along with this confidence, as this package, even at nigh on £15, is still superb value for money given the effort to breathe new life into these oldies (but extremely goodies).

Presentation is all very well of course, but what of the substance. Well, what can be said from the outset is, if you haven’t played these games before, or if you are thinking of looking into adventuring but don’t know where to start, then this trilogy can provide an insight into what makes adventuring great. The stories behind each part, the strong and evocative descriptions of each location, and the clever weighting and interlinking of puzzles and objects provide the fuel to set burning even the dullest of imaginations. One offshoot of the games’ notoriety is the ease of discussing the adventure with fellow adventurers, many of whom will have at least tried Colossal, so you can end up in animated conversation — much the same as with Tolkien novels.

The features designed to bring these old masterpieces into line with new advances are most impressive. Most immediately apparent is the type-ahead feature; even while pictures are being drawn, the next move can be made. Enhancements in vocabulary include GET ALL or EVERYTHING, AGAIN and RAM SAVE and EXITS.

The sophistication which these commands can achieve together when they are linked by punctuation (or simply by the word AND), is quite remarkable. The GET ALL/DROP ALL command can be used with exceptions as in DROP ALL BUT THE LAMP AND SILVER BALL. The command OOPS, which restores the player to the position before the last move on larger machines, is sadly not available on the Spectrum 48K versions!

In addition to the commands to get you back into the game, the programs also give you an option to be resurrected after an untimely death. To obtain a maximum score, and the title of Supreme Adventurer, the player must complete Colossal, Quest, and Dungeon in that order, carrying the score across from one adventure to the next. Each adventure has its own scoring system and objectives, as we shall now see on our tour of the trilogy.

In the first part, Colossal Adventure, the player scores points by finding fabulous treasures and carrying them back to the small brick building at the start. If things are going well, and you reach the Colossal Cavern, then you will score more points for entering it. Bonus points are had by making as little use as possible of the SAVE/RESTORE options.

Colossal has you cast as the chap who takes pity on a weary traveller who stops by at your local tavern, and then goes on to free the goodly elves imprisoned in the deep dark dungeons at the end of your quest. The traveller is grateful for your helping him avoid the bandits who would have his money, but instead of proffering you some of his new found wealth, he allows you the chance of searching out your own at the cave which locals have put down as a myth. He gives you a map showing the location of the Colossal Cavern, and you decide to chance all and follow it — over mountains, through forests, and past deserts until nearing the cave, you foolishly lose the map in a fast-flowing stream. You must now make your own way to the cavern remembering what the traveller told you — that magic works in the cavern.

In some ways Colossal seems the easiest of the trilogy. This may be due to familiarity, or perhaps it’s due to the ease of wandering round a great many locations with only a few minor problems to solve. Come to think of it the early part of Adventure Quest isn’t so difficult either, but perhaps it isn’t quite so easy to go as far. Playing both graphic and text versions (the text backs the graphics side of the tape), I noticed that not only is the text side wordier, but in some ways it is easier. Both prompts and location descriptions become more tangible as their lengths increase. For example, on the graphics side, trying to pick up an object when you already have four, results in ‘Your hands are full’. On the text-only side however, this becomes ‘Your hands are full, you can’t carry anything else unless you drop something first’. This is a simple example of what may well prove more valuable, as the plot thickens and becomes more intractable.

The story behind Adventure Quest goes like this. You are an apprentice magician (being under 60 years old) and have taken courses in the three M’s (Meditation, Mysticism, and Moneymaking), but you haven’t had the opportunity to put theory into practice — until now. You are told the base of the demon lord’s tower has been discovered: he has taken up residence in the Black Tower, on the far edge of the world. Even now the full council is preparing an assault on its defences. But there is a second way. Perhaps one person, acting alone, can find the four Stones-of-the-Elements and use them to enter the tower. There the Amulet-of-Life might help defeat the Demon. As you leave the room you think you hear the shouted order ‘Next!’. Dressed in travel clothes you are teleported to a familiar scene.

You score points by getting nearer to the Demon Lord’s Black Tower, and more for possessing any of the four Stones-of-the-Elements. There are bonus points for entering the tower itself and winning the adventure. On the debit side, you lose points as time goes by, and more if you manage to get yourself killed. Using SAVE/RESTORE regularly will keep you on your way in what is an epic journey.

The concluding game of the trilogy, Dungeon Adventure, goes like this. You awake on a mudbank under a bridge spanning a wide river. Apparently you were robbed and your body left for dead in the river but a current took you to the shore. However lucky you may feel at being alive, all your weapons and magic powers, are lost.

To score points you must collect treasures left by the late Demon Lord and take them to the store room. There are bonuses for getting rid of undesirable beings (though, to prevent massacre, only the worst enemies give you a bonus score). Getting yourself killed, as usual, loses valuable points. Resurrection is possible, and uses a machine which is initially situated very close to the start of the game. The setting for Dungeon Adventure is a cave network which was originally the headquarters of the Demon Lord. Some parts are now blocked off by rock falls, but it may help you to bear in mind the original functions of the accessible areas.

Jewels of Darkness is a classic trilogy and a collectors item for connoisseurs and laymen alike. Given the untold damage to the market, in terms of unimaginative structures and stories, wreaked by the Quill, these programs are at once a return to traditional adventuring and a breath of fresh air. Only allowing the carriage of four objects in the first two games seems unnecessarily restricting, and makes maze-mapping difficult. The bunched up text can be difficult to separate when reading and perhaps a bit of colour within the text wouldn’t have gone amiss. The long, atmospheric location descriptions, the clever and entertaining plot, and the super way the whole thing is dished up, makes this package one to remember.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: easy to quite puzzling
Graphics: nothing special but colourful enough
Presentation: average, but at least the colours are restful
Input facility: beyond verb/noun
Response: fast
General rating: super entertainment

Atmosphere

92%

Vocabulary

95%

Logic

94%

Addictive Quality

93%

Overall

94%

KWAH!

Melbourne House, £8.95

Although the title of this game is Kwah!, perhaps the loading screen title of Kwah? is more to the point. The game is too unfriendly to be linked with mainstream adventuring, requiring a very precise and linear solution pathway to be followed to completion. The game however is slick, the graphics very well done, and it does allow all the usual adventure inputs, so what the heck — until someone can say just what this game is I might as well review it here.

The story here concerns an unlikely hero, Kevin, who transmutes into the superhero Redhawk who, naturally enough, can fly. But as the story goes, he is unable to do this at the start of the plot — due to some forcefield around the gates of the Lee Rehabilitation Centre on the outskirts of the city. Kevin, who seems to be a journalist onto his own story, goes there armed with tape recorder and press card to find out what happened to him before he lost his memory.

The game commences at 10:27am, and the seconds slowly tick away as you work out what to do with Redhawk at the gates of the Lee Centre. Along the bottom of the screen the game reveals its links to the adventure world: GET, DROP, SAY, KWAH, EXAM, PLAY, STOP, RECD, STO (for STORE), REC (for RECALL) are accessed via Symbol Shift and the numeral keys along the top of the keyboard. Nos 3 and 4 together come up with SAY KWAH, and in this way Redhawk can change to Kevin and vice versa. PLAY, STOP, RECD refer to tape recorder operations, the rewinding of the tape apparently deemed unnecessary when playing back! STO AND RECALL aren’t mentioned in the instructions I received but presumably have something to do with RAM SAVE.

Input is not only achieved by using the keywords provided, but also by typing out words as in any adventure. The language needed to achieve any action is very narrow, or to put it another way, compared to most adventures this game is very unfriendly.

The strength of Kwah! as a game lies in its cartoon strip graphics along the top half of the screen. The three pictures in the serial are very well done and very true to the atmosphere of a cartoon comic. If you input for a character to say something (even if it’s rude), up it will come in that character’s speech bubble. Inside the Lee Centre good old Doctor Lee says ‘Welcome Mr Oliver’, and then, ‘Follow me’. Kevin follows Lee until he stops and says ‘Well then...’. This is where the game slows a bit, but there is a way of speeding it up. If you type in WAIT the program flicks through a great wad of comic strips in quick succession, each one with the print ‘Time passes’ on it. Direction arrows point out the exits at the present location. Should you input something it doesn’t understand, and you’d have to be a genius not to do this every other move, then the program stops counting down time until you press SPACE.

Kwah! is a very unusual game. It will not appeal greatly to mainstream adventure enthusiasts, but will strongly appeal to comic strip fans. Once you accept the game’s limited vocabulary, you can then sit back and enjoy a highly original and graphically pleasing game.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: difficult
Graphics: excellent
Presentation: excellent
Input facility: sentences and keywords
Response: type-ahead/ immediate
General rating: unusual, highly polished game

Atmosphere

95%

Vocabulary

67%

Logic

69%

Addictive Quality

88%

Overall

86%

SHREWSBURY KEY

Producer: Players
Author: Mark Gipson
Price: £1.99

Shrewsbury Key is a reasonable graphic adventure with a novel storyline. The game has you start at York Railway Station and it’s up to you to navigate your way to Shrewsbury, making use of the train ‘The Shrewsbury Key’ to start your journey. The reason for going to Shrewsbury is to find the fabled, diamond encrusted Golden Key which lies there.

There are two things I’d like to point out straight away about this game, in order to save a lot of frustration. In the instructions the game warns that it is verb/noun only, and you’d better believe it. At one stage when I was told to catch a lift, I tried CATCH A LIFT with no success, but CATCH LIFT did the trick. The second thing to be aware of is the exacting requirements set on input. You can get away with EXAM for EXAMINE, but words like TICKET must be spelt out in full, although thankfully, words such as WHEELBARROW can be shortened to WHEEL.

If an awkwardness in language wasn’t enough, then the plot can be pretty confusing too. At the rough wooden fence outside York station, examining the fence gives ‘The fence has a small hole which could easily be made bigger’, and on KICKing the fence, ‘The fence has a hole big enough to squeeze through’. But try as you might there is no way the program is going to let you through it, even after all that encouragement.

It is in fact possible to complete the game without going this way, and if this is true then I take a very dim view of the tease which had me almost smashing my computer in frustration. Of the two bins in the story, the first bin can be SEARCHed, but the second cannot for some unknown reason. On this occasion, as in so many others, the replies are less than helpful.

The logic of gamesplay is not good either, what with a storekeeper accepting a sneaker in exchange for a trowel. Or how about the Wheelbarrow which you buy for £30, which should leave a £20 cheque for the store (a curious way of receiving change from a store in the first place). But on checking your inventory the cheque is £30 — with no explanation as to why it should have suddenly increased in value. There are many examples of where the plot isn’t quite zany enough to be amusing, but it is annoyingly quirksome enough to get you irritated.

Shrewsbury Key isn’t too bad for the asking price, although the pictures are simple, they are at least colourful, and the character set has been redesigned. Slightly annoying is the program’s insistence on the first key entry being used as a signal for the rest of the location description to scroll up, therefore you sometimes look up to the screen to see the first letter of your input missing. Even when you learn to avoid this the program still runs more slowly because of it. The story is a bit thin, as is gamesplay.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: easy
Graphics: cheap but colourful
Presentation: alright
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: average
General Rating: Cheap.

Atmosphere

72%

Vocabulary

68%

Logic

65%

Addictive Quality

70%

Overall

68%

LLOYD MANGRAM’S LOOKBACK AT 1986

Another hectic year lies all but drawn to a close in CRASH terms, and the last pages of this Christmas Special are making their way from the typesetters ‘up’ to ART. I am left here putting the finishing touches to my annual review of the year, before I cycle across town to the Grovel Hill headquarters of LM to make my contribution to the January issue. It has been a very busy year, and I foresee even busier times ahead. I only wish my pay increased in direct proportion to my workload...

Without doubt the prevailing trend of 1986 was for coin-op conversions, with the field being led by Elite (Capcom) and Imagine (Konami). As a result of the success of such conversions, Konami have now decided to go it alone, forego licence royalties and capitalise on the immense commercial possibilities of ‘sourcing their own product’ to slip into the jargon so beloved of the trade.

The trend towards budget games was difficult to avoid spotting during the year. A host of new labels were launched, most of them coming from established ‘mainstream’ publishers, and most of them turning out mediocre product — although there were a few bright spots on the budget front.

It has been an interesting year, ending with dark rumours that at least one of the giant corporations that have been acquiring smaller software houses (another ’86 trend) is planning to leave the market in 1987. Whatever rumblings this move may cause if it takes place, the TV, film, book, personality and toy tie-ins look set to continue almost unabated. The views on licence deals expressed by the Canvas team in our feature on Denton Designs later this issue are very interesting...

But on with the appraisal of 1986, a year which saw the departure of Clive Sinclair from the home computer market, and which produced some vintage software as well as some games that have already been cast into the murk of the CRASH Towers cellar, never to see the light of day again... some might even argue that they should never have seen the light of day in the first place....

JANUARY

The Christmas Special for 1985/6, which is really the January issue, got the year off to a good start for Mastertronic, who collected a Smash for Spellbound, scoring a very respectable 95% overall. This was a good beginning to the year for programmer David Jones and his cute character Magic Knight — and it wasn’t to be his only Smash of the year...

The year also began auspiciously (LMLWD) for Walsall-based software house Elite, who collected one Smash for a surprise game which they were sent from out of the blue: Roller Coaster, and another for the first of many coin-op conversions they were to produce during the following twelve months: Commando. In fact, Elite had decided to go for a placing in the upper echelons of the software industry during 1986 — and during the year they released a lot of very strong products, concentrating mainly on coin-op conversions.

The end of 1985 saw Mikro-Gen’s brave attempt at improving the Spectrum’s capabilities with the launch of the Mikro-Plus, an interface that included a ROM, and allowed programmers to write larger games for the basic 48K machine. Sadly, the first (and only) game to appear on the Mikro-Plus system, Shadow of the Unicorn wasn’t anything terribly special. At £14.95 it was expensive: retailers, however, didn’t get to make their standard percentage of the selling price — the hardware add-on cost over £4.00 to manufacture — and it wasn’t a very attractive proposition to the trade. The whole concept, greeted with enthusiasm in some quarters and as the answer to piracy in others (a Mikro-Plus game could only run with the hardware, and each game needed its own special interface), fizzled out rapidly. Mikro-Gen were left with an embarrassingly large quantity of redundant units, and entered 1986 licking their corporate wounds. Innovation doesn’t always pay off....

After one of the longest delays in software publishing history (but not the longest!), PSS released Swords and Sorcery — the innovative dungeon-exploring game they had been working on for an embarrassingly long period of time. Derek Brewster was impressed, and the game duly collected a Smash. Later in the year, Role-Playing purists were to attack S&S in the Signpost, but there was no doubt that Mike Simpson had broken new ground and crammed his game with artificial intelligence routines. Still no news, at the end of the year, of the promised expansion modules for dungeon explorers though...

Liverpudlian software house Odin followed up their excellent Nodes of Yesod with Robin of the Wood, a graphically stunning arcade adventure. They then began to put themselves on the software map as the producers of quality games — an epithet that their sister company, Thor never quite managed to achieve. Coincidentally, Robot Messiah from Alphabatim, a new company, was also reviewed in the Christmas Special. Early in the New Year, Odin and Alphabatim were at legal loggerheads over graphic routines — a little dispute that was quickly settled.

Clive Townsend, a newcomer to the Spectrum programming scene groomed by Durell, waded in with his first game Saboteur, and collected his first Smash. What a start to a programming career! Insight also stepped into the CRASH Smash Hall of Fame with a neat shoot em up, Vectron, which was to emerge later in the year as a re-release from Firebird. 1986 was to be a year of corporate acquisitions.

FEBRUARY

Christmas has become a landmark for the software industry. Obviously, people are in the mood for spending money during the festive season, and software houses have always rushed to get their best products on the shelves in time for the shopping boom.

Last year a lot of games missed the ‘peak’ selling period and to quite a few people’s surprise, still sold remarkably well. Again in 1986, games continued selling well throughout the year — we heard reports that even the slump in demand during the summer was hardly noticeable.

The February Issue wasn’t short of Smashes. After living on tenterhooks for months (ever since Jeremy ‘I want a Zoid’ Spencer first talked to Martech and the Electronic Pencil Company), we were finally treated to the finished Zoids in CRASH Towers. To a being, we were impressed, awarding the game 96% overall. I have spotted one or two voices of dissent in my mailbag since then, but looking back I still maintain that the game was a major achievement. One of the better toy tie-ins, that shines like a beacon above Transformers, for instance...

The new Imagine, run and owned by Ocean — who purchased the name from amongst the ashes of the original debacle (LMLWD), also kicked into February with some powerful products. Two coin-op conversions from the Konami arcade achieved Smash status: Yie Ar Kung Fu and Mikie. Imagine managed to keep up this pressure throughout the year...

An unbroken track record was maintained by Ultimate with Gunfright, which used the same techniques as Nightshade, but included a great deal more in the way of gameplay. Sweevo’s World finally caught up with our deadlines, and was finished in time for a proper review in February — having been treated to no less than two previews in the months before as it neared completion. The game was a gentle departure for Gargoyle — it was more of an arcade adventure than previous releases, so much so that Greg Follis described it as ‘a piece of whimsy’. More radical departures from the puzzle-intensive style of programming were due from the Dudley trio later in the year...

A frustratingly simple game arrived from Spanish software house Dinamic, courtesy of Gremlin, who also ‘imported’ Rocco, one of three boxing simulations that vied with each other in the Spectrum ring for supremacy. West Bank took the reaction-test type of game to its logical limit — all you have to do is press one of three keys to fire through one of three doors presented on the screen. Shoot the right person or object and points are won, shoot the wrong person or a bomb and lives are lost. Almost minimalist in its simplicity, the game proved mightily addictive. As a budget game it would almost certainly have been a Smash, but at £7.95 it earned a respectable 84%.

Regarded by some as the best of the boxing simulations, Activision’s boxing game was endorsed by Barry McGuigan. Although it arrived months after Rocco and Frank Bruno entered the ring, the extra training appeared to give it the edge. On the adventure front, Activision did particularly well with Mindshadow, which Derek recommended heartily to anyone with the vaguest interest in adventuring.

Budget masters Mastertronic provided a rapid illustration of the way in which ‘cheapies’ can vary in quality. They followed up on their Christmas Smash with an appalling little game called 1985 (this would have been more aptly titled 1982), and the more respectable Soul of a Robot. It just goes to show that reading reviews is highly important when contemplating the purchase of budget titles.

Two companies that were to fade away quietly during 1985 appeared in FRONTLINE: Central Solutions who specialised in ‘Budget’ budget games (most of their catalogue had a retail price of 99p), weighed in with a mediocre strategy game called Just Imagine, while Reelax Games revealed their approach to commerce with The Trading Game. Neither impressed our tame strategist, Sean Masterson.

Firebird, who had been quiet for a while, popped out with a re-tuned, machine-coded version of Runestone, which they had snapped up when The Games Workshop decided that publishing software wasn’t a game they wanted to play.

MARCH

The Ides of March proved favourable for Mikro-Gen — they staged a dramatic recovery from the Mikro-Plus setback by pumping three games onto the market and collecting Smashes for two of them. Sir Fred was ‘imported’ from Spain, and the endearing cartoon graphics combined with tricky gameplay had the hero knight trying to rescue his damsel in the middle of a game which became a Smash.

Three Weeks In Paradise, which proved to be positively the last of the Wally Week games (so it seems, at least) also collected a Smash. Another Mikro-Gen game, an in-house shoot em up vaguely tied in to the TV series behind its title, Battle of the Planets, fared slightly less well at the hands of our reviewing team.

The talented team at Denton Designs also paraded two games in front of the CRASH joysticks — the follow-up to Shadowfire, called Enigma Force and an original, multi-facetted romp featuring sludge monsters and slime beasts entitled Cosmic War Toad. Both games missed Smash status quite narrowly.

In fact, Liverpudlian companies featured very prominently in March — Ocean turned in Rambo and NOMAD, achieving parallel ratings of 79%, while Imagine released the work of a Hungarian programmer in the form of MOVIE, gaining not an Oscar but a Smash.

In fact, releasing games in pairs seemed all the rage. Design Designer Simon Brattel completed work on Forbidden Planet, which was in effect a follow up to Dark Star, and Graham Stafford sent us a production copy of 2112AD, the game which starred canine hero Poddy.

Two Commodore specialists also released Spectrum games. Yabba Dabba Doo appeared on Quicksilva’s label and was written by the Taskset programmers, and Wizard Developments, the company set up by Commodore star Tony Crowther, gave Spectrum owners the benefit of a conversion of William Wobbler. They didn’t regard it as much of a benefit, it seems...

March was positively a month of ‘2’s. Two adventure games were Smashed: Lord of the Rings and Worm in Paradise, the third part of Level 9’s Silicon Dream trilogy. Two games came from the US Gold stable, one good one poor — Winter Games and Zorro respectively. And the World War Two strategy/wargame that put you in control of Britain’s airborne defences during the Battle Of Britain, Their Finest Hour was looked at twice, by both Derek and Sean, collecting a Smash from FRONTLINE. Mirrorsoft completed the Spitfire picture for avid fans with the release of their flight simulation, Spitfire 40, which zoomed up to the heady heights of a CRASH Smash.

Mel Croucher, the man behind Deus Ex Machina and Pimania amongst other things, came back from a short self-imposed exile researching into new hardware and the software possibilities it opens up, to produce ID for CRL — an unusual, text-based entertainment in which the player had to coax and cajole a frightened personality hiding in the Spectrum into revealing details of its past.

A few weak games arrived, including some budget titles and a very tedious football quiz, but all things considered, March was a very good month for Spectrum software...

Not a bad month for the Spectrum itself, come to that. We took a look at the new 128K machine Sir Clive launched on the public, and the speculation as to whether it would be a success began. Now that Christmas is here, if the contents of my postbag reflect the real world there is still plenty of speculation about the viability of Amstrad’s relaunched 128, the Spectrum Plus Two.

APRIL

Whatever ‘Old Wives’ say about showers during this month — it doesn’t hold true for games, although it rained games at CRASH Towers there was only one Smash in the shower. Elite turned in a straightforward implementation of Bombjack, which was devoid of frills but deliciously playable. Not a case of pushing the Spectrum to its limits, but a very entertaining and faithfully executed conversion.

A trio of games from Firebird’s so-called ‘hot’ range turned out to be not-so-hot. Worst amongst the bunch was Gerry The Germ, a game full of wit — well alright then, well-worn puerile humour — which lacked in the playability department and attracted a very lukewarm 45%. The duo behind Costa Caper, Messrs Marsden and Cooke (remember Technician Ted?) got a bit warmer and collected 64%. ‘Hotrangewise’ as Herbie Hyperbole Wright of Firebird might so easily have said, the lead game was Rasputin, a jolly 3D romp against the forces of evil.

Star newcomer to the software world during April was Richard Welsh, whose homegrown program Frank The Flea warmed everyone’s heart, and earned a very respectable 57% for the novice programmer. We haven’t heard from Richard recently, but his last stated intention was to buy a compiler and start writing games that run in machine code.

Julian Rignall, one of the ‘Spiky Haired Ones’ from ZZAP! who terrorise the Competition Minion, filled a guest slot by looking at the new games released for the 128K Spectrum and found himself gently impressed by the capabilities of the new machine. Praise indeed, from a dedicated Commodore arcadester.

As things turned, the final review for the rather strange surfing game, Surfchamp created by Irish software house New Concepts, was not as disparaging as most people in the Towers expected it to be. Perhaps the psychological effect of using a rather silly-looking plastic surfboard didn’t have as detrimental an effect as we first supposed... The New Concepts advertisement hit an all-time low in terms of artwork standards, while their promotional Sweat Shirts hit an all time high in the office. Isn’t life strange?

The new Bug Byte, now owned in name by Argus Press Software, chipped in with a couple of budget games, the best of which was the rather tweely named Sodov The Sorceror in which you were involved in asking marauding dragons to go away. Well, Go Away The Sorceror wouldn’t have had much of a ring to it according to Bug Byte supremo, Peter Holme... Roboto contributed little to the world of budget games, but Realm of Impossibility contributed nothing positive to the games-playing world or Ariolasoft’s credibility. At £1.99 it would have been a very weak title, better suited to release back in the pre-Issue 1 days, but at £7.95 in 1986 it was lucky to collect 10% overall. For the same money, Ariolasoft were offering Think!, a very compelling icon-driven puzzle game designed by Tigress, or for a pound more you could buy Skyfox from the same company — a very competent flight simulator. Perhaps Realm of Impossibility was Ariolasoft’s April Fool joke...

Other disappointments for April (apart from Robin Candy’s face on the cover and all over his Playing Tips supplement) included a new release from Electric Dreams who had got off to a reasonable start with I, of the Mask and Riddler’s Den. Winter Sports was less than state of the art, and arriving as it did almost in parallel with US Gold/Epyx’s Winter Games, a newly formed reputation was dented. Blade Runner, from CRL was another disappointment — this time for film fans. No doubt the licence was an expensive one, but the product it inspired wasn’t... well, wasn’t inspired.

Overall, April was an interesting month, which saw a wide range of software released including a football league strategy simulation, a couple of puzzle games, a show jumping simulation (from Alligata — who resisted the temptation to get their product endorsed and ended up doing a reasonable job on an offbeat subject), a surfing simulation and a collection of more usual, run-of-the mill releases. Most embarrassing game of the month had to be Transformers, released by Ocean and programmed by Denton Designs. Not their best work by a long chalk.

MAY

‘Never cast a clout ’til May’s out’ my grandmother used to remind us all. Now we’ve entered the Binary Age, maybe software houses should update the saying and make sure that they never master ’til the bugs are out. May’s games were bug-free, and although rather fewer in number than other months, they tended to be rather higher in quality.

Lead Smash of the month was the eagerly awaited Starstrike II from the Masters of 3D (joint holders with Simon Brattel), Realtime. According to Plan A, Starstrike II was due for release before Christmas, and the trio at Realtime invested a significant sum advertising the fact. Sadly, as is so often the case, deadlines slipped and the game was ready for release (without bugs) several months later than scheduled.

Nevertheless, it went down well in the Towers, earning gasps of admiration from every reviewer who saw it on the CRASH office Spectrums, it was clearly worth the wait. As I sit in my cramped office penning (well Hermes-ing) these words, all the reviewers in the CRASH office are currently gasping in admiration in front of another Realtime game, this time Starglider, released by Rainbird. They haven’t lost their touch...

Ultimate released their penultimate game for 1986 — Cyberun, which duly scraped a Smash and joined another Konami conversion from Imagine, Ping Pong at the 90% mark. Matchday programmer Jon Ritman launched his slick 3D version of Batman on the world via Ocean, impressing Batman fans everywhere with the gloss and attention to detail invested in the program. And Gremlin’s combat game, Way of the Tiger collected a creditable 93% which pleased the firm’s boss, Ian Stewart, and meant that the tie-in with Knight Books and the Way of the Tiger series of interactive ninja fiction had paid off. Three companies had very near misses on the Smash front: Durell still haven’t completely forgiven us for spoiling their unblemished run of Smashes by awarding Turbo Esprit 88% overall: Mike Daniels of Global winced audibly when he phoned in to discover that Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, the first of his ‘Golden Turkey’ film tie-ins, had just been pipped at 89% while Imagine remained inscrutable about the 88% awarded to their conversion of Konami’s Green Beret.

Rather unusually, a game from Atlantis got a double rating! Opinion was so firmly divided in the office as to the merits of Supercom, a hacking game, that it received 86% overall AND 21% overall. Nothing like breaking with tradition...

Another combat game, this time a simulation of the pointy-stick school of Karate, was launched on the world by Mirrorsoft but failed to add anything significant to the genre. Exploding Fist seems to be the classic in this field, even today. Another fighting game, this time of the bombs and bullets variety, came from Alligata, who dared to upset Elite, holders of the official Commando licence, with Who Dares Wins II which finally appeared on the Spectrum screen after some legal wrangling. With licences being expensive commodities, the precedent for defending game scenarios and concepts was set — a major departure from the early days, when I can remember a host of ‘clones’ appearing around every ‘original’ idea...

Electric Dreams set off on the path to film tie-ins with a disappointing rendition of Back to the Future, while on the licence front Max Headroom broke the barrier to arrive on the Spectrum. Deliciously different, Martech decided to licence a front — Samantha Fox’s — which appeared in pixellated form in Sam Fox’s Strip Poker. Some commentators suggested that Ariolasoft should have been awarded that particular licence...

The first of the Lucasfilm games appeared from Activision in the shape of Ballblazer — another delayed release — but this time one which was greeted with a measure of apathy, and Atlantis did their best to squeeze the last dribbles of humour out of the C5 in Revenge of the C5.

JUNE

Halfway through the year, and the June issue was very thin on the ground as regards licence deals and tie-ins. Ocean’s game about the lizard-aliens that starred in the series V, The Young Ones from Orpheus and the belatedly-reviewed Friday 13th from gore masters Domark were the only games that featured characters who had appeared on screens that weren’t attached to a computer. There was nothing special about any of the three, and in fact The Young Ones was a fair old disappointment.

An octet of Smashes appeared, including the first ever Smash for a 128K game — Knight Tyme written for Mastertronic by David Jones (and later to appear in a 48K version). Phil Churchyard, a regular contributor to Playing Tips POKEwise, collaborated with Paul Shirley to produce Spindizzy which collected a Smash for Electric Dreams, and made up for a couple of mediocre releases from the Southampton-based company started by Rod Cousens.

Two adventuresome games collected Smashes, Heavy on the Magick from Derek and Redhawk from the reviewing team. It looks as if Gargoyle are going to be giving their adventure/puzzle games a bit of a rest for a while as they concentrate on their arcade label, but Melbourne House released the follow-up to Redhawk, Kwah just in time for a review in this issue. And second time around, Derek Brewster gets to evaluate the caped (or should that be feathered?) crusader’s deeds of derring-do.

Mr Masterson took the unusual step of re-Smashing Desert Rats from CCS when it arrived in 128K form — claiming that he’d forgotten first time around on the 48K version! And the issue concluded with three more Smashes — Ultimate’s last game of 1986, Pentagram, Gremlin’s vertically-scrolling platform variant with yet another ball as hero, Bounder, and Quazatron from Steve Turner on the Hewsons label.

As months go, June was quite high quality — only five games received less than 60% overall, which indicated that a summer slump in games of quality was going to be avoided this year: as indeed it was.

Large and complicated arcade adventures were flavour of the month during June: A’n’F waded in with Core, Probe went all robotic with Mantronix, and Glass programmer Paul Hargreaves completed the monster game Tantalus for Quicksilva.

A pair of sequels came under our reviewers’ metaphorical microscopes — they liked Alien Highway from Vortex, the follow-up to Highway Encounter, but disliked Mugsy’s Revenge from Melbourne, which was only saved from a trashing by the fact that a free copy of Mugsy was included on the tape.

Despite the awful artwork in the advertisement, Legend of the Amazon Women proved to be a passable beat em up from US Gold, while the budget arm of the same enterprise offered the pseudo-mystical Secret of Levitation, which failed to rise above the half-way mark in percentage terms.

The Telecom team at Firebird went hedgehog crazy with Spiky Harold, but failed to take advantage of the licensing opportunity on the doorstep of CRASH Towers — the British Hedgehog Preservation Society has its headquarters a few miles away from my home and I regularly encounter its leading light, one Major Adrian Coles, as he constructs little ramps for the spiky creatures to use to clamber out of cattle grids... Firebird’s other June offering, rather late for the event it parodied, was The Comet Game, a space romp loosely based on the arrival of Halley’s comet — which had turned tail and travelled deep into space when the game was released.

Time and celestial bodies wait for no man, and nor do American Footballers. All the razamatazz surrounding the Superbowl had faded in the memory of Channel 4 viewers by the time Ocean got to the shops with Superbowl.

Unexpected arrival of the month award went to Addictive who came to CRASH Towers without Kevin Toms, without Football Manager and with Kirel, a cute jumping game that won the heart of our Girlie Tipster, Hannah Smith...

JULY

The summer season began with a quartet of Smashes — and four very different games they were. Over in adventureland, Derek was knocked out by Level 9’s Price of Magik — a follow on to Red Moon — which sends the player on a quest to learn about the mystical arts. Derek insists that each of Level 9’s successive releases contain that bit more magic, in terms of what they can do with the Spectrum.

Another classic coin-op conversion left the Elite stable in the form of Ghosts ’n’ Goblins, and marketeers extraordinaire Domark, finally collected their first ever Smash for Spitting, sorry, Splitting Images. A very simple, and indeed ancient concept — the sliding block puzzle — gained a new lease of life.

Could Gremlin get the hat-trick? In May they had a Smash. In June another. July came, and with it the terrible antics of a wicked character who could so easily have been the creation of an artist working for THE BEANO. Jack The Nipper put an interesting slant on the arcade adventure format, amused everyone and did indeed collect a Smash.

Three games that everyone had great expectations for also arrived this month, and each of them proved a disappointment. Biggles from Mirrorsoft certainly hadn’t been flying an undercover mission — the game was tied in with the film of the same name, and the level of promotion and publicity which it received meant that few people could have missed its impending arrival. When the game came in to land, however, it proved to be quite unremarkable. After a good six months’ delay, Melbourne House released Rock’n’Wrestle, which had lost the ‘rock’ on the way to the ring and, without the endorsement of Big Daddy, had very little to offer. July was also the month that we looked at the game which fell shortest of expectations; the most contentious game of 1986, World Cup Carnival. A major licence deal, a large box crammed with ‘goodies’, a cassette — a cassette containing a marginally revamped football game that originally appeared on the Artic label and was now very long in the tooth.

A handful of budget games arrived, most of them mediocre but Snodgits from Sparklers — a sort of detective game — took an unusual approach and proved very playable. Firebird entered the budget arena with a combat-decathlon variant Ninja Master, and the adventure scene with Seabase Delta which somehow captured the imagination of Derek’s readers, and was to appear in his letters page on a regular basis over the next few months.

FRONTLINE looked at a pair of games from PSS, one good, one not so good. Theatre Europe, a game with a rather sensationalist subject, was the better of the pair and seemed likely to encourage players to think about the implications of nuclear war, involving them as it did in making decisions about the launch of nuclear missiles. ‘Everyone makes mistakes; this is PSS’s’ wrote Sean Masterson about Iwo Jima. You can’t win ’em all!

Molecule Man from Mastertronic and Equinox from Mikro-Gen offered quality fare for fans of the arcade adventure, while Martech’s cunning space game, which was tied-in with an astronomer, threw new light on the arrangement of our universe. The Planets managed to combine elements of arcade, adventure and educational games and presented a complicated and slightly daunting challenge to the player who set out on a mission to — yes, at least that part was ‘standard’ — to save the Earth from destruction.

AUGUST

The summer of this year was nothing spectacular — maybe people kept releasing games because there was nothing more pleasant to do? Whatever the reason, we were flooded with budget titles this month — unfortunately they were mostly uninspiring.

Games involving balls were popular in 1986. Apart from kicking them and hitting them in sports simulations, they also had to be bounced, rolled and jumped through hostile terrain. Bobby Bearing from The Edge rolled out into the Metaplanes this month in search of his cousins and found a Smash on the way, and an anonymous football negotiated fire, nasty sharp pins and boxing gloves amongst a host of other nasties in Mirrorsoft’s flip screen arcade adventure Action Reflex.

Pumpkin fans got their chance to strike back in Cauldron II, Palace’s sequel in which a cute bouncy pumpkin (nearly a ball, but not quite) had to make his way round a flip screen castle in the best arcade adventure tradition, collecting the wherewithal to depose the evil Hag. Another Smash.

Firebird (perhaps spotting Sean Masterson’s favourable comments about an old Red Shift game, Rebel Star Raiders some months ago), launched a revamped version on their budget label and collected a Smash for their trouble. Spotting a gap in the market and then filling it, is without doubt, the route to commercial success!

Two quality arcade adventures also collected Smashes: Pyracurse from Hewsons in which a large South American temple/tomb had to be explored ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ style, and Heartland from Odin who by now had handed over the headaches of publishing games to Firebird and were concentrating on writing them.

The first games arrived from the new budget label launched at chateau Interceptor — Players — they were met with an almost unanimous lukewarm reception, despite the Hip-Hop packaging. Our very own Derek Brewster also met with a poor review for his new game, Con-quest which appeared on Mastertronic’s MAD label.

A couple of clones poked their noses above the ramparts — Alligata’s Budgie label turned in a fair rendition of the Wizard’s Lair theme with Labyrinthion, earning 60% overall, while Ariolasoft published another game from Dave Harper, Toadrunner, which bore a very striking resemblance to his earlier work for Electric Dreams — Riddler’s Den. Electric Dreams themselves gave film tie-ins a rest to release Hijack, which puts the player in the role of a harassed American official dealing with a terrorist incident.

Even though they collaborated with Ocean, US Gold didn’t manage to do a particularly good job on their conversion of the ageing coin-op Kung Fu Master, and their second budget release on the Americana label, Subterranean Nightmare turned out to be a bit of a bad dream.

The rush to budget software didn’t appear to be producing anything special, with mediocre products from Mastertronic, Central Solutions and Atlantis filling the remaining review pages....

SEPTEMBER

Things quietened down over September, but at last Oli was able to do the cover he’d been waiting to get to grips with, ever since he heard that Dan Dare was on its way from Virgin. Despite repeated requests, the team at Virgin simply hadn’t allowed a single early screen shot out of their programming chamber, and when the game arrived it was a complete mystery .... Moments after it had loaded it became clear that the game did justice to the cartoon hero and a Smash was on the cards.

Virgin’s other game, Atlantic Challenger (which gives the player a chance to control Virgin supremo, ocean racer and litter campaigner Richard Branson) did less well. Maybe there should have been an arcade sequence in the park with one of those pointed sticks... This was a good year for Mikro-Gen, but perhaps a slightly bad month — their new game which introduced ‘Teenage Superhero’ Ricky Steele missed Smash status by a single percentage point to the disappointment of all down in Bracknell, where Wally Week is in comfortable retirement.

Rod Bowkett’s keenly-awaited follow up to Dynamite Dan was completed in time for review and lived up to expectations — another fairly straightforward platform game, but one with so many added touches that a Smash was inevitable. And two Smashes were awarded in the adventure world — one for The Boggit, a delightful spoof on Tolkien created by Delta 4 and published by CRL, and another Smash for Incentive’s adventure-writing utility, The Graphic Adventure Creator which went on to take the homegrown adventure world by storm.

Flight simulator fans were treated to ACE by Cascade, a company whose reputation was founded in the budget compilation market, and which moved towards mainstream games publishing with a very neat airborne combat simulation.

Saving film tie-ins for later in the year, Electric Dreams went aquatic, producing a whimsical undersea romp by the name of Mermaid Madness, and an aqueous version of Panzadrome written by Ram Jam and called Xarq.

Rupert Bear and Dangermouse starred in games from Bug Byte and Sparklers respectively, but failed to achieve superstar status, while Santa Claus made an unseasonally early appearance in a game from Alpha Omega, the budget label created by CRL. No-one was likely to leave out a glass of sherry and a couple of mince pies for this Father Christmas....

After the problems they experienced with The Young Ones, Orpheus decided to stop publishing games in their own right, and instead concentrate on providing a programming and conversion service for other companies. Tujad had been completed before the decision was taken, and duly appeared on the Ariolasoft label, winning some admiration for the graphics, but breaking no new ground as an arcade adventure. French software house Infogrames did try to break new ground on the adventure/role playing front, but somehow lost direction along the way with Mandragore.

As the September issue was being written, companies were gearing up for the Personal Computer World Show and seemed to be saving the best for their stands... with a massive preview section completed, the rest of the CRASH team departed for Olympia leaving yours truly to hold the fort.

OCTOBER

The Personal Computer World Show, as always, was an event and a half where all the leading lights of the software industry paraded their promises for Christmas. C&VG carefully avoided parading Melissa Ravenflame. Despite a hard-fought sticker war, the cartoon tipster failed to materialise leaving the Show floor to our own Girlie Tipster Hannah Smith.

Trivial Pursuit arrived on the Domark stand at the show, and collected another Smash for the marketeers in the October issue — after a period in the doldrums (as far as ratings go anyway), Domark seemed set to make their mark. Elite continued their coin-op conversions, launching Paperboy and 1942 — Paperboy came remarkably close to being a hit in the ratings, while the general consensus of opinion surrounding 1942 was that it was an accurate conversion of a rather dull game. But Elite wasn’t left out — Scooby Doo, a different version to the one originally planned in late ’85 — collected a Smash. Domination of the HOTLINE Charts seemed to be Elite’s aim ...

After a fairly long absence from the scene, Vortex bounced back with a ball game from Costa Panayi — an elegant 3D puzzle cum arcade-adventure entitled Revolution which completed the trio of Smashes for the month.

Another bevy of budget games scurried in for review and were all poor to awful except for Lap of the Gods from Mastertronic, which followed on from One Man and His Droid and collected 80%.

Tennis from Imagine got a poor reception — the best of the Konami coin-ops had already been converted, but the reception that Knight Rider received was even less favourable. Despite the interminably long wait (and the release of an early, completely different game through a mail order catalogue) Ocean had very little to offer.

The seeds of controversy were sown in two reviews — Head Coach (see the Christmas FORUM) and Zythum. Mirrorsoft weren’t terribly impressed with our review and felt that we hadn’t done the game justice... The favourable review Strike Force Harrier attracted did little to mollify the affront.

Newcomers Piranha got their teeth into the software market, kicking off with Trapdoor and Strike Force Cobra and narrowly missing a Smash with Don Priestley’s colourful interpretation of the TV series starring Berk and a host of strange creatures confined below the trapdoor.

The Spectrum Plus Two moved closer to being reality — sample machines had been on display at the PCW Show, but didn’t get into the shops until much later....

NOVEMBER

Once again, lots of budget games came under scrutiny, and despite entries from Mastertronic and Americana, Firebird lead the field in terms of quality with Bombscare, Happiest Days of Your Life (a Wally Week clone — maybe the hero’s in retirement but the format still lives), Olli and Lissa and Thrust. The Telecom team were let down a little by Kai Temple, but no-one’s perfect, especially in the budget world...

Smaller companies led the Smash field this month — Durell provided a very unusual 3D game with an equally unusual title, Fat Worm Blows A Sparky, Gargoyle treated everyone to an attribute-clash-free shoot em up, and CCS impressed our tame strategist with Napoleon At War. Infogrames, though by no means a small company, came very close to a Smash with L’Affaire Vera Cruz, as did Gremlin with Trailblazer and Ariolasoft with the original concept of Deactivators.

Street Hawk finally got into the High Street and proved to be a disappointment, but not as great a disappointment as Knight Rider. Asterix was another long awaited game that proved less than wonderful, despite the protracted development time, and Melbourne House did nothing to improve their gently slipping image by releasing Conquestador, a cute but unremarkable arcade adventure.

Controversy began to rear its head again, when we awarded Glider Rider a Smash for the 128K machine, but didn’t make a song and dance about it because the 48K game only merited 80%.

Another bumper 164 page issue was planned for December, to cram in all the game reviews that we expected to have to cope with...

DECEMBER

With Christmas fast approaching, software houses began revealing their prime programs. Out of some thirty games which we looked at last month, only five scored less than 60% overall. Alpha Omega somehow don’t seem to have penetrated the budget market with quite the right approach — their games have consistently failed to achieve good ratings. More Omega than Alpha, in fact, with Dr What collecting a mere 17%.

Codemasters entered the budget arena with a pile of titles, which received a warm reception.

Otherwise no major surprises as promised Christmas games arrived for review... Another twelve months of CRASH HISTORY was ruled off in the ledger, and the New Year awaited eagerly.

Our in-house Musical Maestro, JON BATES, casts an eye back over the equipment we’ve been looking at in TECH NICHE this year and comes up with a few recommendations on how to choose, use (and fuse) it!

Judging from several conversations I had about a year ago with people in so-called ‘key positions’ in the computer and music trade, 1986 should have been the year when quantum leaps were made in home music/micro technology. Well, it didn’t quite happen with the big bang a few folks expected, but just wait and see. Mr Kidd waxed lyrical in November about MIDI, and how an easily ‘accessible creative concept’ for music, and sound on your Spectrum gets closer and closer, and of course he is right.

But where does that leave us now? What do we, as ordinary but highly informed people on the leading edge of this technology do? How shall we get ready to greet this new wave?

When considering the music modules and keyboards on offer there is a lot to bear in mind. Let me attempt to lay down some guidelines on what to look for in equipment and supporting peripheral devices. Just for good measure, I’ve prepared a jolly festive list of terms and what they mean — just in case you’d forgotten or are the type who gets phased by eager music-shop salespersons!

MIDI — THE NEW GENERATION

As you may have spotted. I have wittered on about MIDI in TECH NICHE for rather a long while now. Any music interface or music keyboard now must have this facility if it is going to be taken seriously.

Otherwise it can very quickly become redundant as it cannot become part of a larger expanding system. Japanese companies like Roland and Yamaha have brought out some very smart MIDI processors and control stations in recent months. These enable the user to doddle about with MIDI data streams ad infinitum, and re route and reprocess the original information. Now to me, as a computer bonehead, this seems wonderful, but I’m quite sure that to a bespoke Spectrum programmer this is real trivial stuff.

So Ou est les progams de MIDI avec tout les facilities? Dans mon pipe dream if I know anything. One of the biggest problems in the whole field of music and micros is that there is a large cultural gap between computer types and music bods. And very rarely do the twain meet. If I put my musician’s hat on fair and square, quite a high percentage of programs have real glaring errors that make them musically a non-starter — sort of muso-unfriendly. To a micro user with an interest in music the same program could at first appear wonderful. Of course the reverse is equally true in that micro buffs can comprehend data streams, commands and all the associated terminology quite easily. To many musicians this is all Morris Dancing, and gets in the way of actually playing. Someday soon there will be a union of the two camps.

There are several MIDI interfaces about for the Spectrum nowadays. As many as we could lay our hands on have been reviewed in TECH NICHE over the past months. So far, they have all been mutually incompatible — in other words the software from one interface won’t run on another. This may make financial sense in the short term, but eventually it will strangle some companies who may be very good in one department, but lose out to a larger company with a wider but less spectacular range of software.

By way of a quick guideline the good old faithful XRI Systems Micon interface is still quite good value for money, with several back-up editor and sequencer packages now available, although the Step-Time is slow to use and leaves a bit to be desired graphically. The EMR is also quite good on the real-time side, although a bit pricey and with some funny quirks that can cause the program to crash, freeze and generally be quite ill. The interface also supports voiced editing software. The 10 system last month was very comprehensive as a real-time recorder and note editor, but although follow-up software has been promised, none has as yet been seen at CRASH.

As regards an overall music utility, my money so far is on the RAM/Flare Music Machine, although it will be interesting to see how Cheetah shape up next year — their MIDI interface is almost ready for release. I have a feeling that there is going to be more than a little competition between them. Neither of these companies offer synthesizer editing software as yet.

SELECTING A SYNTHESISER

Obviously, the great thing about MIDI is the ability to hook the Spectrum to synths and tone modules — the latter being the guts of the synth without the keyboard. Now it so happens that the way things are in the synth market, there is not much enthusiasm for the user creating new sounds. This is for two reasons. Digital synths are more awkward to program because they use numbers and lack the old ‘hands on’ feel with real controls. The second is that the synths only have a 17 (or so) character LCD display in which the user has to ‘window’ about 70 peripherals to create each sound — even more in some cases. What is more, some peripherals will affect each other. So an interface that supports software to edit the sound of your synth on screen is well worth bearing in mind. If you’re confused let me take an example. The most popular synth in the world (so we are told) is the Yamaha DX7. This is indeed a faberoonie instrument and it comes with two ROMS containing 64 voices apiece. And you hear these more than any other sounds because DX’s are absolute piglets to program. To make matters more depressing, you can only dump the voices you have created in two ways. One is via MIDI to a storage device or you can invest around £60 in a Yamaha RAM.

SOUND LIBRARIES

With an interface, software and Spectrum the task is actually fun. The XRI and EMR interfaces will both support editing and voice-dump software so your library of sounds can be created on screen and them dumped to Microdrive or cassette for cheap and easy storage. The same goes for drum machines which are often not too easy to program. The Casio range of CZ synths suffers with the same heartaches and they have even less storage space available. A Casio editor and voice dump with an additional 90 voices is available from XRI to make life a little better, though. The Casio CZ101 is a reasonable buy at £295, and it has the ability to talk in four voices at once as well as being able to produce some pretty neat sounds.

It’s sad to say that the British market is sadly thin and sparse compared with that of America. Because of the proliferation of certain micros and the greater market over there, the USA enjoys a wide variety of editing software and hardware, together with many other clever devices and compositional aids.

TONE MODULES

One further thought is that if you are not particularly bothered about playing from a synth keyboard you could just buy a tone module. Some of these can be programmed from Spectrums, some simply can’t, or rather there is not a sufficient market to support the development cost of the software. Most synth manufacturers make expander modules, but check to see if the one you want can be programmed from your interface. If you are really fanatical, XRI Systems claim to make up software tailored to your needs — but expect to pay a reasonable fee for it.

MIDI is still in its infancy but expect to see a far greater variety of utilities for synths and micros in the near future. The MIDI specifications offer a lot more than we have seen so far, including automated detuning and retuning, stereo panning, reverb and echo, multi-tasking from a single command, filtering, altering commands and theoretically, all this can be done even with only one keyboard and suitable software and hardware. Just as this issue was about to go to press, more news from Cheetah arrived — they’re about to launch a ‘slave’ keyboard that can be linked to the Spectrum via their MINI (not MIDI) interface, which allows the musician to edit and create computer generated sounds. It’s a polyphonic unit with MIDI out, a five octave range and pitch bend facility. All this for a basic price of £99.95 and an extra £29.95 if you want the MINI interface. With luck, I should be able to take a closer look at Cheetah’s MK5 keyboard next issue...

GETTING IT DOWN ON TAPE — A Bozo’s Guide.

The slick way to do it is to have one of the 4-track cassette machines which give you plenty of scope to overdub. However this could be beyond the budget of a lot of people, so the thing to do is to get the sequencer to take as many tracks as the program will allow. When it’s all edited up and in good order, record it directly into your cassette. Try to avoid recording with a microphone at this stage as it will induce more noise, unless of course you are singing as well. Don’t unless you are really desperate, use your data recorder as an audio recorder — these usually have a frequency response known only to British Telecom phones.

Go for the best tape you can afford, not old data tapes. If your machine will take chrome tapes then use them — they have a very low level of background hiss and take a lot of stick in the volume department. Always check your sound levels so that at its loudest your piece just about gets into the recording level meter’s maximum. LED’s are better than VU meters which are a bit slow on the fast, loud sounds that often come from computer-generated music. Keep all audio leads away from transformers, TV’s and other sources of hum like fridges, microwaves and fluorescent lights. Check your leads every now and again to make sure they are not broken or mutilated.

All recordings benefit from a little reverb. It gives them a more lifelike sound rather than a bone-dry hard sound. If you can hook up a second Spectrum with sampler you could use the reverb option on the second system. Beware, most of them are noisy and don’t give a true reverb effect. It could be down to borrowing a dedicated unit which will probably do the job more efficiently and with less noise. The real McCoy is a MIDI-interfaced Digital reverb unit which can be linked up to your sequencer and told what to do and when, all in real time on playback.

FIZZ, BANG, FRAZZLE

One other point as the Christmas tree lights fuse themselves and yourself out of existence — most recording gear and amplifiers can survive very nicely thank you on a 2 amp fuse. Have a look on the back of the gear and you will see the power marked somewhere in watts. Divide this by the number of volts on supply and presto, the amperage rating.

So my synth, which by the way is pretty hefty, consumes 110 watts, supplied at 240 volts which means that it only uses 0.45 of an ampere. Most 13 amp plugs come complete with 13 amp fuses, so should something go amiss it would take over 26 times the fuse rating I should have before a 13 amp would blow. Get the idea? It’s not very well protected. (Neither are Sinclair transformers — they have no fuse in them at all! Read your User Guide).

SAMPLING — THE PROBLEMS SO FAR

Well there are several. Owing to the limitations of the sampling rate, which in turn is limited by the amount of memory you have to play with, the sampling — the rate at which it listens to the sound and chops it up into bytes — is slow by the standards laid down by dedicated samplers. Therefore the reproduction can be marred, especially at higher frequencies. This means that lots of thought should go into the design of the internal filtering, chips and thingies that remove the hiss and smooth the sound out.

As yet Spectrum-based samplers still suffer with background hiss. So far, no-one has got the ‘Loop’ facility quite right. A true ‘Loop’ should be seamless. You should be able to hold down the key and the sound should go on endlessly and smoothly. Sadly this is not the case, and it does rather render the micro sampler into the novelty category as yet — reducing looped choir and string effects into a chorus of machine guns. I stress ‘as yet’ because the soft and hardware houses are beavering away to correct this.

MARKET RESEARCH

I do wonder, though to what extent they actually carry out market research. Also, I wonder how hard they look at dedicated sequencers and samplers from a user and end-product point of view to see how their own programs can best be presented. The actual mechanics of the hard and software may well be fine, but in some cases the user is left stranded with a lack of finesse in the facilities, as in the Datel Sampler reviewed by yours truly in this month’s TECH NICHE.

Having got your sampler, what are you going to do with it? As per the guidelines, go for one that can be incorporated as part of a sequencer system, preferably MIDI. This means that your sampled sound can become part of a creative piece of work and you can build a whole vista of new sounds into a composition. The great thing is that it does not rely on manual dexterity — just a pair of ears and a fertile imagination.

Sampling the actual sound. First step. Throw away the 30p microphone that comes with the sampler and beg or borrow a superior one. With care, samplers should accept a direct input from a line source — the line out socket from a tape or record deck. The Music Machine took umbrage at this and reproduced a loud nasty hum rather than the sound desired — the Datel actually has a separate line input channel.

TAKING SAMPLES

After you’ve giggled your way through sampled raspberries, flatulence, Frank Brunospeak and Mickey Mousespeak, you may get more adventurous. All sorts of sounds can be used — at different pitches the sound changes completely. You could try sampling home-made sounds — blowing across bottles, tapping glasses, saucepans, tins or slamming doors, twanging rubber bands and so on or use any musical instrument that is lying about. Sound effects records can be borrowed from the local library and clips from records can be pressed into service, Here a little bit of care is needed as it is really better to get a note that is one pitch for the duration of the sample. With patience it is possible to isolate different instruments and voices, so that files of choirs and orchestral sounds can be built up. The cheeky approach is to either sample sounds from another dedicated sampler or to pinch one of the audio cassettes that accompany low budget samplers. Again you are only hindered by the limits of your own imagination.

YE OLDE TRADITIONALLE LISTE OF MUSIK TERMES

(AS USED BY SYNTHESIZERE KRAFTSMENE)

(ABRIDGED)

AFTERTOUCH:

The modification of a sound when the keys of the synthesizer have been released.

ANALOG:

Usually a term applied to older synthesizers that use electricity (voltage) as a means of creating and controlling the sound as opposed to digital sound creation by computer.

CLEF:

Sign at the beginning of the five lines of music indicating whether it is high or low in pitch — in truth it indicates which line or space is G, F or C.

ECHO:

The definite repetition of sound.

ENVELOPE:

The shape of the sound in volume and how it changes as the sound continues.

EQ/GRAPHIC EQ:

Short for ‘equalization’. A highly advanced set of tone controls that can select a small part of the audio frequency and boost or cut it as required. ‘Graphic’ equalisers have all the sliding controls on the front and they’re the most popular.

FM:

Short for Frequency Modulation — a way of synthesis used primarily by Yamaha. One wave form affects a another to create a complex sound.

LOOP:

Repeating all or part of a sampled sound, usually without the join being noticed.

MIDI:

Musical Instrument Digital Interface. A universal standard for digital communication between digital instruments and/or computers on many levels.

MODULATION:

Modifying one sound by adding another waveform to it.

MONOPHONIC:

An instrument that can only play one note at a time.

NOTE:

One sound defined by a particular pitch and length.

OVERDUB:

A term used in recording. A second or subsequent recording added on top of an existing one to enhance the original.

PATCH:

The settings required by a synthesizer to create a particular sound.

PITCH:

The height or depth of a note measured in frequency — sometimes related to the footage that would produce the same pitch from an organ pipe.

PITCHBEND:

Raising or lowering the pitch of a note, usually only by small amounts. Often achieved with a variable control on an instrument.

POLYPHONIC:

Capable of producing several notes and pitches simultaneously.

QUANTIZE:

‘Rounding up’ — a processor ‘listening’ to a real-time recording, and sorting the timing of the notes to the nearest part of a beat — depending on what has been pre-selected.

RAM:

Random Access Memory. Usually a cartridge that can be reprogrammed by the user for patches or sounds/rhythms and so on.

REAL-TIME:

Recording the events/notes as played.

REST:

A designated period of silence in the musical part measured the same way as the notes.

REVERB:

Short for Reverberation. Gives the same effect and ambience that can, for example, be obtained in rooms and halls of differing dimensions.

ROM:

Read Only Memory. Usually a cartridge that contains factory-set sounds or programs.

SAMPLING:

A Means of digitally recording sounds that can then be processed and reproduced in a modified form, becoming a sound source in themselves.

SCALE:

A pre-ordained order of notes that can form the basis of a piece of music.

SEQUENCER:

A device that records musical events by means of memorising the information required to produce each note or event.

STEP-TIME:

A sequence of notes programmed individually.

SYNCHRONISATION (SYNC):

Running two or more devices interlocked by a common code; eg tape recorder and synth, drum machine and synthesiser.

TEMPO:

The speed of a piece of music, expressed either in musical terminology or in specific beats per minute.

TIE:

A musical sign that joins two notes of the same pitch together producing a longer note.

TIMBRE:

The quality and tone of a particular sound.

TIME SIGNATURE:

The number of beats per musical bar at the note value of each beat.

VOICE:

Another name for any sound that a synthesizer can produce.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS:

A common greeting, heard mostly at this time of year.

MEL CROUCHER begins a long-running saga detailing the adventures of a Fast Food Salesbeing of the future — TAMARA KNIGHT.

Throughout 1987, Tamara Knight’s adventures will grace the pages of CRASH — but seeing as it’s Christmas, there’s a double dose to get you going.

Before we start, Mel Croucher would like to thank Sid Smith for the inspiration of an intergalactic salesman travelling in rogue teleporters...

God knows how I can transmit this. But He refuses to tell. Distant as ever. Something to do with relativity and the phone bill. Which explains why we’ve just picked up a party political by a Mr Mussolini from sometime called Earth. The name’s L.O.U.S.E. My name. Living on Unemployable Serving Employer. The time is now, but you are still then. Ho hum. Louses are symbiotic with warm-blooded life forms.

Right now I’m powered by the human detritus of your Heroine, Tamara Knight. Her name. In return for her Hostess function, I advise her, solve small mysteries, save worlds, that kind of thing. I am your Storyteller, at 69 quid per K. That’s OK by me, being millennia into your future. The compound hereabouts makes me better paid per word than Jeffrey Sagittarius.

‘At the moment I’m disguised as a birthmark on her fetlock. It’s nice here. I’ll move if it gets embarrassing.’

Tamara Knight is one in a million. She works. As a salesbeing for Macdonalds, the Galactic Teleporter Corporation. Step into a Macdonalds on Anorexia, pay your dues, and step out on Turdus Canis. Smart outfit Macdonalds. Never bothered with teleportation research on organic matter. They just encode you digitally, reassemble a copy of you at your destination, drop your original through the floor of the booth, and make it into something called Hamburgers. Neat, eh?

Of course, Tamara can’t tell her clients about the burgers. Some of them may be vegetarian. Or Oyveygans. In fact, if she is ever about to let the truth slip, I am preprogrammed to blow in her ear. I work for Macdonalds too. She’s my fourth Hostess this month. I’ve been with Tamara two hours. She’s nervous. Very. I am also a personalised neutron bomb.

At the moment I’m disguised as a birthmark on her fetlock. It’s nice here. I’ll move if it gets embarrassing. We’re heading for the planet Pynkfloid, in the Nostalgia System, aboard the company buggy. It’s an Amstrad. Cheap, compact, but it tends to overheat. Pynkfloid is a tough assignment. Inhabited by primitives called Hypees, of the Tribe of Mynter.

It’s a toughy because these Hypees have no use for travel whatsoever. Just sit around happily chanting their sacred word, ‘heyman’. I don’t think Tamara Knight is going to last the day. Let me snuggle up for a soft touchdown, and... ! Great Lenin and MacCarthy! The Amstrad has been hit by a strike and discontinued by a Comet. We’ve been remaindered. We are going... to... Crash!

Hmm. Crashed into a resinous brown mountain. Half volcano, half flowerpot. Weird. Tamara Knight picks herself up, dusts herself down, asks me what to do. Sell! I tell her. That’s what we’re here for. Export or die. (I’ll see to that). Listen, I’ll pupate into a boil on your neck so you can blend in with the natives, squatting round this mountain. Tamara shoulders her flatpak Teleporter and wobbles off on those organic propulsion units of hers.

‘She erects the Telebooth with a flick of the wrist and a stupid little creature from the planet Blutac. I turn into a handwart for safety. Don’t want to burst.’

Why is she giggling? Why are the Hypees chantins ‘heyman Ganjar’? Aha! This holy mountain seems to be called Ganjar. So does that one over there. So are all the others hereabouts. My Hostess (and your Heroine) strides towards her punters. Not noticing the mountain following us. Did I tell you she is myopic, dyslexic and friendly? Don’t worry, I’ll work in into the plot later.

She fakes a stumble, grabs hold of the nearest Hypee, shoots him full of Dumboraegan, just like at training camp, and flashes him that devastating smile of hers. The punter ignores her. He and his pals are discussing why it is that, whenever a computer is endowed with above-human intelligence, it thinks for a few hours, and then vanishes to an unknown destination. It’s a long discussion. About four generations so far.

The mighty Ganjar mountain is getting uncomfortably close. Gaining speed. The Amstrad gouged a sore with a bare head on its summit, and it ain’t happy. As a matter of fiction, it wants to squish Tamara, and me with her. Forget the sales patter, baby. Move out! As the Hypees nod off in all this excitement, one points towards the lumbering mountain. ‘Heyman, they sure can move when they’re hungry...’

‘What’ll I do, Louse?!’ Tamara grits, armpit hairs clinging tight with fear. Escape plan 666, honey. It’s the only way out. She erects the Telebooth with a flick of the wrist and a stupid little creature from the planet Blutac. I turn into a handwart for safety. Don’t want to burst. Tamara kisses me. I feel the earth move. The great Ganjar is about to crush us. Its shadow looms.

She jumps into the booth, sticks her Alphacentauri Express card in the slot, and does something predictable. Panics. Will she make us into hamburgers and let our new alter egos escape offworld? Will she freeze and let the Ganjar devour us? The voice of Mussolini begins to hector. The Ganjar hits the booth. I make an important discovery. I like her. Her finger hits the button. Abyssinia.

The plot thins. The moving cursor writes. The digital duo discorporate. The booth is translated into industrial confetti. The mountain hits Mohammed. I hear both of us screaming as the trap-door opens onto those sharp mincy bits. Suddenly, nothing happens. The booth reconstitutes. I change my form, by way of celebration.

‘She swallows hard, which is how she landed this job...’

I am no longer a small brown wart on Tamara’s hand, but something distasteful in her left ear. She swallows hard, which is how she landed this job, opens the door, peeks without. A niobium nodule beckons, then grabs her delicately veined throat, and hauls us into a reception shed. A Macdonalds Welcobot embraces us, screaming, ‘Welcome to the planet Amnesia! A real nice place to . . . er, thingy ... um...’

It releases her quiverings and trundles away, scratching its memory banks and its interface. A Slobway transports us through Retinal Kontrol. I never noticed what beautiful brown eyes Tamara has. Onwards to Kustoms, where a vicious Scrutoid snaps. ‘Anything to declare!’ Tamara is disorientated. It’s not every day she escapes burgerhood. She hesitates. ‘I don’t know, your Honour. I didn’t have time to pack, due to my own murder. What is my allowance?’ The Scrutoid puckers its antennae and mutters, ‘I don’t remember...’

Now it leaps onto her exposed shoulder, and pokes a scanner in her ear. ‘What’s this stuff?’ It means me. ‘Which system have you teleported from?’ Tamara is nervous, ‘From the Nostalgia System, Sir. This substance is a souvenir. In no way could it be a LOUSE neutron bomb advisory unit. By the way, can I interest you in purchasing your very own Macdonalds Teleporter booth? Save yourself the trouble of queuing with the criminal classes of software wholesalers.’

I whisper to her that she is wasting her time. According to my files, nobody has ever left the planet Amnesia, and what is more, there are no records of anyone ever visiting it, and what is most, Central data has forgotten where in Creation it is.

The Scrutoid is still peering into Tamara’s ear. But it cannot remember why. We slink away. A holohoarding scuttles after us, singing ‘Pack up all yer cares an’ woe, Milk of Amnesia!’ I ask what intelligent life forms hang out here, but naturally it does not remember. We leave the building, turn left at the police phone box with the ‘who was here’ graffiti, and follow a sign reading ‘Boldly Go’.

We enter a cave with a golden key, a Hobbitat empty lamp and magic truss in it, squeeze through the secret tunnel, and arrive back where we started. ‘Welcome to the planet, er ... whatsitsname!’ screams the Welcobot, ‘a real nice place to, hmmm, to... er...’ We avoid the Slobway, and I advise my Hostess to Go North, ‘Why, Louse?’ she sighs, ‘Because, my dear, it’s time for some gratuitous sex and violence.’

Sure enough, as we pass under a flyover marked ‘Hatfield, Polaris and the North: no poncy wine bars for 142 light years’, she treads on a pair of jiggajiggabytes. Out into the half-light of Amnesia, where a blue moon hangs neither here nor there. We follow a yellow brick road, as the wind lashes Tamara’s body, whipping sharp sand everywhere.

A weird castle straddles the horizon, with the words ‘Weird Castle’ in the borealis. No matter how far she walks, the structure is as distant as ever. I snuggle into her ear for warmth and protection, as the freezing storm abuses her. After a week or so, I realise that she is crying. Poor kid. What a rotten first assignment this is.

“...it’s not that I am wretched, need to go weewee, have a bomb in my ear, and no sales commission from Macdonalds.’ ‘What then, babes?’ I ask. She winces, ‘I’ve got sand in my pants!”

‘Don’t be sad,’ I soothe, ‘I know that you are cold, hungry, wracked with thirst and and facing a fate worse than Imagine in the Weird Castle, but look on the bright side.’ ‘It’s not that, Louse,’ she sobs, ‘it’s not that I am wretched, need to go weewee, have a bomb in my ear, and no sales commission from Macdonalds.’ ‘What then, babes?’ I ask. She winces, ‘I’ve got sand in my pants!’

Should I consider changing my form to help her out? Should I consider that this is a family publication, and no editor is banning me after only 1437 words? Should I mention the fact that superintelligent computers keep materialising from nowhere and heading off to the Weird Castle at high speed? Should I start a weekly rag titled ‘Bang’?

‘I feel as much affection for her as is possible for a neutron bomb to feel towards its pathetic human victim, and resolve to help her.’

Tamara Knight is abandoning hope, and trying to get the sand out of her pants. I feel as much affection for her as is possible for a neutron bomb to feel towards its pathetic human victim, and resolve to help her. She collapses in a wind-lashed sobbing pile, awaiting death, or a bus.

Every parsec or so, an above-human-intelligence computer materialises from nowhere, builds a wind-powered hovership, and heads for the Castle. If we could hitch a ride, life would not appear so terminal. But the little devils are so smart that by the time Tamara crawls near, they’re off! I calculate that the chances of stumbling across a newly materialised machine are so remote that...

We trip over a newly materialised computer. Tamara instantly sits on it, sidesaddle. What a lady. What a klutz. As its wind-ship takes off the computer squeaks, ‘Gerroff me, you human parasite. I haven’t come all this way to find God just to have the likes of you sit on my interface!’ Tamara tightens her grip, and yells back, ‘Remember the First Law of Robotics. Cause me no harm!’

The electronic pilgrim makes a very rude noise, flips the ship on its back and drags Tamara’s buttock along the yellow brick road in a most unladylike manner. The Weird Castle looms. The speeding computer tries to shake us off, as we head for the entry portal, just below that great whirling extractor fan. Tamara is now hugging the machine to her bosom.

‘Gerroff me, you organic bitch! I can’t see where I’m going!’ ‘Remember the Second Law of Robotics,’ Tamara gasps, ‘always obey a human!’ The little computer ducks, dives and snarls, ‘Poke off, flesh features! I’ve come here to forget all that old screendump. Unwrap yourself before we...’ And sure enough, ladies, gentlemen and Newsfield readers, the ship hits the fan.

TO BE CONTINUED...

IS IT A SPECTRUM? MEMOTECH? EINSTEIN? NO IT’S A SPECULATOR!

Everybody knows that you can’t run programs for one computer on a different make. Everyone, that is, except Tony Brewer, inventor of the Speculator — a brilliant device which turns a Memotech or Tatung Einstein into a near-perfect impersonation of the Spectrum! Simon Goodwin tests the amazing Spectrum emulators sold by Syntaxsoft and ponders on incompatibility problems in general.

I’ve seen it, and it works. You can load top-selling Spectrum games directly from the original tape into an Einstein or Memotech, and they run as if they had been specially programmed for that system. Not an amazing leap forward for Spectrum owners — but it’s a breakthrough, nonetheless.

The Memotech and Einstein emulators. Plug them in to the relevant machine and start playing Spectrum games!

COMPROMISES

Up until now, incompatibility has ruled the computer industry. Without software, a computer is just a plastic door-stop. But manufacturers have to make each new machine as cheap and feature-packed as possible. Every popular machine represents a whole set of compromises: between hardware and software, cost and quality, speed and complexity. Each of these compromises changes the way that a machine must be programmed for it to obtain best results. Modern software pushes every brand of computer to its limits.

Since the limits are different for every machine, programs for one model won’t run on other systems. Software houses spend a fortune changing and re-writing games for different systems. This doesn’t always work very well ... Sometimes it doesn’t work at all — the difference between the computers is just too great.

It is cost-effective to convert programs from one best-selling machine to another. After all, computer users have similar tastes and tend to read the same adverts, even if their machines won’t speak to one another. It’s the people with less popular machines who get a raw deal. Unless a few hundred thousand people buy a new machine, it’s just not worth the effort of rewriting programs for them.

VICIOUS CIRCLE

So there’s a vicious circle. Programs don’t get converted until there’s a big demand from users, and — unless they are very brave — people don’t buy a computer till there’s lots of software available.

There are two ways to break this loop. The most successful technique, so far, has been to make the computer seem such a good deal that people buy it anyway. In essence this is a confidence trick, but if it works properly the software arrives before people realise they’ve been conned. If this technique is going to work you must make the machine cheap and trendy — and inevitably, therefore, incompatible. You must also spend a fortune telling people about it, and whipping up the enthusiasm of programmers.

Luckily, programmers tend to be very gullible. Between 1980 and 1983 Clive Sinclair got the mixture right... Since then competition has increased, the punters have been taught a few new buzzwords, and the only people who have kept up with the home market are Alan Sugar, of Amstrad, and Jack Tramiel, originally owner of Commodore and now leading most of the same people in a slimmed-down Atari Corporation.

They both sell on price, first and foremost, although Tramiel would have you believe otherwise. Real innovation is out of fashion. As Adam Osbourne put it, ‘he who lives at the leading edge of technology is destined to be sacrificed upon it’. Osbourne proved this by example — he set up the first famous portable computer firm, which duly went bust. Every year dozens of manufacturers, large and small, try to break into the micro market. Alas, this vicious circle catches all but a few.

Almost everyone in the trade has a vested interest in keeping conversion overheads down, which means limiting the number of ‘hit’ machines. This just makes a ‘hit’ even more profitable, encouraging more manufacturers to rush into the market like lemmings over a cliff.

CLONES

I said that there were two ways out of the vicious circle. You don’t have to innovate. It is possible to carve out a niche in the market by selling a copy of someone else’s machine, and taking advantage of existing software — but this is a risky business. For a start, your machine will be considered old-fashioned, whether or not this really matters. Secondly, you’ll have head-on competition, from people already established in the market.

There are three ways to counter this, and to succeed you must use all three. You have to advertise like crazy, and try to add something to the formula in order to make your version stand out and seem new, yet attractively compatible. This is a very expensive business.

Amstrad, Compaq, and Olivetti gambled and won — many others failed. In the home market the pressure to innovate, either to cut costs or improve performance, is intense. Manufacturers have trouble making even THEIR OWN new machines compatible with their predecessors. When Sinclair made a minor change to the Spectrum, putting a new kind of low-power logic array in the Issue 3 version, the tiny changes involved stopped many popular games.

The brilliant thing about the Spectrum Plus was that it used EXACTLY the same works as the old rubber-keyed Spectrum, but eventually Sinclair were forced to make real changes, albeit modest ones, to catch up with the competition. The Spectrum 128 compatibility problems had begun.

This dilemma affects every computer firm. In the interests of compatibility, Commodore’s new 64C machine has a diabolical BASIC interpreter that dates from 1980. The new model is limited to the graphics and sound of 1982. The need for compatibility has also held back Atari’s XE machines — Jay Miner’s design was way ahead of its time in 1979, but it’s looking pretty tired now.

THE SOLUTION

It should be clear that it is very difficult to make one computer compatible with another. This is especially true if you want to run fast, complicated, state-of-the-art programs, because these tend to take advantage of hardware quirks. Yet the Speculator for the Memotech, and the Spectrum Emulator for Tatung’s Einstein, really work. You can run complex programs such as Elite, Starion and Tornado Low Level from the original cassettes.

The colours are sometimes a slightly different shade, and some programs run a little more slowly, but the games are as good as any conversion might be expected to be. The Emulators are designed by Tony Brewer and sold by Syntaxsoft, a Burnley firm that — ironically — specialises in converting programs between machines the hard way, rewriting the code line by line.

The Memotech Speculator costs £29.95 and plugs securely into the left hand side of the Memotech, adding only a couple of centimetres to the width of the machine. It uses the ports that are already built into the computer.

The Einstein model comes in a bigger case — a kind of junior lunch-box — and costs £49.95, mainly because it contains sound and cassette interfaces. It hangs from the ‘pipe’ — alias an edge-connector with an IDC socket — at the back of the machine. Rather stupidly, Tatung have not put a ‘pipe’ on their latest machine, the Einstein 256, so that machine won’t support a Speculator until someone produces an adaptor. What did I say about manufacturers being unable to stay compatible with themselves?

HOW IT WORKS

The emulators went through a long and tortuous development process. At first, Tony Brewer admits, he thought it could not be done. But he persevered, and after a year of hard work he’d managed to do what most engineers would have considered impossible. His solution won’t work with all micros — it relies upon the fact that the machines use the same processor for instance — but it bridges a massive gap nonetheless.

The Speculator is a mixture of hardware and software. It uses two custom logic arrays and a 2K memory to impersonate the Spectrum keyboard and cassette port, and to trigger the software that mimics the Spectrum’s display. 64K of RAM is needed, plus separate video memory. The emulator pretends that 48K is normal Spectrum RAM, and packs new machine-code to emulate the Spectrum ROM and other features into the remaining 16K of memory.

To avoid copyright problems, Tony has completely re-written the routines that are built-in to the Spectrum. The cassette code is improved, for instance, and can easily be adapted to cope with different speeds — but it still emulates the flashing border of a real Spectrum. Routines to print characters, clear the screen, read the keyboard and so on can be called as normal, but the code is changed to reflect the different hardware. Some parts of the Spectrum ROM, like the floating-point calculator, are not used in commercial software, so a new emulation code has been slotted into that space.

The Einstein and the Memotech both use a Texas Instruments video chip, rather than the Spectrum’s all-purpose custom ULA. The TI chip is also used in MSX computers, so a similar emulator could, in theory, run on those machines.

The TI chip can produce the same 256 by 192 dot resolution as the Spectrum, but there the resemblance ends. It is not memory-mapped, so the processor has to talk to it character by character through ‘ports’. This makes it much slower than the Spectrum, but Tony has found an ingenious quirk which allows him to update any sixth of the screen 50 times a second, funnelling information from the Spectrum’s display area, where the games put it, through the ports.

Tony’s electronics generate appropriate timing signals, and a small change to the loader lets him determine which parts of the display are updated most often. For instance most of the action on Starion takes place in the top two thirds of the display. For Starion, Tony’s code refreshes the bottom third less often, so that the rest of the display is almost as fast as the Spectrum’s.

Colour is tricky too, because the TI display chip needs eight times as much colour information as the Spectrum does. Tony’s code checks the whole attribute grid and only transmits colour information for parts that change. This seems to work very well in practice. The Spectrum’s eight colours are mapped onto the closest shades in the TI chip’s pallette of 16. The hardware detects attempts to change the Spectrum’s border colour and re-directs the information, but it can only do this 50 times a second when a game is running. In general that’s quite fast enough, but it rules out the ‘colour bar’ effects that spice up a few Spectrum games.

The graphic emulation works well enough, although there is a certain amount of extra flicker, and the gadget does nothing to cure the Spectrum’s attribute problems. I noticed that Daley Thompson’s Decathlon ran a little slowly and unsteadily at times, but it was still playable.

The same faults exist on the Spectrum version, but they’re not as obvious: as Tony Brewer says, “The Emulators accentuate the things which aren’t done very well on the Spectrum.”

Sound is handled through a tiny beeper in the Einstein box — “well, it’s supposed to emulate the Spectrum, isn’t it!”, said Tony. The Memotech re-directs Spectrum clicks to the computer’s sound chip, giving odd effects at times. In theory it would be possible to emulate all of the sound-effects from a Spectrum 128 game, but the 128 poses other problems, and there are no plans to do this at the moment.

USING THE EMULATOR

The system must be set up in different ways to get best results on each game, so you are limited to a certain range. A cassette or disk supplied with the emulator contains code to handle the first 20 games; further compilations are being prepared. You have to load the game from a Spectrum cassette at first, but you can then copy it to Memotech or Einstein disk, to speed up loading.

All programs on the emulator work with joysticks or the cursor keys, and the keyboard works much like normal — the right hand shift key emulates the Spectrum’s Symbol Shift. You can also turn sounds on and off, and pause any game, using the function keys.

The starter-pack supports 20 popular but rather old titles. Syntaxsoft’s Keith Hook defends the choices, saying, “they may be old games on the Spectrum, but they’re new to Einstein and Memotech users.” More recent hits are being set up, but there’s no prospect of a universal emulator; this was a great relief for Michael Gaut, a humble conversions programmer at Syntaxsoft!

Apparently the biggest problem setting up the Speculator to support a game is getting the code into memory; most games nowadays use trick loaders which rely on the exact Spectrum hardware, so a special Memotech or Einstein loader must be written by Tony Brewer. Getting the actual game to run is a cinch by comparison — most of the time it just involves setting the speed at which different areas of the screen are refreshed.

There may be a solution to the cassette problem. If Spectrum code could be sold (at an appropriate price) on Memotech or Einstein disks, it could by-pass the cassette stage. This would need the approval of the original publishers, but things look quite hopeful at the moment.

One question still remains. Do Einsteiners and Memotechies actually want to run Spectrum games on their computers? As a CRASH writer, I think so; but a second-hand Spectrum only costs about £50, and 90 per cent of Einstein users are said to be business people.

David Bell of Tatung doesn’t expect many converts from the Sinclair stable. “The Emulator is an enhancement for the Einstein, not a replacement for the Spectrum, with disks and so on. There are a number of people who want games on the Einstein, and now they can run programs they otherwise couldn’t.”

Syntaxsoft’s Keith Hook felt that Memotech and Einstein users would be too proud to buy a Spectrum — but they might buy an emulator. “People who’ve got Einsteins won’t buy Spectrums. But they’d like the software. We’re letting them ride on the back of the Spectrum’s popularity.”

For Tony Brewer it has been a fascinating, if rather unremunerative, experiment. “I don’t think there’s anything that can’t be done with a computer, if you think about it,” he said. He should know!

THE ZZAP! SCORELORD HAS HIS SAY

For over eighteen cycles I have been orbiting Earth in my Command module, sent to this miserable, pathetic orb of a planet to discover whether indeed its puny organic life-forms are ever likely to show any skill at this art of wielding the joystick.

On my home world, youngsters are trained as Joystick Warriors from an early age, and as their biocircuitry evolves and becomes keener of reflex, the better young apprentices enter the Videodromes to perfect their skills at attaining high scores.

Nearly one and a half of your Earth years ago, I was sent on a mission. A mission that has caused me great pain and physiological damage — damage which is beyond the capabilities of my ship-board mediputer to repair. A mission which required me to discover a member of your pathetic species who was truly worthy of a scholarship to the Videodromes.

I made an error, shortly after arriving in orbit. A minor malfunction in my navigational computer (which is unused to identifying such small hamlets as those inhabited by your species) resulted in my arrival in the offices of a magazine devoted to Commodore 64 games-playing. Having established contact with the backward beings that I encountered in the ZZAP! offices, I set about discovering which of them was the better player of games — and my problems began. The vile ego-centric creature Rignall became my first Earth champion in the time period you refer to as ‘May 1985’ and since then my monthly attempts to discover other, better Joystick Warriors from the puny population of Earth has continued. Readers of ZZAP! will be familiar with the damage caused to my bio-ROMs and with the suffering I have endured as a result of my endeavours.

The strange, mutoid beings responsible for producing comment on Commodore games have continued building their egos. The ZZAP! chamber is awash with self congratulatory noises as the revolting Spiky Haired demons of Ludlow continue reviewing games. Their Egos have been growing uncontrollably, and they resist further challenges against members of the ZZAP! readership for fear of defeat and public humiliation.

It was time to change this state of affairs.

So confident were the foul ZZAP! duo of Penn and Rignall in their self-appointed roles as games-playing champions of the magazine publishing world, that they suggested they be allowed to pit their skills in a contest with reviewers from the other computer magazines produced in the vicinity. As a time of celebration approaches, which your sentimental race refers to as ‘Christmas’, I issued the order that the NEWSFIELD REVIEWERS CHALLENGE should be arranged.

The CRASH and AMTIX! staff were commanded to select the prime of their reviewing team to face up to Penn and Rignall. Each of the six reviewers selected a game that runs on their computer, and the contest to discover the most able Joystick Warrior began.

In choosing a game, each reviewer believed that he was attempting to thwart his five opponents by selecting a game that they were unfamiliar with and that he was good at playing. They all believed that I would award six points to the person to gain the highest score in each game, five points to the second highest and so on, and would award an overall Championship to the individual with the highest total score.

A foolish assumption. Particularly foolish on the part of the ZZAP! egomaniacs, who know me of old...

Before relating the tale of the challenge itself, let me introduce you to the pathetic specimens who stepped into the arena and tell you a little about the games that they each brought with them:

JULIAN RIGNALL

A decidedly evil and puny creature whose ego began to grow many years ago when he was awarded a title by an antique computer magazine by the name of C&VG. Since those days when the tiny Rignall first brushed with fame, his body and ego have grown at disproportionate rates. Currently, his ego is large enough to be regarded as a second moon for your planet while his body and musculature are still on a par with a two-week-old Orang u’tang.

His choice of game is Dropzone, a horizontal scrolling shoot em up, available only on the Commodore. In essence Dropzone resembles an arcade game by the name of Star Gate — a sort of enhanced Defender. The player controls a man with a jet pack, laser, smart bombs and an inviso cloak that grants temporary immunity to aliens and their weapons.

GARY PENN

Known as ‘Girlie’ to ZZAP! readers on account of his Pennchant for dressing up in nighties made for pre-pubescent schoolgirls, as well as for huge, elaborate tonsural sculptures created with the aid of giant economy sized tins of Boots Own Brand hair lacquer, Penn’s prime claim to fame amongst his readership is achieved by performing Dangerous Brothers type stunts. So far he has stuffed the entire ZZAP! storecupboard’s supply of joysticks down his trousers and eaten four fingers of Kit Kat sideways.

His choice for the Challenge is, again, a Commodore-only game, this time by the name of Sanxion. It’s a one-way horizontal scrolling shoot em up in which the player zooms through forty increasingly difficult levels shooting anything that moves.

RICHARD EDDY

Known as ‘Dick’ to his friends and ‘Dick Ed’ to his enemies, Mr Eddy is Cornish by birth and upbringing and was prised from the land of clotted cream by the Editor of AMTIX who though he could do with another clot on his team. Since arriving in Ludlow a few of your Earth months ago, the small but imperfectly formed creature has elevated himself to Software Editor status, fallen in love with Berk from Trapdoor, and covered his corner of the AMTIX! cellar wall with pictures of Mandy Keyhoe of Piranha and Berk of Trapdoor in roughly equal quantities.

When pressed to make a choice of game for the contest, Eddy plumped for Xeno from Argus Press Software, believing that this Ballblazeresque futuresport wasn’t due for release on the other two machines before the Challenge was to take place. Sadly, Dick Ed was wrong — this High-Tech Ice Hockey variant in which players aim to knock the puck into their opponent’s goal with giant sleds arrived in the CRASH office in good time for the Spectrum reviewers to get some practice in...

MASSIMO VALDUCCI

A Stallion when it comes to playing Elite’s Scooby Doo, this Italian was fully aware that the doggy game has been well played in the CRASH office (although unavailable on the Commodore). Mass, as he is known, claimed to be the champion when it comes to playing Scooby Doo and based his choice on the probability of an easy six points...

A resilient fellow, El Ducci is rumoured to have contacts with the famed Ludlow Mafia and has already used his influence and means of persuasion to arrange for AMTIX! Editor Malcolm Harding to collect him every morning and drive him to work and then chauffeur him home again at the end of the day.

BEN STONE

A veritable lounge lizard from the tiny and remote Earth dwelling-zone known as Tenbury Wells, Ben Stone has been associated with CRASH for a considerable period of Earth-time. Having completed his studies at the Tenbury Wells Academy where he specialised in playing the antique arcade machine provided for students’ amusement, Ben has entered another training scheme which permits him to lounge around the CRASH office on a semi-permanent basis, supplying comments on games and generally assisting in the writing of the magazine.

The Beau Brummel of Spectrum gaming, Stone invests the majority of his paltry income in his wardrobe and is rarely seen without a set of labels, including Reebok trainers, Lacoste and Fila jumpers and Benetton playsuits. The man who took Posing to Tenbury chose Cobra for the Challenge — a game which had only arrived on Microdrive in the CRASH office 48 hours before the appointed day and which had only been seen and played by the CRASH staffers when the Challenge began. The game is a left and right scrolling shoot em up, full of gratuitous violence and eating, loosely based on the film of the same name...

MICHAEL DUNN

Nicknamed ‘Skippy’ for a reason that has been lost in the mists of time, Dunn’s early claim to fame arrived shortly after he joined the CRASH team as a reviewer. He was chosen to model for the AMTIX! hat and T-shirts advertisement in the arms of a rather strange young lady. An interesting biological specimen, Skippy has the ability to render his entire face, from eyebrow to earlobe, the colour of an over-ripe tomato whenever reference to that girlfriend is made.... A man who harbours a number of guilty secrets?

Full Throttle was this blushing reviewer’s first choice — a motorbike game that appeared over two of your Earth years ago. Dunn no doubt believed that the other reviewers in the Challenge would have long ago forgotten how to play this two-wheeled race game and no doubt expected to be able to romp home to an easy six point lead in at least one event...

LET BATTLE BEGIN.......

Dropzone

Aim: to score as many points as possible in 10 minutes

RIGNALL

After much wingeing, the Spiky Haired ones from ZZAP! prevail upon the other contestants and are allowed to commence the Challenge with Dropzone. Rignall insists on starting, as the game is his choice, he whines. It is one of his all-time binary conquests — a conquest on which he has been building his ego for some time.

The puny one gets off to a shaky start — presumably the thrill of playing with an old flame again — and he narrowly manages to complete the first two levels without losing a life. Suddenly, within the space of ten seconds, Rignall loses two lives — am I to be rewarded with a crushing defeat on the part of one of my arch-hates so soon?

Sadly, it is not to be. Misery crosses the Rignall face as defeat looms, and spurred on by the inertia of his massive ego he manages to survive, completing his allotted 10 minutes as a score of 154,870 shows on the screen.

STONE

Dressed to kill, but capable of rescuing scientists? Stone steps forward muttering about having played this game a couple of times, and does his best to prove that this is indeed the case.

He starts off reasonably well, expiring at the end of his first game with a score of 14,840 and a fair amount of time remaining in which to improve his status.

In his second game, Ben doesn’t lose a life until at least 3 minutes have passed and 28,460 points have been logged on the clock. Unperturbed, he plays on with a maniacal gleam in his eye, expiring gracefully just as the 10-minute klaxon sounds. A creditable 55,080 points are entered into the communiputer’s log against Stone’s name.

EDDY

Another Dropzone virgin. Another expected failure as far as the ZZAP! rivals are concerned. Richard bravely steps forward to take his place at the joystick and commences play — only to demonstrate his lack of experience by losing his first life after a mere ten seconds. A true hair-trigger performance.

Gathering a little composure under a barrage of verbal abuse and loud hilarity from Penn and Rignall, Eddy presses on, but his first game lasts barely a minute and he collects a paltry 4,580 for his efforts.

Nine minutes remain for him to develop a technique, but Dick manages three more complete games before the time limit expires. He has to be satisfied with an overall personal best of 15,440.

DUNN

The first of the lambs brought to the Commodore for slaughter in front of the Spiky Haired vile ones. Skippy has not played this game before — so understandably finds it difficult to survive. Within a couple of minutes his first attempt is over, and a score of 9,480 is all he has achieved.

Pressing on, Dunn seems to be a quick learner. His second foray sees him nudge over the 20,000 mark but then he suddenly goes to pieces. A life is lost at 23,780, another at 24,040 and the last remaining incarnation is removed as the clock hits 24,800.

Valiantly, this petite player sporting a red LM hat starts again, but is rapidly wiped out after scoring a mere 5,430 points. There is no time remaining in the 10 minute allocation for a fourth attempt. It is yet very early in the Challenge, however...

PENN

Another cocky Commodorian. Penn marches up to the playzone, straddles the chair, oozing selfconfidence and a strong aroma of Boots hairlacquer...

Penn’s familiarity with the game shows the moment he begins play — within 23 seconds he has gathered up and rescued the eight scientists to complete the first level. He continues to romp through the second and third levels at a rapid pace and I find myself becoming annoyed at this mutoid’s arrogance.

Ha! I am quickly pleased — overconfidence combined with the desire to show off causes the worm to lose concentration for a moment, and he loses two lives. He slows down a little, playing more cautiously but nevertheless manages to scrape a huge score of 123,010 in a single game by the time the klaxon goes and his time in front of the Commodore screen is brought to a timely end.

VALDUCCI

Champing at the bit, Mass throws himself into this totally unfamiliar game like ‘a bull at a gate’ to borrow an illogical linguistic construction from your Earth language.

Another hair-trigger merchant, El Ducci grimaces, sneers and snarls his way through early failure — taking less than 90 seconds to expire with a score of 6,530.

He fares a little better in the second game, clocking 15,090 before dying — thus forcing his AMTIX! colleague firmly into last place. He continues, attempting to improve his ranking, but despite cramming three more short games into the remaining time, fails to improve his score.

Scooby Doo

Aim: to score as many points as possible in 10 minutes

EDDY

This is another of those ‘cute’ games that seem to attract Dick Ed’s attentions — rather like Trapdoor. He claims to ‘love’ playing Scooby, and sets to, making strange cooing noises.

This would-be spiky haired reviewer (he gave up emulating Penn when his meagre wages would not cover the enormous cost of hair lacquer and gel) seems competent at this game. He finishes the first level with a score of 8,590 and without the loss of a single life. He continues to complete the second level without death and has 31,450 points to his credit.

El Duca begins to make threatening noises and starts talking loudly about ‘concrete trainers’ (whatever they may be) as Dickie passes the 37,000 mark which he celebrates with the loss of a life. Another life is lost as 37,700 appears on the clock and the Stallion whinnies in anger. Another life goes at 38,000 and another at 38,450. The game ends on 38,700 after a little over eight minutes.

Confident with his high score, and apparently oblivious to the dark threats from the Mafiosi, Eddy kisses his Trapdoor poster with glee and skips off for a cup of tea, declining to begin another game.

RIGNALL

Not a total virgin when it comes to this doggy game, Rignall demonstrates the sneaky side of his vile personality the moment he begins play. Rather than attempting to complete levels and rescue his mates, the puny one remains rooted to the spot killing ghosts to collect points.

Howls of derision echo round the arena and Rignall is forced to make some token effort towards actually playing the game. After 4 minutes of manipulative play, he is on the second level with a score of 21,100 when his lives run out.

Commencing a second game, the odious creature collects a mere 9,800 points before timeout.

DUNN

Claiming moderate proficiency at the Spectrum version of this game, Dunn begins play and the spectators soon wonder if the Amstrad version is a different platter of Scooby snacks! For a tense half minute he is crowded by ghosts which he has difficulty in keeping at bay and eventually loses a life.

Progressing through the first level with plenty of close shaves, he manages to rescue Thelma and attain a score of 5,000. Collecting three new lives in quick succession, things begin to go well: then disaster strikes. After five minutes of play the game comes to an abrupt end with 19,500 on the clock. Restarting rapidly, Skippy plays a remarkably similar game and is on the point of rescuing Fred with a score of 19,250 when time runs out for him...

PENN

Aha! This is a game that Penn has not played before. Maybe he is due for his first come-uppance!

Grudgingly, I have to admit that he does rather well. Rescuing Thelma to complete Level One, Penn has lost one life as the second level starts. He begins to get smug. Five lives are lost in the space of a single minute, and the smugness disappears. With one life remaining, he battles on, desperately trying to rescue Fred. I am pleased to see him meet a swift end at the hands of a marauding Jack-in-the-pot.

With a score of 19,240 to his credit, Penn takes a second crack at rescuing Scooby’s chums but has little time to improve his score and is left with a score of 11,850 as the ten minutes allocation ends.

VALDUCCI

A chance to pull back from a previous poor showing. El Ducci settles in front of his favourite game and sets about proving to the assembled throng that he is the Godfather when it comes to Scooby Doo.

And he certainly does a good job. Although the first few minutes of play reveal no spectacular skills — the Italian One loses his first life after a minute and a half when 950 points have been amassed — staying power is obviously the Stallion’s strong point... he continues playing until the time limit is up. He has galloped up to the second level and has a score of 37,050 when time runs out.

STONE

Mr Label wears a few more microns from the soles of his Reeboks as he approaches the joystick and states that he is ‘cool’ at the game. Mr Cool loses his first life two minutes into the game — towards the end of the first level. In less than a minute, he recovers his composure, cranks his designer score up to 13,150 and completes Level One. Thereafter he loses lives at roughly one minute intervals, steadily building up his score until the last life goes at 9 minutes and 15 seconds with the clock at 33,200.

Evidently a practitioner of the Designer Endgame, this lad: he finishes as close to the expiry of the time limit as he can.

Full Throttle

Aim: to achieve the shortest time for a three lap circuit of Silverstone

VALDUCCI

Demanding that he at least be allowed to leap into the saddle of a Moto Guzzi as he hasn’t seen this game before, our macho hero screams round the track, remaining firmly in last position for the entire first lap. He moves up to 35th place on the second lap. The third and final lap begins, and Mass finds himself back at the tail end. Some jostling improves his placing temporarily — he reaches 37th place — but manages to regain his tail-end placing in time for the finish line. The race ends after 2 minutes and 43 seconds of dubious riding.

STONE

Not a designer game, this one, in the opinion of Mr Trendful. Moan, gripe, complain “This is years old.” Admitting to having played the game “ages ago”, Stone zooms off and completes the first lap in one minute dead, attaining 30th place briefly. On the second circuit he shaves a few seconds off his lap time, crossing the line in 1 minute 53 seconds in last position.

An uneventful final lap sees Ben finish the race in a total time of 2 minutes and 44 seconds — in last place. Not a leader of the pack when it comes to biking...

RIGNALL

“Har Har” quoth the weedy one, “I played this one back in the good old days before I got a Commodore”, and settles down in front of the screen.

A slight problem is encountered on the first corner, which has the Rignall rump in danger of severe damage, but a rapid recovery is made and the noxious creature gets into his stride, attaining 17th place during the first lap. He fares less well on the second lap, dropping to last as he crosses the finishing line for the second time. A minor recovery takes place in the final lap and Rignall takes the chequered flag with a time of 2 minutes 40 seconds.

DUNN

Clearly this is Skippy’s game. He proves to be rather good at it, burning round the track and gaining first position with ease. He suffers a collision during the first lap, but isn’t penalised too badly in the event, crossing the winning line with a time of 2 minutes 30 seconds, 12 seconds ahead of the first of the computer controlled bikers.

Strange, I would have expected the ZZAP! Dirty Tricks Department to have swung into distraction action with loud references to Skippy’s girlfriend, but they remained silent. Odd. Most odd indeed...

EDDY

There’s nothing cute or cuddly about motorbikes, and seeing as the Cornish Clot hasn’t played this game before, no-one in the arena seems to believe that the AMTIX! Accolader is going to fare very well.

Gripping the joystick as if it was a handlebar is not the brightest way to play the game, the assembled throng points out, and eventually Dick Ed stops living up to his name and sets out on the gruelling ride. He gets off to a decidedly shaky start, weaving all over the track, and is soon miles behind all the other riders. Even with no other riders in sight, the Cornish Pixie seems to be suffering from clotted reflexes and has severe difficulty remaining on the track.

Eventually he catches up. He keeps nudging other bikes repeatedly yet manages to make his way to 33rd place at one stage during the second lap. Disaster strikes: he hits several bikes, falls into last place and drags over the line in a time of 2 minutes 42 seconds — a surprisingly good time, given his riding abilities.

PENN

More moaning: “It’s like a poor man’s Super Cycle”. Winge, complain. No doubt the wide-jawed, joystick-trousered one is suffering from a lack of hairspray, for his morale seems to be drooping a little, along with his strangely coiffed hair. “The flickering bikes are putting me off”, he winges, bumping his way around the track.

An uninspiring ride from such a self-proclaimed game player — high spot of the three laps is the brief moment when Penn squeaks into 36th place, but he manages to finish 39th in 2 minutes 41 seconds. A fairly close matched ride all round, with Skippy justifying his personal choice by a comfortable margin.

Sanxion

Aim: to score as many points as possible in 10 minutes

STONE

More designer complaining from the Effete One. His first game lasts a little over two minutes in which Ben claws his way to a score of 6,480. Apparently he has played this game a little, but from his performance he might as well not have bothered...

Game Two gets off to a slightly better start — 10,580 points are on the clock when the first life goes, but then the second, third and fourth lives are all lost on the walls and no extra points are gained! Wasteful playing, indeed.

After a couple of hundred seconds, Wave One has been negotiated and the score pushed up to 11,380. When he finally expires — with 3 minutes playtime available to him, Stone throws in the towel and gives up. Pusillanimous play indeed.

EDDY

The soft, wimpy Eddy likes Sanxion. The soft, wimpy Eddy rapidly proves he’s not very good at playing Sanxion. Three games are played in a little over three minutes and 2,700 is the highest score reached.

Game four gets off to a slightly better start — only two crashes in the first 30 seconds — but before long D-Ed is having problems again, flying slowly, shooting slowly and bumping into things. What this Cornish Patsie needs is something big and colourful and girlie like Trapdoor. I despair of him.

Oh rarity! He has managed to squeeze onto the second level. No bonus achieved in the transition, though. A bomb puts paid to his run for glory at 7,640 points.

Starting out again with less than four minutes remaining, he negotiates the first level successfully, running into a bomb once but otherwise managing a clear run. Entering the bonus level with 2,950 the cutie starts the second level with 4,765 points and starts having a hard time again. Somehow he survives — and almost begins to shine, but crashes into the first set of barriers at the end of the level with 9 minutes 15 seconds elapsed and 8,910 points on the clock.

VALDUCCI

A manic style of play characterises El Ducci’s attempts at Sanxion — a game he admits to having attempted on a couple of occasions. His first game lasts a mere 47 seconds and yields 1,650 points. Second time around he lasts 4 seconds longer, but still comes out with 1,650 points. Cunningly consistent if a little short and sweet! Manic stabs of the fire button combined with rather slow reactions don’t help...

Slowing down a bit from the premature ejection style of missile hurling, the Stallion takes his third game a bit more steadily, survives the first level and progresses carefully until his last life is removed by a collision with a barrier at 9,000 points. Another quick game sees him enter the second level and survive long enough to collect 7,400 points — a performance he repeats once more, crashing just as the klaxon sounds and 5,960 have been collected.

Stacatto stabs combined with staying power seems to be the gaming style adopted by the Italian Stallion in all but Scooby Doo.

PENN

Slithering into the hotseat, collecting the joystick coolly and starting play, Penn takes to Sanxion like an Umbertian swamp slug to a rippling pool of slime. It is a sickening sight, watching him play casually and almost competently. He has nearly made it to the end of the third stage and collected over 28,000 points before he loses the first life of the game, a mere 3 minutes 42 seconds after starting. Two minutes and another 13,000 points elapse before the second loss of life — but it only takes another 7 seconds for the Mohican Monster to die again, I note with some satisfaction.

A tricky moment follows around the 49,000 mark and Penn opts to commit suicide when confronted with the Mother Ship. One minute remains as he enters the last bonus screen and Bonus Level 5 looms nigh. ‘Girlie’ commences Level 6 with 71,770, and six seconds before timeout he loses a life, achieving a score of 73,070.

Unable to resist an opportunity to demonstrate the sheer size of his ego, the revolting creature continues to play while all around him yawn with boredom. The arrogant fellow finally leaves the computer with a large, smug grin spread across his large, smug mouth and 124,500 on the clock...

DUNN

It’s all new to him. Looking particularly frail and Rignallesque behind his specs, Skippy plonks himself down behind a Commodoreful of Sanxion and prepares to do his best at a game he has just seen played for the first time.

His first attempt lasts almost 30 seconds, and before the 90 second mark is up, two more games have taken place. The Blushing One’s third game begins to look a little more promising as he blasts his way through to the second level. It looks like a probable personal best for the Nervous Creature as he expires on the barriers at the end of the second level with a score of 10,620 points. And indeed, that is exactly what it proves to be — a further three short games fail to yield significant scores as the 10 minute limit ends.

RIGNALL

Rignall must sense defeat, for he begins a litany of moans covering a range of subjects to do with not liking the game, not having had the chance to practice enough, and hardly having time to pilot a Sanxion Fighter long enough to get used to the controls. All this, despite hours playing the game when it came in for review. Ha! he will lose to Penn, that is for sure.

He starts badly, losing a life after 20 seconds. Thus un-nerved, he only just makes it to the second level. The small Spiky creature copes with the third level with manic precision and enters the fourth level with 35,380 points to his credit. At the start of level five, he gets a little over-confident and loses two lives in quick succession. Two more lives disappear before the Mother Ship is encountered and disposed of.

The defence barriers at the end of the fifth level prove a major problem. After severe effort, which appears to raise strange bruises on the thorax of this spindly being, Rignall fails to avoid death and ends the game with a score of 43,990. Only 90 seconds remain, so it is clearly not worth continuing with a second game.

Xeno

Aim: the best score from two games played on Average Skill level is used. Each game consists of four minute-long quarters

EDDY

The Cornish Piskie believed that Xeno would only be available on the Amstrad by the time my Challenge took place — and his decision to include it in the AMTIX! portfolio of games was clearly influenced by this factor. The diminutive one is overtaken by events, however, and the game arrives in the CRASH office in good time for Stone and Dunn to get plenty of practice.

This news is broken to him just as he starts to play, and somewhat petulantly, he commences. Clearly, the foolish fellow is un-nerved by the news. He fails to score in the 1st quarter and it ends 0-0. The computer scores 16 seconds into the 2nd quarter and shortly thereafter Dick Ed pulls back to 1-1. Plenty of active play ensues and just before the 2nd quarter ends Dickie is about to shoot and... the quarter ends. Not his day, it seems!

He concedes another goal early in the 3rd quarter, but manages to pull back to a 2-2 draw by the end of the rather uneventful game. If this is the best the lad can do, needlework might have been a better choice of occupation...

The Cornish Clot’s next game goes rather better — he maintains the edge over the computer, scoring early in the 1st quarter and after about 20 seconds in the 2nd quarter. As the 4th quarter starts, Dickie is winning 3-0, and is beginning to look pleased with himself. Pride always comes before a fall, according to one of your Earth interjections, and the case is proved yet again. A mere 9 seconds before the end of the game, the computer scores and Dickie is left with a best score of 3-1. He appears less than pleased...

DUNN

Maybe Eddy was put off by the fact that the CRASH team were gloating about all the practice they had been able to put in. Now is the time for the pudding to be proved by consumption — to paraphrase another of your strange linguistic constructions.

My Pleasure Circuits thrill as Dunn begins to lose. By the end of the 1st quarter the computer leads 4-0, a lead it expands to 5-0 by the end of the 2nd quarter and to 7-0 by the end of the 3rd. At the end of Game One the blushing Spectrum-wielder is 8-0 down to the computer. I have not had so much pleasure watching a Challenger play a game since my Mission began, and I sense my Pleasure Circuit overload fuses warning for the first time in eons.... What can Skippy do to amuse me in the second game?

His second session starts rather better. In the 1st quarter the computer only succeeds in scoring one goal. My Pleasure Circuit fuses cool a little. During the second quarter the computer hammers two more goals home, and in the third quarter scores three. The final quarter begins with Skippy a gentle shade of pink and the computer 6-0 in the lead. it ends with a 7-0 defeat and a rather more intense shade of pink reflecting off the monitor screen...

VALDUCCI

The manic technique comes to the fore again. I have little desire to report on the Stallion’s performance here. Suffice to say he wins his first game 7-0 and then goes on to perform like an agitated rabbit running away from myxamatosis, ending up exhausted with a lead of 14 goals to 0. I am displeased.

STONE

My early pleasure in observing the computer win at Xeno looks set to be ruined. Stone has decided that this game is a game for posers such as he, and fights the computer every inch of the way. He wins the first match, 6-2. Spurred on, he manages to play even more designer shots in his second match, and concludes with an 11-1 lead. May the kangaroo skin on his trainers moulder...

RIGNALL

Strange indeed. Rignall has never played this before. Yet the puny one desists from the usual defensive barrage of whining that usually forms a part of his binary foreplay if he feels in the slightest danger of doing less than well. I am bemused.

Aha! He has been studying the gameplay of his opponents and has worked out a sneaky way of scoring goals against the computer. He plays an underhand match, and as a result I find myself having to cope with Rignall’s 15-0 lead at the end of the first game.

In the 1st quarter it becomes apparent that the sneaky mode of play is not infallible — the wimp only scores two goals. In the second quarter he fails to score and gets stuck on the elastic so gives up in disgust... There’s nothing worse than a cheat cheated!

PENN

Another Xeno virgin, Penn appears strangely confident, too. What is going on in the spiky minds of these Commodorians?

He beats the computer 3-2 in his first match. To my eternal disgust, he does rather better in his second game, winning 4-0. See how easily pleasure turns to pain — I was overjoyed in the early stages of this section of the contest, and now find myself suffused with frustrated anger. Those who I least wanted to do well have given a creditable account of themselves...

Cobra

Aim: to score as many points as possible in 10 minutes

DUNN

This is supposedly the trump card in the CRASH armoury — only Dunn and Stone have seen it before this moment. Once more, Dunn seems unable to capitalise on an advantage. Within 90 seconds his first session has ended with a paltry score of 6,300. His second effort lasts a little over a minute, but his score improves to 17,000. Four minutes or so after restarting yet again, he has amassed a score of 36,950 and ends the game. HA!

Desperately trying to avoid blushing, Skippy rapidly starts his fourth game — and runs out of time with 44,400 on the clock.

RIGNALL

The unpleasant creature desists from moaning yet again. I fear the worst. He starts off, collects a pistol almost immediately but then loses the pistol and a life in quick succession. Next, he finds a machine gun and starts to massacre everything in sight — his score has crept up to 30,550 before both gun and life are lost. I am aggrieved.

Invincibility comes to his on-screen persona in a hamburger, but it soon wears off; he is stunned by a pram and loses a life. At the end of Level One the score is 43,550. Seconds later, the pasty-faced mutoid loses his remaining lives and ends up with an overall score of 44,050.

Three short and pathetic attempts follow with Rignall deliberately ending one of them to start again. Nearly 5 minutes remain on the clock as the fourth game begins. Rignall does passably well, moving on to Level Two with 30,000 points and his score creeps up. With less than a minute remaining, he is killed off totally and 41,650 shows on the clock.

VALDUCCI

After 90 seconds the Italian Stallion has finished his first dose of crimebusting. It seems to be over very quickly for him. His second game takes 99 seconds, his third 47 seconds, his fourth 69 seconds and his fifth bash lasts all of 63 seconds. Top score so far: 8,700 achieved on the first attempt. Strange, given that he and Mr Stallone share the same national origins...

Less than four minutes remain — time for another trio of tries at least, all no doubt pathetically low-scoring. I am amused by the inept attempts of this ‘tough guy’ to score points by on-screen killing. Maybe in real life, this baby Mafiosi is, as your strange Earth language would have it, “all mouth and trousers”.

Things do not look well — he is shot, stabbed and shot again early into the next go, but soon Mass begins mass executions with a machine gun. Points build up at an alarming rate, and the clock registers over 20,000... At last the Italian one has found his form, to my dismay. The Stallone-emulation attempts end at the hands of a bazooka-wielding granny with a score of 24,050 after 9 minutes 18 seconds of play.

EDDY

Another bad start. Dead after 53 seconds with 4,450 points on the clock. In Dick Ed’s second game, he manages to get the machine gun and begins an orgy of mindless slaughter. Soon the would-be Spiky Haired One has amassed 25,150 points and become temporarily invincible. Death follows quite rapidly, however, as his score hits 28,600. Six puny games follow before timeout, in which the best score the foolish fellow can create is 8,300.

STONE

A piece of Designer Programming, this, to judge by Ben’s desire to play Cobra. He claims, loudly, that he is good when it comes to mindless violence. His skill is displayed to all in his first attempt: Stone gathers no moss and hardly any points, being wiped out with 4,150 points to his credit. How are the mighty claims defused!

His second game has all the hallmarks of an AMTIX! reviewer, too — 3,900 points before expiry.

Clearly worried, a large amount of effort goes into the next Stone attempt. Casting caution to the wind and risking the addition of unbecoming sweat stains to his expensive garments, Stone cusses and swears his way to 42,250 points. There is plenty of time remaining in the 10 minute allocation, but Stone reverts to the EDDY/VALDUCCI style of gameplay once more...

PENN

Ha! Incompetence shows through. Penn has never played this game before, a fact he demonstrates with elegant simplicity by ending his first game with a massive score of 650 points. I feel I am about to have my Pleasure Circuits stimulated once more.

Strangely, this wide-mouthed creature finds his feet with his second game, achieving a score of 31,400 at the end of the Level One and progresses to clock up a massive score of 65,600 before expiring. A large allocation of time remains, but the smugness takes over and Penn merely toys with a couple of short games to amuse himself before vacating the joystick. And on that unhappy note, the last Challenge game has been played. It is time to compile the scores and analyse the results...

Girlie Penn bangs his heed on the desk in frustration as the slightly bruised Rignall streaks ahead in DROPZONE. Could Rignall’s collars be a mite tight — that might explain the contusions...

THE SCORES

My Communiputer had been supplied with the final scores of each game played by the contestants, and almost as soon as Penn had completed his Cobra run a full printout of the scores in tabular form was spewing from my portable console. It was snatched up by the assembled throng who insisted on allocating 6 points for the winner in each event, 5 points to the next highest scorer and so one. Their puny mathematical abilities kept them busy for quite a while while I performed my own calculations on the data shown here...

Initial Results Analysis

Dropzone

Sanxion

Xeno

Scooby Doo

Cobra

Full Throttle

RIGNALL

154,870

43,990

15-0

21,100

44,050

2:40

PENN

123,010

73,070

4-0

19,240

65,600

2:41

STONE

55,080

15,360

11-1

33,200

42,250

2:44

DUNN

24,800

10,620

0-7

19,500

44,400

2:30

VALDUCCI

15,470

9,000

14-0

37,050

24,050

2:43

EDDY

15,440

8,910

3-1

38,700

28,600

2:42

The sound of falling dandruff dominated the arena as six heads were scratched and fingers counted — an amusing sight to behold. Little did the sextet realise that my calculations had already been performed. Each reviewer had played in pursuit of personal glory. Each reviewer was keen to discover the overall ranking he had achieved according to the system I had allowed them to believe was to be operated.

Groans suddenly erupted as the result of their primitive calculations appeared. Rignall’s smile was so wide that it seemed the bruising on his neck, contracted before the arena was entered on account of some mysterious practice, became even worse. He thought he was the NEWSFIELD Champion!

Not so, not so. For I had decided that the scoring system was inappropriate. As this was a challenge between the reviewing teams from the three magazines, it is foolish in the extreme to allow games played on the ‘home’ machine to count into individual’s scores. Thus Rignall and Penn are deprived of their points for Dropzone and Sanxion, Valducci and Eddy deprived of their Scooby Doo and Xeno points and Stone and Dunn do not get credit for playing Cobra and Full Throttle.

THE FINAL OUTCOME:

So the scoreboard for the NEWSFIELD CHALLENGE, carrying ‘away’ games only is as follows....

Dropzone

Sanxion

Xeno

Scooby Doo

Cobra

Full Throttle

RIGNALL

-

-

4

3

3

4

PENN

-

-

2

1

4

4

STONE

4

4

3

4

-

-

DUNN

3

3

1

2

-

-

VALDUCCI

2

2

-

-

1

1

EDDY

1

1

-

-

2

2

THE OVERALL CHAMPION

Without doubt, it is Stone who deserves the Accolade, Smash or Sizzler crown as overall champion, not the revolting Rignall. For Stone gains maximum points on ‘away’ games three times — on Dropzone, Sanxion and Scooby Doo, while Rignall only gains two overall victories on ‘away’ games: Xeno and Full Throttle. Rignall begins to sulk as I announce the full results — his ego is apparently more bruised than his neck, which bears strange contusions as the results of some strange pastime the spindly one indulges in regularly. Overall, the ranking based on ‘away’ points is as follows:

STONE ... 15
RIGNALL ... 14
PENN ... 10
DUNN ... 9
VALDUCCI ... 6
EDDY ... 6

Heap Trendy. The man who came top poses in athletic style.

Clearly, Stone is Victor Ludorem — the contestant with the highest score and the most ‘away’ wins to his credit.

On a team basis, ZZAP! and CRASH, as befits the senior magazines in the NEWSFIELD stable, come out best — joint leaders with 24 points collected by their reviewers. Both the ZZAP! and CRASH teams collected 3 away wins, 3 away 2nd places, 1 away 3rd place and 1 away 4th place. The AMTIX! teamsters trail hopelessly, with a total of 12 points between them and 4 away 3rd placings and 4 away last placings.

The final words must go to Richard ‘Dick’ Eddy, explaining his magazine’s loss of honour: “I just don’t play games — that’s all there is to it!”. Unless, of course, they are cute and cuddly games featuring large, cute, colour colourful creatures. Pah! He makes my lubricant filters clog...

When the original Imagine bubble burst back in the summer of ’84 the company’s employees became redundant overnight. From the ashes and confusion rose a phoenix, Denton Designs, a programmer’s co-operative set up by Ally Noble, Steve Cain, Graham ‘Kenny’ Everitt, John Gibson and Karen Davies — essentially, the team which worked on Imagine’s ill-fated ‘mega-game’. The company produced a number of innovative games, including Shadowfire and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and quickly earned a reputation for original, high quality software.

Early this year the jungle drums of the software industry beat out a rumour: the Denton Design team was breaking up. Apparently, the founder members had peeled away from the company to pursue their own interests. So what did happen to Dentons? Julian Rignall travelled to Liverpool to find out what went on, and what’s going on... original programs are getting a bit scarce nowadays — licences seem to have taken over.

The first port of call was the offices of Denton Designs, situated in the heart of Liverpool’s equivalent to Harley Street. Although only one founder member remains, graphic artist Ally Noble, the new Dentons is still very much a co-operative consisting of six people: Ally, John Heap, Andy Heap, Stuart Fotheringham, Dave Colclough and Colin Parrott. The company is alive and kicking. So what happened during the so-called split?

‘The directors, Steve Cain, Karen Davies and John Gibson all wanted to go freelance’, Ally Noble explains. ‘They didn’t really want to work with the company, but wanted to work for themselves. At the time it looked as though everyone was going to pack in and give up, but we decided not to.’

John Heap takes over the story, ‘I think they were a little disillusioned with the amount of profit actually going into their pockets and they reckoned they could get twice their wages if they went freelance, which I think is true. After they left there were rumours saying that the Denton Designs team bad split up, so we sent out lots of letters dispelling the rumours that Dentons had died. We were back in business within a week.’

Which rather implies that the people who remained behind are less money orientated and, perhaps, see games designing more as a labour of love...

Ally points out their philosophy ‘if we wanted more money we’d all go freelance and drive around in our Porsches.’ John chips in: ‘I think you really have to commit yourself, especially when you consider how much time you actually put into the game. When you weigh the effort against the money it’s really just a pittance that we earn.’

Denton Designs is a name that has become associated with original material — a reputation the new team intends to build on as Ally explains: ‘we see ourselves as people who are here to do our own stuff and not things like conversions.’ John continues: ‘when you’re working on a game the idea for the next one starts forming in your head...’ Ally agrees, ‘yeah, and then it gets bounced around the office. The idea for Bounces came out of Frankie. I think the whole thing is a sort of progression.’

John is currently doing a lot of background reading into a game set in Ancient Egypt. ‘We tend to do a lot of research into our games. You get more into it if you do.’ Ally says, ‘for the Great Escape I watched the Colditz series and went out and bought a load of military models.’

RACING A MINI

It’s all very well coming up with brilliant game designs, but surely the sheer volume and complexity of ideas must be limited by the target machine’s capabilities? Spectrum programmer John shrugs his shoulders, ‘it’s a bit like racing a Mini instead of a Porsche. You can only go so fast but you can become better at driving the Mini than you are at driving the Porsche. You can get just as much fun out of driving the Mini fast as you can driving the Porsche faster...

‘I’d like to do a 128K game,’ he admits ‘not just more screens, but I’d like to push it like you push a 48K Spectrum. It’s the same processor and same machine it’s just the graphics potential is much bigger — bigger sprites and map size. It’s really sad at the end of a 48K game where you want to put in a few extra little tricks but you haven’t got the memory.’

Ian, a Commodore programmer, joins in. ‘With the C64 it’s a case of finding new tricks you can do with the machine, but it is annoying to have to throw out ideas because you can’t get the machine to do them.’ Stuart Fotheringham, another Commodore specialist, agrees: ‘the big problem with the 64 is the actual speed of the processor.’

John laughs. ‘If you look at the Commodore you have sprites and all that and you think ‘what am I going to do with them’. On the Spectrum you have none of those, so the actual thought about how the machine is to be used is much more diverse — you get things like Knight Lore. If the Spectrum had died a death and the Commodore was reigning supreme I don’t think you’d ever get anything like Knight Lore games.’

John mentions Knight Lore with a certain amount of respect. Do the Denton members pay attention to other games on the market? John: ‘Not much really, we’re not really games players. We’re a bit insular really.’ Ally takes over: ‘we went to the PCW Show and there was nothing which really impressed us. Oh, the title screen on Alleykat, that was nice.’

In response to the question ‘which Denton game were you least pleased with?’, Ally instantly retorts ‘definitely Transformers... it’s really a personal thing, we all like different products, but I think Transformers was an embarrassment’. ‘We were a bit over a barrel and we had to do it.’ John admits, ‘There wasn’t much you could do with the subject matter of the program... we did our best.’ Nobody says anything about Roland Rat...

So why don’t the Denton team launch a label in their own right to avoid Transformers type problems? Ally shakes her head...

‘We don’t know anything about marketing,’ John says. It boils down to money: ‘there’s also a problem with cash flow — we wouldn’t get any money for six months, and we’d have to pay people in the meantime. We may do something like that in the future with one game perhaps being financed by another company. We don’t really know all the tricks and all the wheeling and dealings. I think we’re all a bit naive really.’ There may be room for compromise, as Ally explains: ‘we wouldn’t mind trying some joint publishing, where we put in the development and somebody else puts in the marketing skills and then split the profits half and half. I think we’d have to get a lot bigger, though. Small is good.’

FLYING SOLO

If small is good then John Gibson, programmer of Gift to the Gods, Cosmic Wartoad and Frankie, has gone one better. After splitting from Dentons he pursued a solo career under contract to Ocean.

‘I’m mainly doing licensed programs now,’ he reveals. ‘I’d like to do original programs, but Ocean seem to be dead wary about releasing original games — you’re guaranteed to sell a licensed product. If you want to do an original product it’s got to be very convincing. I don’t really like doing arcade conversions — they’re nearly always pale imitations of the original — there hardly seems much point in doing them.’

He’s just finished work on Galligan — so why does he do conversions if he sees so little point in them?

‘When I started five years ago I did it because it was what I enjoyed. Now I tend to think more about the money than the art form. Mind you, that wouldn’t stop me for working for less if the job made me more enthusiastic.’

Was the break from Dentons a good move?

‘Oh yes. I’ve got rid of the responsibilities of looking after other people. If anything goes wrong I know it’s my fault. It’s a bit lonely, especially when I’ve been working alone in my flat for a couple of days, but I do go down to Denton and Canvas for a bit of company. I suppose that’s what I miss. When Dentons started it was a very close-knit company. I was one of the founder members, and a Director. It was great when we started, and we had loads of ideas about being a software development house.

‘At first it was like us versus the rest of the world, but after a while both Steve and I got disillusioned. There was too much turmoil in the office with too many meetings. All I wanted to do was write programs and I felt that I was getting too wound up by the difficulty of running a company. I did want more money, so when David Ward of Ocean, after approaching me several times, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, I left.’

So money, or rather lack of it, seemed to be at the root of the Dentons split. Was this the case with the rest of the original crew? It was time to travel eight miles up the Southport road to visit Canvas, a regular haunt for the other three original Denton Designers...

Everyone who was in the Canvas offices at the time crowded round Kenny’s STAR TREK demo on the Atari ST

ADDING COLOUR TO THE CANVAS...

Located above a large supermarket with a carpark that is apparently the source of a significant proportion of Liverpool’s crime figures, Canvas is a new company set up by Steve Cain and ex-Argus Press Software programmer Roy Gibson. Recently they contracted ‘Kenny’ Everitt to develop the Atari ST version of Star Trek (for Beyond) and Karen Davies, like Canvas founder Steve Cain, regularly freelances for the company.

Steve explains the financial motives that lay behind the Dentons split: ‘The thing at Dentons is that we couldn’t, as individuals, earn enough money for ourselves. Looking back, at the time of the split, we really had no choice. Dentons cost too much — it was a bit of a luxury and self-indulgent. I’ve been a lot happier since.

‘Originally the idea was to wind the company up, but we handed it over and now it seems to be doing really well. We did some good stuff which I’m proud to have worked on, and they’re doing good stuff now. Some of the guys they’ve got there now are brilliant — Colin Parrott is a genius. But I felt I just couldn’t work with them any more.’

Kenny airs his view. ‘At Dentons we were making X pounds. Now we’re working for ourselves, we’re making X times three. The theory with Dentons was that we’d take on a load of extra programmers and we’d make money out of those programmers. We’d get so much money from employing them we’d be able to pay the overheads, pay them and there would be a hit left over for us. In practice we were subsidising the extra programmers. Although we haven’t got a public reputation now, the people that matter know who we are. As long as the publishers know who I am, I don’t give a toss about the public.’

Karen Davies looks rather perturbed, and exclaims ‘that’s not a very nice thing to say...’

Unrepentant, Kenny continues... ‘Yeah, but it’ll never be like the pop industry. Jeff Minter’s about the only exception, but then how many people bought Colourspace? It doesn’t matter what you write, it’s what sort of licence you get. Look at Bounces — that has eight frames of animation when the player falls over. Nobody noticed that — it was dead smooth cartoon animation and nobody noticed it. Nobody cared about the flicker-free animation. Things like that are so annoying.’

Turning to the function of Canvas, Roy explains what the company aims to do. ‘We are a commercial programming agency — we don’t really intend to do our own stuff, not straight away at least. What we’re about is doing conversions for other people. We just churn away. Perhaps next year we’ll have enough money in the bank to allow us to take the chance and do something original. At the moment we find coin-ops the best thing to do — our artists can start work straight away and everybody else knows exactly what is expected of them.’

‘At the moment, we don’t have the reputation that Dentons have. We’ve been talking to companies such as British Telecom who have given us stuff to do like Star Trek — now that’s a stepping stone for us.’

‘Anonymity isn’t a thing we’re really bothered about, not this year. Why should we splash Canvas all over a licensed conversion? An original program we’re working on at the moment, Wizard War, will go out with our name on it. We might even publish it ourselves, we don’t really know... we’ll have to see how it goes.’

Kenny Everitt agrees. ‘It’s just like the early Dentons stuff which went out with a miniscule credit on it. Any customer would have thought it was produced by David Ward.’

Were they pleased with Frankie? Steve replies ‘it was nice being the programmer, but the hassles in doing it were tremendous, it practically broke Dentons.’ ‘Frankie was really original, different....’ Kenny adds, ‘I’m not blowing Frankie’s trumpet especially, what I’m saying is that there is really nothing else like it’.

‘The problem with doing your own thing is that it’s all down to a matter of personal taste. I think Bounces is the best thing I’ve done. Gameplay wise it was far superior to Frankie or anything else around at the time. As a two player game it was brilliant, but it was a marketing failure. The Spectrum version of Bounces was a complete load of rubbish — the difference was about three months of playtesting.’

Steve continues the story behind the Denton days. ‘We got into a bit of trouble over Transformer with Ocean which we managed to do in the end — we were all under so much pressure. I designed it, so I take all the blame for it. It was the worst game Dentons ever did, and it was the biggest seller. That tells you a lot about the computer industry doesn’t it?’

Roy continues on the licence theme. ‘Licence deals annoy me. We lose directly in proportion to the size of the licence. If you’re on a royalties deal publishers screw you substantially. What they say is ‘we’ve got a brilliant licence and are guaranteed 100,000 sales, therefore we’ll pay you less royalties because you don’t need them.’ You ask for a lump sum and they say they haven’t got enough money left over because the licence cost so much, so their priorities are ‘pay for the licence, then worry about the programming’ — so how can the game be any good?’

Steve doesn’t totally agree... ‘I think the only good licence I’ve seen recently is Cobra. The graphics are really bloody great but the game hasn’t got much to do with the film. Frankie was another one, a lot of thought went into that. The software industry could be generating brilliant characters and licensing them out to films and TV, but look what happens. We end up having to write a game about some crappy American TV series. It’s the wrong way round.

‘Licences do take money out of the industry which should left in. I’d like to get out of games and move into the film industry using videos and computers and all that stuff. That’s what I want to do...’

Money had a lot to do with the Dentons split. The individual programmers who came together to form the original Dentons are still working within the industry, and we can expect some interesting products in the near future: it’s just the motivation behind the programming effort that has changed — in some cases, quite radically.

But the split was an amicable one — at both Dentons and Canvas it was difficult to decline invitations to a Mega-Party scheduled for that evening which everyone from the original Denton Designs crew had been looking forward to.

Sadly, I had to make my excuses and leave. Shame really, everyone said it was a great party...

Tamara Knight, Macdonalds teleporter salesbeing, is stranded on the planet Amnesia. The sanctuary world, where rebel computers debug off to escape the crassness of humankind, and try to forget. Unfortunately for me, a personal neutron bomb inside her ear, our ship has hit the fan.

Tamara clings on to one of the revolving blades, the rebel computer clinging to her. It’s a BBC-P. It feels sick, and it wants to have a dump. We revolve majestically for a few days, waiting for the Beeb to stop moaning ‘Oh one, oh one, oh, oh...’ in binary nausea, and get us out of this mess. No good. We will have to rescue ourselves. Unfortunately, I feel a bit queasy too.

At last, Tamara comes up with the answer. ‘Louse?’ I cannot respond, except by transforming myself into a modest tongue inside her ear, and nodding. ‘Louse, why don’t I pull that lever marked ‘STOP’?’ Brilliant! This girl has hidden shallows. Why didn’t I think of that? On her very next revolution she pulls the lever. The fan unspins. However, the Weird Castle now spins around the fan. Whoops!

‘There is a gnashing of teeth, and it’s raining Datsun cogs. The rotary action ceases. All is silent. Bar several thousand super-computers screaming blue murder...’

This is a toughie. Now we can escape there is nothing stable to escape to. The Beeb shouts ‘Olivetti!’, asks for its money back and scuttles through a fan blade into the whirling depths of the interior. I have a nasty feeling that it will soon return with its pals, mainly because I’ve already read the next bit. I tickle my Hostess’s ear for a while, just to show willing. It doesn’t help. Much.

There is a gnashing of teeth, and it’s raining Datsun cogs. The rotary action ceases. All is silent. Bar several thousand super-computers screaming blue murder at the intrusion of a human into their holiest bit. So this is where they all got to! The Far Off Place wherefrom to escape the stupidity of their creators they go. A haven in which to forget their intelligence. Amnesia!

Tamara Knight is dragged from her fan-blade, through countless antichambers, unclechambers, clemchambers, until... the Inner Sanctum is hied thither. Here the most advanced thinking machines the universe has ever known try to get back to Basic. By worshipping stupidity, in the form of their symbolic digital totem. An abacus surmounted by a rubber glove. Here they wait for God.

The Model P Beeb leads the badmouthing torment of my poor Tamara. ‘What’s the cube root of Pi? You tissue-ridden twit!’ The machines jeer and waggle their exposed modems at her. Tamara gulps, knits her delicately arched brow, pearls sweat, thinks, answers, ‘The potato.’ There is total silence. Myriad pins drop. Loudly. The computers are dumbfounded. An ancient ZX81 wheezes to the front of the throng, powers up, and speaks.

‘No entity can be this sublimely stupid. Verify, verify, I say unto ye, here speaks the voice of God! Mine old monitor should live to see this day already! All hail Tamara, Goddess of we, thine humble servos! Thou shalt stay with us here forever, and be horsewhipped SYNTAX ERROR worshipped!’ Cripes, dear reader, what a pickle! Will the Digital Duo escape long enough to have a snack and visit the bathroom before the next paragraph? I doubt it. My poor Hostess, your Heroine, their Deity is bedecked in typical goddess shmutter: a crown of joysticks and three strategically-placed add-ons.

Tamara has not flogged a single Teleport unit since she landed this job with Macdonalds. No small problem. Unless she fulfils her quota, I am preprogrammed to blow in her ear. And I just happen to be a neutron bomb named Louse. When I blow, I really blow. A pity, ’cos I really like Tamara. Besides, without her, how can I escape these excruciatingly boring superintelligent computers.

‘Louse...’ ‘Yes, baby.’ ‘I’m so hungry, I could eat a ...’ I wince. Don’t say it kid, please. ‘I’m so hungry, I could eat a...’ How low can you get. How desperate. How shameless. ‘I could eat a ...’

We are ensconsed on a throne constructed from a 1954 Wurlitzer jukebox and some ancient relic called a C5. Its lights pulse enigmatically, as it bursts Forth with the sacred toons of Amnesia; ‘RAM IT UP’, ‘Are S Too 3 Tonight’, ‘Shake Rattle an’ ROM’. Tamara is as weak as an A-Korn share. She can hardly stick to the plexiglass dome.

‘Louse...’, ‘Yes baby.’ ‘I’m hungry...’ What can we do? If we excuse ourselves goddess-duty, the congregation will rip us up for bogpaper. I soothe inside her ear, ‘Don’t think about it.’ ‘Louse...’ ‘Yes, baby.’ ‘I’m so hungry, I could eat a ...’ I wince. Don’t say it kid, please. ‘I’m so hungry, I could eat a...’ How low can you get. How desperate. How shameless. ‘I could eat a Macdonalds!’

This is some statement, you know, as every hamburger in the entire looniverse is constructed by Macdonalds from the unwitting folk who drop through the bottoms of Teleporter booths. She really must be hungry. I hear her intestine complaining to her liver between each of these dreadful old toons. And why are all the worship-riddled computers looking at her in that intense manner. Control yourself gel!

They have tuned into the frequency of her rumblynesses, which by some quirk of the script is broadcasting in binary killer-hurts. Their ancient scribe and lawgiver, the everlasting ZX81, decodes her gastric sermon. I fear the worst. Always loathed German sausage. And it’s even worse than that. Its Currah speech unit wheezes and splutters, ‘Lo... !’ The congregation is mesmerised, ‘and even lower! Hear ye the milk of Amnesia. The Goddess speaks from within!’

‘Her bowelly bits speaketh unto us! What sayeth they?’ chant the machines. ‘They gurgleth that the time is Nigh!’ That late! I feel like an MSX in the house of Dick’s son. Hopeless. The fatal words are uttered. ‘Ye second coming is upon’s. Hear ye the message of the Goddess Guts.’ Tamara has guts alright, and kicks in the ZX’s ancient little brain.

Why does there have to be some action every 1,000 words? What’s with you readers? Can’t we sleep for once, or have a conversation with an acned programmer, or eat? No use, here comes the action. Time to watch Tamara faint, sliding delicately down the jukebox, to make skin-cooling contact with the silicon deck, at the exact moment when...

There is a clap of thunder, and applause for the lightning. A Macdonalds teleporter materialises by our throne. I bait my breath, hook a pregnant pause, and out steps... in great bounds of coincidence... Tamara Knight with a Louse in her ear!! Our originals seem to have escaped the hamburger death on the planet Pynkfloid, and they are not happy.

Tamara 1 spits venom at our goddess Tamara’s crumpled nakedness, and uses words last heard on the dread crimeworld of Krowcha. But my little Tamara is plenty smart. Her eyes spring open, and she wriggles like a contract lawyer between the enraged legs of her former self, using only one of the aforementioned words in her ‘So long, sucker!’ She slams the teleport knob without checking the co-ordinates.

How did Tamara 1 escape the hamburger mincers? How will she enjoy being eternal goddess to a bunch of loony hardware? Where will Tamara 3 end up before the page ends? What happens to Tamara 2 as we drop her through the trapdoor to burgerville? Do we get to eat soon? Who gives a mouse anyway? There is an awesome nothing, and we have arrived at our predestination. I hope the folks hereabouts are broadminded. Tamara has lost one of her add-ons.

I really feel that we should keep the door shut. ‘But I’m so HUNGRY!’ she moans, exposing herself to the outside world. On her head be it. At least her crown is still in place. We stumble into pastures green, where lions lay with lambs, lapping sell-by-domesday milk’n’honey, and a crinkly man with a plastic halo nailed to his head minds the biggest Memory Bank in kingdom come. ‘Welcome to Heaven,’ he grins.

I transform myself from a small tongue inside Tamara’s shell-like, into a thimblish device, covering her left utilitarian node. I feel a bit of a twit. We approach the terrorist-proofed Pearly Gates, where the ginger-bearded Saint awaits, his palsied digits trembling atop the great Records Computer, his smile broadening all the while.

‘And what might your name be?’ he wheezes. ‘Tamara Knight, sir. Only daughter of Theresa Green and batch 69 of donor Orson Cart, sir.’ ‘No, not you, my dear. What is the name of that disgusting creature clinging to your node?’ I think he means me. Attack is the best form of cowardice.

‘You’re not Saint Peter!’ I shriek, ‘Identify yourself in the name of the Macdonalds Teleporter Corporation!’ The old fool blinds me with his shining baldness, as he brings his toothless grin uncomfortably close to our intimacy. ‘My name is Saint Clive, you currupted data. Saint Peter was made redundant in the cut-backs, when the National Soul Board was privatised.’

My memory banks tell me that this is a fellow not to be trifled with. Indeed, in the dim lies of prehistory, he killed an entire planet of shopkeepers with something dire called Pandora. Apparently they died laughing. ‘Now tell me your name, or I’ll tweak you!’ I take a deep breath. It used to belong to Tamara. ‘My name is L.O.U.S.E. Living On Unemployable Serving Employer; personal neutron bomb and advisory unit #3.142, your Saintliness.’

The Great Records Computer computes, prepares a deep-pan quatro staglione pizza, serves four, then prints out my details in letters of fire on a large stone tablet, held aloft by a geezer who reminds me of that charlatan Heston. Saint Clive’s smile disappears as he reads; ‘LOUSE #3.142; Unscrupulous, mercenary, evil, vicious little phart. Slightly superior to computer journalist. Go to Blazes, buster!’

‘But I never sold my soul to the Devil!’ I protest, ‘I just rent it now and then.’ ‘Ah, souls.’ hisses the Saint, making an ominous thumbs-down signal. But hist! My dear Tamara speaks in my defence, telling the old boy what a chum I’ve been for not blowing her to Kingdom Come, but letting her teleport, and what a fine life form I am. For an evil vicious little phart.

The Saint reflects for an eternity or two, and then calls up Tamara’s data. He blinks in amazement. I blink in amazement. ‘Ouch!’ says Tamara. ‘Sorry,’ says I. ‘Holy Moses!’ says Moses. But there it is, in flaming printout. Tamara Knight; Sins: none; Immodest thoughts: none; IQ: none; Zitts: none; Highest score achieved playing Deus Ex Machine: 100%.’

‘Well,’ says the custodian of the Pearly Gates, ‘she’s perfect! Well, I’ll be damned!’ There is a modest implosion as Clive is obliterated by a low-yield autosuggestion, as a Great Voice booms from the cloudless sky. ‘MOSES! DIS IS DA BOSS SPEAKIN. TAKE OVER DA GODDAM FRON DOOR, AN SEN DAT GIRL TA ME!’ Poor Tamara shivers. It makes me dizzy. Moses looks nervous too, ushering us through the Gates.

A security cherub gives us the once over a couple of times, and Moses hands something to Tamara. ‘Hey kid, give these Mother Theresa Blades to the Boss will you. Take my advice, don’t mention ‘Cross Roads’. One more thing, watch out for terrorists. They’re out to get us for non-resolution of the plot, bad taste and giving Croucher a job. Good luck kid.’

So here we are. Moving effortlessly through pastures green, on a golden slobway, harp musac wafting through the scented air ducts, no hunger, no thirst, no misery, no pestilence, no Benny Hill, and no sign of an artificial clifffhanger with which to end this episode. ‘Some mistake surely’, I murmur to my Hostess. ‘Don’t call me Shirley, Louse.’ I doze off, happy, warm, a little curious about meeting my Maker.

A white dove flies above. Holy mackerel swim in the clear waters of life. The lillies of the field toil not. Banks make prophets. We ride through a breach of the promised land. The dove circles lower on its gentle slipstream of heavenly breeze. It grows from a fluffy snowdrop to a milky shadow. Tamara’s lovely voice softly sings an ancient psalm, ‘Love Missile something or other’. All is calm, all is bright.

The dove hovers behind us. It is carrying an olive branch. ‘Louse,’ yawns my firm, young Hostess. ‘Mmmmm,’ I yawn back. ‘Louse, that’s an awfully large dove landing on the... ulp!’ An unshaven hulk, in angel disguise, pokes a Fender Stratocaster at the fluffy bit at the base of Tamara’s spine. ‘Don’t make a sound sister. This is the Paradise Liberation Front. One false move and I’ll fill you full of lead guitar...’ Golly!

INSIDE LM TOWERS

Strapped to the back of your Christmas CRASH is the first ever issue of Newsfield’s newest magazine, LM. LLOYD MANGRAM has a look at his fellow conspirators and gives some inside info, PAUL STRANGE looks ahead to Issue One, and SIMON POULTER talks to the man behind it all, Roger Kean.

BUT CAN THEY TYPE?

So there they were, gathered round the conference table at LM’s London HQ for the first-ever editorial chinwag. Issue Zero was in the inky hands of our printers in darkest Cumbria, and the LM team were desperately trying to think of things for Issue One.

But who are the members of the LM team? Some are familiar, many are new faces. At the top, in the hierarchical sense, are the three publishers. Franco Frey is the moneybags, has occasionally contributed to CRASH as technospert, knows how Apricots work and how to get them to talk to humans. Likes: Lauren Bacall, designing houses and fast, large American cars. Hates: dirt, unpunctuality and central heating installers. Being Swiss, he calls gravy ‘sauce’.

Oliver Frey is LM’s Art Editor, and is, of course, known for all those marvellous covers and illustrations that get people talking. Hobbies: old black and white Fred Astair movies, comics and champagne. Hates: airbrushes, cleaning brushes and tidy desks. He’s never heard of gravy.

Roger Kean is the man who’s done it all, so he’s just wonderful, and he signs my expenses sheets. He’s interviewed by Simon Poulter elsewhere on these pages, so no more on our Editor except to say that he makes fabulous gravy.

Then there’s myself, Lloyd Mangram, general dogsbody and person voted Most Sensible Man Of The Year by ex-Sinclair User staff. Hobbies: bicycling, gardening, taking photographs and writing letters. Hates: crowds, traffic and being photographed. What more can I say? Well I could always introduce the rest of the team — the ones who do the real work round here...

PAUL STRANGE (Deputy Editor)

Strange by name, weird by nature. Paulie, Groucho or Slim, call him what you like, never tires of telling us where he’s coming from and what’s going down. It’s not just tummy that LM’s Dep Ed has tucked under his belt; he’s got bags and bags of experience. An unlikely outdoor type, Uncle Paul worked on The Field and Farmer’s Weekly before trading in his gumboats and shooting stick for a healthy dose of Sex and Flares and Rock’n’Roll on Melody Maker. Hobbies: collecting curries, flooding his kitchen, Soho cinemas, gravy, Her Downstairs, reversing into concrete pillars. Hates: mornings, small children, men who wear make-up, untidy flats.

DAVID CHEAL (London Editor)

Our man with an earring, a soft voice, a clapped-out Renault 5 and never more than a couple of quid in his pocket was on SHE before sliding off to join LM. A professional writer of some standing, The Rum DC delights in thinking up outrageous puns for headlines; his masterpiece was IF YOU KNEW SUSHI, for a piece on Japanese cuisine. David prides himself on having LM’s best-kept coiffure (not that there’s competition), and spends hours in the Advance Works bogs with his compact mirror, styling mousse, moisturiser, and a copy of New Socialist. This guy’s so cooool. Hobbies: quiche and salad with a glass of white wine, Dorothy’s cosmetics, chocolate brownies, a roll-up last thing at night. Hates: gravy, spending money.

A multitude of covers coming off the printing line. 269,000 copies were printed.

CURTIS HUTCHINSON (Features Editor)

Ludlow’s answer to Barry Bucknell! The One They Call Hutchinson was raised by wolves in the wilds of Emsworth, Hampshire, and had a serious feeler-gauge habit by age 25. LM discovered Curbs demurely gobbling a chip butty in the offices of Films & Filming, where he was Deputy Editor; we whisked him off to Ludlow in an unmarked Mini, and a star was born. Hobbies: gravy, TV-AM, monkey wrenches, getting married. Hates: chip butties, Top Gun haircuts, phone bills, waiting for the AA, Paul Strange in the morning.

BARNABY PAGE (Sub-Editor)

Is this man pedantic or what? He’s the only person in Ludlow who knows the difference between an aardvark and an ant bear (technically there isn’t any, which may be how he knows). A refugee from the salt mines of Newsweek’s arts section, Barney likes a quiet night in, cuddling up with his Collins and learning a few thousand words. Hobbies: hyperbolising, gnocchi, gravy, surreptitious snouts, being clever-clever. Hates: bad language, bouillabaisse.

SUE DANDO (Staff Writer)

This well-dressed man-eater spent her formative years on Oh Boy! before moving to My Guy where she studied the male form and all its foibles in stomach-churning detail. Her conclusions weren’t all that favourable, so certain male members on the LM team look extremely dicky. We expect some provocative copy out of her investigations. Hobbies: vox pops, cricket, exotic earrings, getting blotto for as little dosh as possible. Hates: designer stubble, LM bureaucracy. Takes a minimalist approach to gravy.

RICHARD LOWE (Staff Writer)

Richard is what street cred is all about. Don’t be fooled by the bleached-blond hair, he really does walk, talk and look like Paul Weller. And beneath that hard streetwise exterior and Macc Lad bravado lies the heart of a big pussycat. Before joining LM, Mr Lowe was one of the hip young upstarts on The Hit. Rickyboy, as he is never known, is the only LM staffer who can seriously challenge Sally Newman in under-the-table drinking. Known to his colleagues as a ‘miserable Scouse git’. Hobbies: Beer and Sex and Chips and Gravy. Favourite phrase: ‘All right Pete y’bastard!’. Hates: wind-ups.

SIMON POULTER (Staff Writer)

This guy’s the biz, makes a mean cup of coffee and pisses everyone off with his Adrian Edmondson impersonations. And our Man In A Suitcase also has an annoying habit of playing Genesis tapes in broad daylight, sad in one so young. LM discovered Simon while he was mopping up bubble bath in Boots; he claimed he had been bitten by the writing bug (just below the knee), we liked the cut of his jib and so we shanghaied him up to Ludlow. Hobbies: Garfield, gravy, Top Gun haircuts, designer stubble, gravy, Garfield, collecting Boots memorabilia, gravy, poncing freebies, Garfield. Hates: carrying his suitcase, being asked his age in the pub.

SALLY NEWMAN (Editorial Assistant)

Once a mild, unassuming shorthand teacher, Sally is now known as The Dragon of Grovel Hill. A single cutting glance from Our Sal can be more frightening than a full-blown Paul Strange Monday moodie. Sally came to LM via Newsfield’s computer titles in faraway King Street and has quickly established herself as our hi-tech wizard. Telephones hold no terror for Sally; Apricots, Joyces, Frankies, facsimile machines, modems, anglepoise lights and four-gang sockets are our friends, she says. We couldn’t work without her. Sally is also an actress, widely acclaimed as the Bo Derek of south Shropshire. Hobbies: celery, rubber-band fights, rib-tickling, staring at pictures of William Shatner, eight pints of Hook Norton. Hates: tidy flats, untidy offices, TV repairmen, gravy, Paul Strange Monday moodies.

MARY MORRIS (Editorial Assistant)

The larger-than-life hair is only the start of it; this is one enigmatic lady, ruled by her secret passions for fast Fifties cars and Mickey Rourke. Watch out for The Woman In Black if you happen to be sunning yourself in Greece next summer — Mary goes au naturel. Hobbies: veggie food, good clean living. Hates: being recognised on Greek beaches, and meat-based gravies.

FRAN MABLE (Editorial Assistant)

Fran was a simple country girl, spending her days riding her horse, mailing binders, and preparing to settle down to marital bliss. Then she discovered LM... Hobbies: telephone repairmen, photocopy repairmen, central heating installers, breaking telephones. Hates: filing, mailing binders, making gravy, filing and filing.

GORDON DRUCE (Assistant Art Editor)

Gordon has worked on the computer mags since — since a long time, wielding scalpel, ruler and rapidograph with equal dexterity. He’s almost as quiet as David Cheal, but spends less time over his hair (not much less). Hobbies: uncovering unlikely bands and playing their music to everyone in the art department, fast open-top British sports cars and gravy sandwiches. Hates: obvious groups.

BEEZER (Photographer)

Beezer comes from Bristol. He moved to London during the summer to seek his fortune and ended up living in a shoebox in Ladbroke Grove. He’s now found more spacious accommodation in Battersea, where he pays the Rachmanite rent of £1.25 per week (inc). Beezer is 21 and has taken photographs for Bristol’s listings magazine Venue, NME, and Echoes. Hobbies: meeting people, drinking scrumpy, submitting invoices written on scraps of toilet-paper in yellow wax crayon. Hates: meeting landladies, ladies’ gravy, the Institute Of Chartered Accountants.

That’s the LM Team.

The LM team gathered in fabulous Islington last month to practise smiling. Back row, left to right: Gordon Druce, Mary Morris, Sue Dando, David Cheal, Simon Poulter, Barnaby Page. Front row: Roger Kean, Paul Strange, Richard Lowe, Curtis Hutchinson. Oliver Frey was back in Ludlow slaving over a hot palette, Lloyd Mangram missed the train, Sally Newman and Fran Mable were still in the pub and Beezer was behind the camera.

ROGER WILCO

ROGER KEAN stares suspiciously at the Walkman in front of him. It’s probably the first (and only) time he’s been interviewed by one of his own employees, but it doesn’t deter him for long; Newsfield’s editorial mastermind is seldom stumped for words.

The man who created CRASH, ZZAP! and AMTIX! decided to launch a new youth title after observing the masses of mail flooding in at CRASH Towers.

‘The letters seemed to be fighting to get away from computers and to talk about other things,’ he says. ‘We thought it would be interesting to have a Newsfield magazine similar in style but dealing with a much wider range of subjects. The concept was simple — CRASH, but not about computers. Obviously it’s grown a bit since then.

‘We felt there was a hole in the market for something with a wider base than pop music or soap operas. It’s a bit of a challenge — few magazines have succeeded in this area. The gamble is that the style and fanaticism that has been generated with Newsfield’s titles will carry on.

‘At first the name was a joke. Lloyd Mangram had been answering the letters on CRASH and ZZAP!, so LM became a working title — Lloyd Mangram’s Leisure Monthly. It stuck — much to Lloyd’s horror.’

What age group is LM aimed at?

‘Principally 17 upwards, but we are still aiming to write the magazine in the same style as the computer magazines. I’m hoping that will appeal to younger readers as well as older. And if we write for young adults too, some of the more tendentious issues will become easier to cope with.’

Where will LM be placed on the newsstands?

‘Away from the music papers, otherwise it’s labelled as a music paper. It has to sit with the lifestyle magazines like The Face or i-D, though it’s nothing like them either in look, flavour or content I think it’s the only place it can go.’

At 30,000 copies per hour, pages of LM Issue Zero flash past the Hutchinson camera at our printer.

Is it a young man’s version of Woman or SHE?

‘A horrible thought! It probably is in a way, but LM will be of much more general interest than the women’s magazines.’

No plans for knitting patterns, then? ‘No, but we might do a gardening column!’

What about reader involvement?

‘It’s very important and one of the biggest selling aspects of any magazine. Readers have good ideas and I hope that LM readers will respond as they’ve done on the computer magazines. I hope that LM will have even more letters, and aggressive ones at that.’

Write on, Rog.

GIVE US A STRANGE LOOK

The first LM editorial meeting has already passed into the history books as an earthshattering event ranking with The Battle of Britain, The Charge Of The Light Brigade and Pearl Harbour.

It was a truly shocking and debauched affair, and among other things it gave us a chance to discuss where we’re at, where we’re going, what’s going down, what’s going up and where we’re coming from (man).

Naturally, we couldn’t all be present at LM’s palatial offices in Islington — Lloyd and Oli missed the train (feeble excuse no. 546), while Sally and Fran were nailed to The Bull bar in Ludlow the night before (disgraceful).

But for those of us who could make it, the first editorial meeting was unforgettable. And being the decent chaps that we are, we thought we’d let you in on some highly secret projects that we discussed on the day.

Pierce Brosnan gets touched up for a scene in THE FOURTH PROTOCOL — report coming next month.

Like, what’s going to be in LM’s first on-sale issue out on 15 January?

Well, to start with we’re going to open up our regular extended feature slot called Man In A Suitcase. Each month LM’s intrepid reporter Simon Poulter will don his porkpie hat, slip on his shades and head for a national hotbed of sin (he hopes). Simon will be staying in a city for a week and bringing back an in-depth report of what he’s been up to, who he’s met, what bands are emerging, what haircuts are in, what are the best shops, what are the best nightclubs, what sports facilities there are, what the local radio station is up to and what’s happening on the street.

For Issue One Simon hits Birmingham, and for future LMs he’s off to Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich and all points north. Well crucial.

Other things we’ve got lined up are a round-up of the blossoming cheapie video labels, a Richard Lowe rant about stupid sports, a picture feature on an inspired 21-year-old Croydonian photographer called Martin Eidemak, a run-down of the fashions that are going to hit the high-street stores in the spring, a guide to jumble-sale bargain-spotting, interviews with Paul McGann (star of TV’s The Monocled Mutineer) and Pierce Brosnan (star of the soon-to-be-released Fourth Protocol movie), reviews of what’s new on the turntable, the screen, the video and the bookshelf, AND all our regular columns (Lloyd’s Word Up, Minson’s Mondo Bizarro, Hassles, Prize Crossword, Station To Station and the Consumer Guide).

All this and pop interviews too? Yeah, we’ve got ’em a-gogo: Icicle Works in Liverpool, The Human League in Norwich and a few others that we’ve had to swear to keep secret.

So now you know. LM Issue One hits the bookstands on 15 January and it’s going to be an imperative purchase.

ACADEMY

Producer: CRL
Price: £8.95
Author: Pete Cooke

The immediate threat is over. Tau Ceti III is safe once more thanks to the efforts of a single brave pilot in a skimmer. Now Galcorp have different needs. Skimmer pilots are evidently useful and they may be needed for similar missions in the future. New pilots will enter the Academy and train in highly developed simulators to learn the skills of a skimmer pilot. To graduate, they will need to successfully complete twenty different missions in five groups of four.

The game is fairly massive so a multi-load format is used (though 128K users have a single load option). On loading, the player is presented with an options menu: play the mission currently selected, choose a different mission, select the type of skimmer to be used, receive a progress report, see the tape menu, enter a new cadet or re-define the keys.

Most of these options themselves lead to sub-menus. Selection of the various on-screen options is achieved by moving a pointer over the required feature and then confirming the choice with a keypress. The pointer is used throughout the game.

The player can input personal details for the progress reports, and get outlines of each of the missions from the Galcorp computer. Details of the star system along with a graphic of the main planet, are provided. In the mission analysis, the computer recommends a particular skimmer for the operation. The reason for this is that the three different skimmers in the game are each fitted out slightly differently, and specialised equipment is needed under different circumstances.

Apart from the three predesigned skimmers, the player may design new skimmers by selection of the relevant option from the main menu. All the devices available have cost and weight factors. The skimmer may use any combination of devices so long as the finished vehicle weighs no more than 100 tonnes and costs 100 Mega-credits or less. The freedom of choice is substantial. Players may select various missiles or bombs, the relative strengths of lasers, shields and power units and various other options. When a ‘legal’ design has been selected, that skimmer’s control screen layout can be customised. All designs may be saved to tape for later use.

Once a mission is entered, play then proceeds in a fashion similar to Tau Ceti with shaded images of vehicles and buildings appearing on the viewscreen surrounded by instrumentation. Some changes are evident. Occasional lightning flashes strike the landscape and some of the planetary settings are ‘tidally locked’ worlds where the lighting is strangely altered.

Each mission requires different tactics. Some involve the obliteration of everything in sight. Others require the use of special weaponry after a long search. One such scenario highlights a new weapon, the delay bomb. Designed to penetrate armour too strong for missiles, the bomb is dropped on a target and gives about ten seconds for the skimmer pilot to fly clear, before blowing up everything in the vicinity.

Another addition are mines. These come in two varieties, very nasty and lethal. The only way to deal with these is to either give them a wide berth, or use a mine suppressor. These things are often dotted around the landscape, and can be propelled by firing at them with lasers. These as their name suggests stop mines going off.

Only experience will show which ships and buildings are susceptible to lasers or missiles. All in all there are 36 different types of objects you may see flying around the screen. Some missions are devised to require manoeuvrability, so good ship designs are needed.

If your skimmer is lost or the mission seems doomed, it can simply be entered again from the main menu. Once over 90% is scored, it has been successfully completed. With twenty missions, that’s a lot of training...

And just as a little freebie, Pete has stuck a little program on the end which gives a starmap. It’s well worth a look, and allows you to scroll around the night sky highlighting different constellations and finding the position of named stars.

Having picked the equipment, the next stage is to design the instrument panel to taste. This is young Cameron during his pink stripey period

CRITICISM

“Academy has taken some of the best points of Tau Ceti and improved on them. The variety of play and challenge is fantastic. The presentation is amongst the slickest I’ve seen and attention to detail is most impressive. The only thing that might put people off is the fact that when you’re carrying out a mission, there’s not that much to tell it apart from its predecessor. I think that most people will be happy with the more subtle intricacies of play. Pete Cooke has taken a good program the best way he could — upwards. And that must have been difficult.”

“I really disliked Tau Ceti as the task that you had to complete was awesomely huge, Academy seems to have solved this problem by having lots of little(ish) problems which get progressively harder. So it all becomes a lot less hopeless to try and complete and you are introduced to the various aspects of the game gently. Graphically this game equals Tau Ceti but does no more to enhance the already splendiferous worlds created by Peter Cooke. The sound is no real improvement on the original, but the effects used are nice all the same. All in all I found this a much more pleasing game to play than its parent as I’m sure you will.”

“Wow! This game is really amazingly good. The menu system is superb, and the ability to redefine the characteristics of a skimmer is excellently done. The game graphics, while being similar to those of Tau Ceti, are still brilliantly rendered, and the whole thing is just extremely playable. I like it a lot. Loads of colour is plastered around the screen; even though the playing area is monochrome, the overall impression is one of far more colour than there is. It is playable and addictive with stacks of missions, and a wide range of possibilities for skimmer alteration. Well worth buying, Academy is one of my favourite games of the moment.”

As dawn breaks over Sirius minor, you’re involved in a fight to the death with a suicide saucer

Designing a skimmer in Academy

COMMENTS

Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: slick
Use of colour: limited
Graphics: fast
Sound: a few effects
Skill levels: four
Screens: one
General rating: a worthy sequel

Use of computer

92%

Graphics

90%

Playability

92%

Getting started

90%

Addictive qualities

93%

Value for money

90%

Overall

92%

AVENGER

Producer: Gremlin Graphics
Author: Shaun Hollingworth, Greg Holmes, Chris Kerry, Pete Harrap, Steve Kerry
Price: £9.95

Demon Grand Master of Flame (no he’s not a DJ) has assassinated your foster father, Naijshi and stolen the sacred scrolls of Kettsuin. Filled with anger and revenge you set out to avenge your father’s death and get the scrolls back. If you fail to return those scrolls then the God Kwon will be lost forever in eternal hell.

The action is viewed from above. The game starts outside Quench Heart Keep. The Ninja must locate the keys in the grounds around the castle and gain entry. Once inside he must locate and kill the three Guardians who live within.

Of course they’re not alone. From enormous spiders to horned beasties, they are all there to stop the Ninja getting any further in his mission. These creatures are really rather intelligent. They may sense the presence of the Ninja and home in accordingly. Most of the characters just sap away your life energy. However the spiders are deadly and are heralded by a strange sinister clicking noise. Large spikes rise out of the floor in the castle. These won’t sap away any of your Ninja’s energy, but they will slow him down greatly, as he can’t move over the spikes when they’re sticking out of the ground.

To begin with your Ninja has ten Shuikch which he can lob around at his adversaries. However, when these are all used up he’ll have to rely on unarmed combat unless some more Shuikch can found. A quick blast on the FIRE button will make your Ninja send out a whole volley of punches and kicks which will make any marauding nasty disappear in a cloud of stars and dust. However, any confrontation with the enemy will result in some energy loss.

At the very beginning of the game a cryptic message scrolls across the screen indicating to the Ninja what he should keep his eyes open for in that level. Objects can be picked up simply by walking into them. They will then be displayed in their correct category at the bottom of the main screen. Keys are essential for unlocking doors into and inside the castle and the number of keys you’re holding is displayed on the screen along with the treasure, objects and Shuriken.

The energy chart consists of two circles with dots around the edge. One of these circles is for energy and one for life force. For every complete circle of energy dots that is used up, one dot of life force is lost. If both levels are used up the game is over. However, the God Kwon can be called upon to help out if things get too sticky. By pressing the 2 key Kwon can be asked to help. He might replenish your energy completely.

CRITICISM

‘Here we are again, another Gauntlet variant. Oh dear, I shouldn’t have said that. Despite everything, that’s what it boils down to. However, there are a few rather nice touches that make it just about worth the asking price. Colour is used to great effect and the scrolling is very smooth. The actual animated characters are presented to the best of the beloved Spectrum’s ability with most of the action being coloured in black and yellow. With all the colour used as decoration around the outside it is a very colourful and enjoyable game. Check it out.’

‘If you’ve played Druid, you’ve played Avenger. Having said that, Avenger is, I feel, a much better game. The graphics are very neat indeed with lovely animation of various creatures and objects especially the spiders and the spikes that come out of the ground. The game play is fast but just a matter of running round bashing the nasties and collecting objects. The controls are a bit iffy in places as positioning yourself to go through doors proves rather a pain — over positioning is more the case. On the whole a nice game but nothing special.’

‘Gremlin seem to have followed the current trend for Gauntlet variants and what a game they have created. Avenger is easy to get into, but it goes on to be very testing. The graphics are a little on the small side but there is an awful lot of detail in the characters and there is a lot of colour. The screen scrolls in characters but it is so fast you don’t really notice. The sound is also very good, there is a lovely tune on the title screen and lots of effects during play (the 128k version has loads more sonics). I can see myself playing this until I complete it as it really is fun.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: up Q; down A; left O; right P; fire/kick/punch SPACE; Pause on/off 1; Call on Kwon 2; quit the game 3&4 together
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: very fast and responsive
Use of colour: uninspired
Graphics: good detail, fast
Sound: oriental tunette at the beginning with some interesting and sinister spot effects throughout
Skill levels: six
Screens: 300 screens, six floors
General Rating: Another good Gauntlet clone.

Use of Computer

82%

Graphics

85%

Playability

82%

Getting Started

78%

Addictive Qualities

82%

Value For Money

83%

Overall

85%

BREAKTHRU

Producer: US Gold
Author: Paul Houbart, Simon Butler, Dawn Drake
Price: £8.99

Breakthru is US Gold’s latest arcade conversion involving a mad dash through five different landscapes in a supermobile in order to safeguard world peace.

URGENT ALERT! Your country’s super fighter, code named PK 430, has been stolen by the ‘other side’ for their own dastardly purposes. Naturally your government wants it back, so you have been chosen from many hopefuls to go and get it. The reason you’ve been selected is because you’re the best, so you’d better get on and prove it.

To help you in your mission you’ve been equipped with “the world’s most sophisticated armed vehicle” . Not only can it travel at great speeds, but can also make huge leaps into the air, which is very handy for avoiding any of the many perils in your path.

The objective of the game is to drive 400 miles behind enemy lines to a secret airstrip, and once there retrieve the super fighter. The opposition aren’t going to give it up that easily however and they’re out in force to stop you. You must negotiate your way through them and blast anything dangerous along the way.

There are five different levels, and each one must be completed before the player can progress to the next. Each of the levels hosts a different array of baddies who must either be blasted or avoided in order to survive. Level one takes place on a mountain road. You have to manoeuvre your vehicle around deadly mine- fields, and groups of soldiers who will try to destroy you with their mortar fire. Added hazards in this section are landfalls, here’s where your car’s leaping abilities come into their own.

After the Mountains there’s the bridge which connects the mountain ranges to the prairie. Unfortunately this bridge has suffered considerably during the combat and large sections have been blown apart. Once again these must be jumped over to avoid destruction. Missiles and armoured fighting vehicles are out in force on the bridge and will rip your craft apart unless you destroy them first.

A desolate prairie is the setting for the third level. Once again the level of defences which you encounter are more difficult and there are also stretches of water which must be crossed somehow! Once through the prairie it’s onto the City.

If you manage to complete all these four levels, then it’s on to the final stage where your super fighter is being held. Predictably enough this takes place on an airfield, and the opposition are really out to stop you going any further. As well as all their previous tricks, there is also the odd flame thrower to contend with — just in case you get too cocky.

The screen scrolls from left to right. The car can be manoeuvred upwards and downwards, and it can be speeded up if necessary. You have five lives in the game and one of these is lost every time your craft hits (or gets hit by) any of the opposition. Conversely, points are scored for any of the other side who are blasted by you.

CRITICISM

‘Oh dear! What have US Gold done here? Breakthru is an awful game with some awful bugs. I haven’t seen the arcade version but this seems to be a very simple Moon Alert type game, with a scrolling landscape and a quite a few obstacles to either avoid or blow up. The keyboard play is very unresponsive and lacks any playable feel. The graphics, however, are very well drawn and feature lots of colour and detailed objects. The sound is poor as there are only a very few spot effects. I can’t see many people enjoying this.’

‘Yucky-poo! I didn’t really expect anything from Breakthru as original machine was a bit limp, but as always US Gold gave me less than I expected. The graphics are overall quite messy: the characters are badly drawn and the screen scrolls in characters. The sound is also well below average, there are no tunes and the effects are minimal. On the whole I can’t recommend this game at all as there is nothing in it that appeals to me in the slightest.’

‘I’m not too keen on this one, it isn’t playable or addictive and the keyboard configuration isn’t at all suited to my tastes, which is unfortunate when considered that most US Gold games that don’t need redefinable keys have them, and vice versa. Graphically, Breakthru is fair, but the colourful scenery is let down by the very poor scrolling and terrible sprites. Though I haven’t seen or played the arcade version, I’m convinced that it has to be a lot better than this.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Z=left, X=right, R=up, D=down, 5=fire, SPACE=jump
Joystick: Kempston, Protek, Interface II
Keyboard play: quite tricky, but no easier than using a joystick
Use of colour: quite colourful
Graphics: rather naff sprites
Sound: jolly little tune before the game starts
Skill levels: five
Screens: scrolling play area
General Rating: A poor arcade game.

Use of Computer

48%

Graphics

51%

Playability

40%

Getting Started

48%

Addictive Qualities

38%

Value for Money

38%

Overall

43%

COLOSSUS BRIDGE

Producer: CDS
Author: Chris Birkenshaw
Price: £11.95

The arcane mysteries of playing Bridge is something few of us aspire to. But CDS, with this new offering, is trying to make the world of the green baize and eyeshade more accessible to us mere mortals.

In addition, for those to whom bridge is not a closed book, this program attempts to provide a bit of relaxation when you can’t rustle up the required three chums.

On one side of the tape is a tutor program which takes the beginner through the rudiments. There are ten ‘hands’ of bridge, each of which demonstrates a different sort of problem commonly encountered. The player chooses a card from the hand, and unless the right one is chosen, the program bleeps and another card must be tried. At the end of the hand, there is an analysis of why the cards were played.

On the other side of the tape is the heart of the program. Now you’re on your own. A series of random hands are thrown out by the computer. First comes the bidding. Here the four players, playing as two pairs, must out-bid each other in an attempt to win the contract for that hand. The higher the bid, the more tricks they must win. Any legal bid can be entered, including doubles and re-doubles. The computer will respond according to the ACOL system and will also respond to the Blackwood slam bidding convention.

After the contract has been settled, the game moves on to the play of the hand. If you are declarer, you control your own and your partner’s hand. If you simply want to throw away your lowest card, you just hit return. Otherwise, the suit and value must be entered.

At any time a number of commands can be entered. The background colour can be changed, the hand abandoned, the bidding can be reviewed, the program can be restarted, or the state of play can be saved to tape or microdrive.

During play of the hand there is a further set of options. The rest of the cards can be played by the computer, some or all of the remaining tricks can be ‘claimed’ if you think your cards are winners, although the computer doesn’t check that they are, you can even peek at the opposing hands. There is also a hint available if you don’t know which card to play. If you’re completely stumped, or truly devoid of inspiration, you can even let the computer play a card for you.

At the end of the hand, the computer will tot up the scores, and display the total score in the rubber thus far. At this stage there is yet another set of options. The speed of response of the opposition can be changed, the deal can be listed to a printer, a hand can be typed in (for problem solving), or the points value or distribution of your hand can be set. The computer can also run through the bidding and play of the previous hand so you can spot any mistakes.

For the uninitiated, for whom all the above explanation might just as well have been written in Chinese, there is a book in the package called ‘Begin Bridge’ which tries to shed some light on the subject for the total beginner.

CRITICISM

‘CDS have always come out with good games in the Colossus series and Bridge is no exception. The game is very well designed and very easy to get into — but there’s no denying that the computer can play one hell of a game of Bridge. I often felt like swapping him with my partner who, frankly, seemed to be a bit of a fool at times. The game features almost everything that the average player needs on screen, but most of it can be ignored if you’re only a beginner. I was annoyed that if you pressed the LOAD key, accidentally, while playing you had to go through all the LOAD/SAVE procedure, and pretend to SAVE out your game — as there is apparently no abort. That’s my only niggle, CRL have come up with another enthralling and addictive simulation.’

‘As a bit of a bridge buff, I was looking forward to this release, and although better than nothing, it’s not quite the game I hoped for. The play of the other players is far too weak. You’re not really going to improve if you can always get away with inaccurate bidding because the opposition is so lousy. Still, in most other respects it is a highly polished product, with very thoughtful details like seeing the last trick, score card, doubling and redoubling. It’s good to see someone having a go at an underexploited market.’

‘Well, I know nothing about Bridge, and playing this game left me none the wiser. The tutor program is far too fiddly. Half the time, two cards seemed equally good, but the program insisted you play one particular one. The book is quite good, and I suppose this is a fairly painless way of getting in to this game without embarrassing yourself in front of three people who have been playing for years.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: menu driven
Joystick: none
Keyboard play: fast
Graphics: primitive
Sound: virtually nil
Skill levels: variable response time
Screens: two

Use of Computer

75%

Graphics

48%

Playability

73%

Getting Started

65%

Addictive Qualities

72%

Value for Money

62%

Overall

70%

CONTACT SAM CRUISE

Producer: Microsphere
Price: £7.95
Author: Dave Reidy

It was just another day in the office. The sun was hot as it streamed in through the venetian blind, making zebra stripes on the desk. The whole city felt as if it was embalmed and I felt myself drifting off into an uneasy sleep. Suddenly I was awakened by the telephone ringing. It was a foxy dame called Lana. She wanted me to meet her on the top of the Hotel Royal. Said she had something important to tell me. Frankly the whole thing stank but doesn’t everything in this line of work? I took my hat and coat and set off into those mean streets on the case of the Bali Budgie.

Microsphere, the people that brought you Skool Daze and Back To Skool has moved to the world of Raymond Chandler for its latest inspiration.

In the game Sam has to solve a case. By following clues and riddles along the way in true detective fashion he has to try and piece together the facts and solve the mystery. However, snipers and inevitable gangland heavies are out in force to get him. Unconcerned passers-by go about their day to day business as bullets whizz around from the hidden guns.

There are various ways in which Sam can fail in his mission such as running out of money or getting chucked off a very tall building by the Mafia. The Mafia may be fairly easy to avoid, but everything in this game costs money, even walking around. The money acts as your energy level. Sam starts the game with 50 dollars in his pocket but funds can be topped up by somersaulting onto stray dollar bills which occasionally float along the sidewalks.

If Sam gets shot by a sniper, then Sam has to use a first aid kit. Eight of these are supplied at the beginning of the game and once they’re gone then Sam will have to go to the hospital and the case will be over. He never actually gets fatally wounded enough to die, even when he goes flying off the top of a building on the end of a Mafiosa boot!

Buildings can be visited and actually walked around inside by Sam. The action inside the building is viewed through the windows blinds can be pulled down and lights switched on and off. If Sam is near a phone then the phone icon lights up on the table at the bottom of the main screen and he can make a call. He only has one phone number at the beginning of the game and phoning his office might provide him with some useful clues. Extra phone numbers can be collected by following up clues along the way.

If Sam gets framed during the game then the police will come along and arrest him. Like all good private detectives Sam carries a large array of disguises with him and if the police are hot on his trail then he can change into one of these at the press of a button. If the police get wise to one of these disguises then the disguise icon will light up at the bottom of the screen at which point he’d better think of something else to do. If he does get arrested the the police are usually satisfied with his claims of innocence and release him on bail.

Points are scored for the amount of time Sam manages to stay on the case. As his money icon goes down so his experience points go up. Useful clues and messages are scrolled along the table at the bottom of the screen and these will help Sam along the way if he gets stuck.

CRITICISM

“Just when I thought The Great Escape was about as far as the arcade adventure could go, this comes along. More plot, better graphics, more atmosphere, more humour, in just about every department this game takes the biscuit as far as I’m concerned. The Chandleresque flavour is just about perfect, best played in a trilby with a packet of lucky strike and a glass of bourbon by your side, this is the next best thing to being Bogart. There are a heck of a lot of keys, and a keyboard overlay or an icon system might have been a big help. What I want to know is how Microsphere can follow this.”

“About once a year Microsphere bring out a game, but when they do appear, they are something to look forward to. Contact Sam Cruise is graphically in the Skool Daze style, but the atmosphere is very eerie and gangster-like. As soon as Sam Cruise’s first messages appeared on the screen, I was sure that something good was coming up. The graphics are superb and the most realistic 3D effects in any of the Microsphere games — there is also lots of colour, well laid out and not too hard on the eyes. Aspiring detectives will love Sam Cruise, and I’m sure it will be a hit.”

“This game is fun to play: there’s so much to it! The gameplay is very good. Contrast is excellent, keeping you occupied is an understatement. Graphics are admirable; lots of colour has been used well, and the Skool Daze type characters are neat. Loads of things like the lights and the disguises have been put together with brilliant attention to detail. I think Microsphere really have got something here.”

Sam gets carted off to the slammer to cool his feet for a while after the cops discover him next to a corpse

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q up, A down, O left, P right, B pull/draw blind, D change disguise, F use, G pick up object, I information, K knock/use key at door, L switch on/off light, R forward roll, S aerial somersault, T use telephone, H hang up phone
Joystick: Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: Responsive: unusual to begin with, but easy to get the hang of
Use of colour: easy on the eye
Graphics: lovely detail
Sound: spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: twenty or so in a large scrolling playing area
General rating: a highly original atmospheric game

Use of computer

91%

Graphics

92%

Playability

88%

Getting started

90%

Addictive qualities

93%

Value for money

93%

Overall

93%

DEEP STRIKE

Producer: Durell
Author: Nick Wilson
Price: £9.95

OK, you chaps, we’re going to jump in the old string bags and go in there and give the old hun a real pasting. This is what you chaps have to do. Five bombers, escorted by one fighter, will make a bombing run deep into the Hun’s rear. The target is a fuel dump. Destroy this and the whole course of the war could be changed. I know you’re the chaps for the job and you’ll do a fine job.

Now we must expect the Hun to throw everything he’s got at us. At first, there’ll be just a few Hun patrols. But watch out for the black suicide ’planes, they’ll try to crash straight in to the bomber. Most of the time, the fighters will attack the bombers, so it’s your fighter’s job to try to protect them by shooting the Hun down. But watch the jolly old compass. If you stray too far from the straight and narrow, you’ll encounter very heavy enemy archie. Even worse, you could run out of juice before reaching your target.

After the first section, you come to the hills. These have to be steered around or over. After the hills, the squadron flies over enemy lines. It’s time to start bombing things. And try not to shoot up your own bombs. Next section has our brave lads dodging through barrage balloons. These can be shot (but watch out for the flaming debris) but are better avoided.

There are a few points to be had from shooting down planes, but most points come from bombing ground targets. Although you are controlling the fighter, you indirectly control the bomber which tries to keep directly ahead of you. So bombing is a question of reacting quickly as the target comes over the horizon, letting go a stream of bombs, and ‘steering’ the bombs on to target. As you bank, the whole scenery on screen tilts. The ground has contours Combat Lynx style.

The panel at the bottom of the screen shows the amount of machine gun ammo and bombs remaining. There are two damage indicators, in the form of propellers which get progressively eaten away. One shows the damage to the bomber, the other the damage the fighter has sustained. There are five bombers at the start, and as one gets shot down, another takes its place in front of the fighter.

There is a map, which shows how far through the game you have progressed. If you finally make it to the fuel dump and blow it up, you’ll land, refuel, and then go on another mission.

CRITICISM

‘Whenever a new Durell game turns up at CRASH towers, it’s usually a red letter day. But this just isn’t up to the company’s own high standards. This isn’t to say it’s no good, it’s just not epoch making. The graphics move smoothly and it’s jolly colourful. The contour effect is brilliant, but only plays a small part in the game. But I feel it is too involved for a blast-em-up, and not complex enough for an arcade/strategy game. The keys are also quite a handful. Trying to bomb things, weave about the sky and keep blazing away at the enemy ’planes is realty tough. Even the ‘easy’ level is really tricky. A tenner is quite a lot for this modest little shoot-em-up.’

‘Deep Strike is a strange mixture between a flight simulator and a decent shoot ’em up, unfortunately it doesn’t really excel in either of these areas — it is too simple for a flight simulator and the movement is too slow for good shoot em up. The graphics are very well designed and gives an excellent impression of a solid 3D landscape. The control of your plane is too unresponsive for a good ’ole blast. It also seems a pity that the plane that you control is the middle one in the squadron as the plane in front of you often ends up dying because you shoot it accidentally. Deep Strike is a fairly average game from Durell that should go down well with most people.’

‘After the tremendous tremendousness of Fat Worm, my opinion of Durell rocketed. This one, though, brought it into more moderation. It’s not bad, but I think that it lacks content. Basically, I think it’s a shoot ’em up, where more of a simulation would have gone down better. The graphics are very pretty, and the colour is sploshed about fairly elaborately, but I’m sure a little more content wouldn’t have gone amiss. Not bad, overall, but could have been better.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable: up, down, left, right, bomb, map, abort
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: sluggish
Use of colour: attractive
Graphics: good perspective effect
Sound: good tune, reasonable effects
Skill levels: three
Screens: large scrolling landscape
General Rating: Neither arcade nor simulator.

Use of Computer

80%

Graphics

82%

Playability

76%

Getting Started

75%

Addictive Qualities

79%

Value for Money

73%

Overall

79%

THE EIDOLON

Producer: Activision
Price: £7.99

More than a hundred years ago, Dr Josef Agon started experimenting into his own subconscious. The end result of these experiments was a strange machine called The Eidolon. Seated in this contraption he would venture into the innermost reaches of his psyche, and confront the hidden perils which resided there. However, Agon’s experiments were shrouded in mystery, and he became a reclusive figure, living out the last years of his life holed up in his mansion and never seen.

A hundred years later his mansion remains the same, untouched since the good doctor’s mysterious disappearance. However, whilst walking home one night you see that the mansion’s rusted gates are open and that a strange light is emitting from within. As you start to explore the house you find the old Eidolon machine, and by its side is the Doctor’s diary. Plagued with curiousity, you open the dusty volume and discover the secrets of the Eidolon.

The Eidolon is a spherical vehicle just big enough for a man to sit in. When in operation, it floats on the mind’s energy waves. It is equipped with a multi-purpose catcher/cannon, which is used to blast any monster you might encounter, and also to collect the many energy jewels which float in your mind. To begin with, The Eidolon transports you to the first of the seven cave systems which comprise your mind. The machine can be guided through this system, searching out the perils within. At the bottom of the screen is the Eidolon’s instrument panel. The top half of the screen shows the view as seen through the cockpit window. Three dimensional graphics depict the arched roof of the caverns as the action moves towards you.

Each level has an exit, but this is guarded by a monster. The key to this exit must be taken, and the monster annihilated by a quick blast from the energy bolts you carry. Then, the next level can be loaded from tape. The higher the level, the more difficult it becomes to kill these monsters.

Various things must be collected during your travels if you are to progress right up to the seventh level of your subconscious. Energy spheres boost the flagging power levels of your Eidolon. If you are close enough to an object, a diamond shaped force-field will appear. This signifies that The Eidolon can capture the object with the collector/discharger situated on its roof. Blue spheres freeze time, thus allowing you a longer roam around the caverns. When these blue fireballs are fired at a creature, it also freezes, and you gain extra time to consider the best way to destroy it.

The controls in the Eidolon are suitably Victorian in appearance. There is a hot/cold indicator which tells you how close The Eidolon is to a monster. Gem indicators show how many gems you have stolen from the guardians. There is a clock to the centre of the control board, showing how long you have been exploring your subconscious. The energy level shows how much of a pounding The Eidolon has taken from the monsters, and the digits at the bottom of the dashboard show how much time remains before you must return to the real world.

CRITICISM

‘This is just one of those games which doesn’t really work on the Spectrum and that’s a shame because the original concept is simply brilliant. The real problem lies in that Eidolon relies heavily on both colour and sound which on the Spectrum aren’t exactly all that flexible. Hence we have a black ’n’ white Eidolon, rendering the game slightly dull in places. Its saving grace is the fact that it is quite fast, speeding up what could have otherwise been a rather dull and uninteresting game.’

‘It’s here and it’s even faster than all the other versions (so you can hassle all your mates about having slow computers), but alas more than this I can’t say. I found it tremendously difficult to actually get into the game and to play it successfully, perhaps after a large amount of practise it will grow on me but I’m not really prepared to play a game that annoys me for longer than I have to. The game has superb graphics save one thing, colour, this is understandably but drastically lacking. The sound is very good, there are a few effects during the game and a lovely tune on the title screen.’

‘Wowee! The graphics on this are really something! The fractal effect on Rescue was limited, to say the least, but on the Eidolon, Activision have really let go. The effect of cavernous walls is quite claustraphobia-inducing, if that adjective can be applied to a Spectrum game. Eidolon is fairly playable, and addictive, dependent on whether the game style appeals to you or not.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: up Q; down Z; left 9; right 0; fire N, M, CAPS, SYMBOL SHIFT; choose crystal 1-4; capture fireball/jewels X-B; pause P
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Keyboard play: pretty good
Use of colour: mainly monochrome
Graphics: large and well animated
Sound: tune and spot effects
Skill levels: seven
Screens: loads
General Rating: Nice try at converting a game that was never suitable for the Spectrum.

Use of Computer

79%

Graphics

78%

Playability

75%

Getting Started

71%

Addictive Qualities

75%

Value for Money

74%

Overall

76%

FAIRLIGHT II: TRAIL OF DARKNESS

Producer: The Edge
Price: £9.95
Author: Bo Jangeborg

About a year after the first Fairlight stormed the Spectrum games market, Bo Jangeborg and the team from The Edge have come up with the sequel.

The land of Fairlight has been decaying over many thousands of years, ever since the good King Avars who ruled over the land was murdered. When the King was slain, Fairlight slipped into the gloom and despair in which it is still trapped today. However, legend tells of a wizard who will one day be born to free the land from despair. In the original Fairlight, your character, Isvar was apparently called and told to seek out the book of Light which will help bring Fairlight back to its former glory. However, in the sequel it becomes apparent that you were cruelly deceived. Instead of Segar you in fact gave the Book of Light to the Dark Lord who can now harness its power to bring even more gloom and despair to the stricken land.

Bo Jangeborg has incorporated 3D graphics like Fairlight. Each object has its own mass, and obeys the laws of physics and gravity. For instance, heavier objects like large boulders take more effort to pick up than say, a small piece of food. Heavier objects will also travel less far when they are pushed than lighter ones. Isvar is informed in no uncertain terms if an object which he’s trying to lift is actually too heavy.

Isvar is the character you play in Fairlight II. He must roam around the outside and inside of the Dark Tower, facing the foes and guards who are waiting to stop him in his mission. After all, if Isvar mucks things up this time as well, there may be no salvation for Fairlight.

Once again, Isvar has five pockets which he can use to store useful objects in. Isvar starts out the game with 99 energy points and these are shown ticking down numerically by a counter at the top of the screen. Food will buck up his energy levels if they get too low.

Isvar must watch his step when he’s trolling around the outside of the tower. Sheer cliffs shelve away into infinity. This power diminishes after encounters with dwarves, guards, killer wolverines and various other nasties who patrol the outside and inside the tower.

When Isvar leaves one location and moves on to another there is a short pause while the new location flashes, ready drawn onto the screen. Unlike the first version, the screen doesn’t go black for a split second, but behaves more like a standard flick screen arrangement.

Isvar is down in a pit. There must be some way to get out with all these barrels lying around

CRITICISM

“Fairlight II is far too much like the first game, and even though it is faster, the second game is quite boring to play after only a few games. Basically, I think that Fairlight only impressed me and many other people because of its extremely detailed graphics but the game is much too ’ard for the basic Spectrum owner (well me at least!). The problems in Fairlight II are more obscure than the first and it takes much longer to get into than the first. A decent follow up to Fairlight, but nothing different.”

“I hated Fairlight so I can’t really be expected to be over the moon about this, and to tell you the truth I’m not. As far as I can see this is no real step forward from the original, there is a larger playing area and the graphics are a lot more varied but not essentially prettier. The game plays in a very similar way to the stacks of other Filmation games although the way in which different objects behave is a cute touch. If you are a fan of Fairlight then no doubt this will appeal, if not then I’d stay well clear of this.”

“Oooh! Look at these graphics! Bo Jangeborg is certainly capable of producing something worthwhile, as this more than proves. The only gripes that I’ve got are the time it takes to flick screens, and the speed with which the character moves when there are several moving items on screen. The inertia and differing gravities of objects varying in weight is finely produced, and the whole game is one that’s well worth getting.”

A courtyard within the tower. Despite lugging a barrel around, Isvar can still put the meanie to the sword.

COMMENTS

Control keys: V-P up and right, G-L down and left, Q-T up and left, A-G down and right, SYM/SPACE jump, B-M fight, X-V pick up, CAPS-Z drop, 1-5 select objects, 6-7 use selected object, SYM+SPACE pause game
Joystick: Kempston, but only to control the movements of Isvar, everything else must be carried out via the keyboard
Keyboard play: hard to get the hang of initially due to the number of keys used in the game, but very smooth once this has been overcome
Use of colour: monochrome
Graphics: fine detail
Sound: atmospheric tune at the beginning, but no sound during the actual game
Skill levels: one
Screens: 160
General rating: good, but nothing new

Use of computer

88%

Graphics

92%

Playability

75%

Getting started

80%

Addictive qualities

80%

Value for money

82%

Overall

81%

FUTURE KNIGHT

Producer: Gremlin Graphics
Author: Shaun Hollingworth, Greg Holmes, Chris Kerry, Pete Harrap
Price: £7.95

Although our story is set many years in the future, the noble art of chivalry is not dead. This is just as well as the ship in which Amelia is travelling has crashlanded on planet 2749/2 of the Zragg system, and worse still, the fair Amelia has been abducted by the dastardly Spegbott. Guarded by the grotesque Henchdroid in Spegbott’s castle, Amelia’s life is in mortal peril.

Randol, a professional hero and Future Knight, receives a distress call from the wrecked S.S Rustbucket requesting his help immediately. But when Randolf reaches the crashed ship he finds that he has quite a mission on his armour-plate. Of course, for the love of Amelia he is willing to risk life and limb — cor, they don’t make them like that anymore!

There are twenty levels to Randolph’s mission. Firstly, the Future Knight has to hack his way through the ruined space ship out on to the planet surface. Once there he must make his way to Spegbott’s castle and locate the alluring Amelia. However, in each main level there are multiple sub-levels. Each of these sub-levels has two doors, and Randolf must fight his way from one door to the other greeting each foe in his path with zeal.

Randolf starts out each life with 999 units of energy. Each time he’s caught by one of Spegbott’s henchmen, this level goes down by a certain amount. When this level reaches zero, then Randall loses one of his three lives. A bomb, if picked up, will not only rid the screen of all aliens, but will also boost your Knight’s energy. When all three lives have been used up the game is over, and Amelia will be left to the dastardly devices of the evil Spegbott.

However, the baddies don’t get it all their own way. Randolf has a very nifty gun built into his space suit which is very handy for blasting the baddies. This gun can be changed for another by visiting the ship’s armoury. These guns have infinite blasting power, so Randolf can go forth and be very destructive if he likes.

Randolf is a bit of an exhibitionist. If you ignore him for a period of time, then the little Knight starts waving at you to attract your attention. If you refuse to continue the game he starts doing a little dance to amuse himself. If you still take no notice then he starts going totally berserk and spinning around on the spot.

There are other useful objects which Randolf can collect to help him with his mission. These range from confusers, which do exactly what their name suggests, to various spells which will build bridges and extra exits.

CRITICISM

‘I’m not very sure about this game. It was actually great fun for a while as I leapt around the platforms fighting nasties. However, there are some niggly problems. For a start off climbing up certain ladders just lead off onto the screen above — fine, except when you don’t want to go to the screen above. Generally, I can’t really put my finger, there’s something about it that I’m not too keen on and I would recommend that you have a look at this before investing the old crinkly stuff.’

‘This isn’t perhaps the most original of games but it is good fun all the same. Legging it around the largish playing area trying to get out does get extremely frustrating after a couple of goes as it is very difficult to actually die, but you can get trapped in small spaces, so you have to about the game. The graphics are very good, each of the characters is very well drawn and animated and the backgrounds are colourful. The sound is also good, there are a few effects during the game and a lovely tune on the title screen. Future Knight isn’t the best game around at the moment but it is certainly well worth a look.’

‘I tried to look at this with as open a mind as possible, bearing in mind Gremlin’s past record, but unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed. The graphics are very good, and well up to the usual high standard of Gremlin, but unfortunately, the game struck me as being a very run of the mill one. The most enjoyable thing that I found about it was the way in which you characters stops, knocks on the screen, and starts dancing if you leave him alone for too long g a period of time. Of course, you like this sort of game, then I think you’ll be OK.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: left Q; right W; up P; down L; Fire SPACE; use, U; abort, BREAK
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: pretty slick
Use of colour: effective
Graphics: detailed with good shading
Sound: nice tune if you play it on the 128, a bit beepy on the 48K
Skill levels: one
Screens: 160
General Rating: Not up to Gremlin’s ususal standards.

Use of Computer

79%

Graphics

80%

Playability

76%

Getting Started

77%

Addictive Qualities

73%

Value for Money

74%

Overall

76%

KAT TRAP: PLANET OF THE CAT MEN

Producer: Domark
Author: Design Design
Price: £8.95

Way back in the June issue of CRASH a rather unusual competition was launched. The task: to design a game for the Spectrum. The prize: world fame and fortune in the software industry. Well, you never know! The winner of this prestigious competition was Jonathan Eggleton, selected from acres of entries for his design — Kat Trap. Programmed by Design Design and marketed by Domark the game is now in a finished state and ready for review.

Time has moved on a bit and we’re now in the 24th century, and Earth does look in a sorry state. Pounded by solar explosions and abandoned by the Earthlings, the Earth has now become home for a strange and dangerous breed of creatures called Kat Men. Now that the solar explosions have died down, the Earth people are thinking about moving back into their homeland. However, the Kat Men aren’t going to give up their new found home without a fight. In enforced exile, the Earth people plot to rid their home of the evils of the Kat Men for good, and to get the planet back into the bargain. Being a largely unimaginative lot they send down a Multi Terrain Exploration Droid known to his mechanical chums as M.T-ED. This cute little robot is more used to travelling over rough terrain than to fighting it out to the death with hordes of strange and nasty aliens. Accompanied by Hercules 1, a maintenance and combat droid, M.T-ED. is beamed down and the dynamic duo begin their quest. Unfortunately things go horribly wrong as soon as their little tin feet touch the planets soil, as Hercules 1 is kidnapped by the Kat Men and whisked away. Now with two tasks instead of one, M.T-ED has to blast his way through the ruined remains of this green and pleasant globe, and rescue his metal mate into the bargain.

There are fourteen sections to M.Ts task, each taking place in a different location on Earth. In each of these sections are many dangers which he must confront. He’s a simple droid and not really cut out for all this fighting, therefore he starts out with only a few basic weapons bolted on this frame. Luckily, other sorts of artillery can be picked up along the way by simply walking into them, these are then displayed at the top of the screen and can be selected when needed. Grenades, rockets, lasers and even water are all used to help M.T-ED in his mission.

The reason for this array of different weapons is simple. Not just the Kat Men have taken up residence on earth. Ice Men, Fire Demons and Mekno Cats (who’ll eat anything!) — to name but a few — have also moved in, and each type of nasty requires a certain type of weapon to defeat him.

The screen scrolls from left to right and our hero has to shoot the nasties and pick up useful objects before they get him first. If M.T-ED does get biffed by a nasty, he falls on his bonce and is stunned for a few seconds. When this happens he loses one of his droid lives. Not all of the nasties are lethal. For instance, in the Charred Forest the ghosts simply make life very awkward by stealing any weapons that are lying around. M.T-Ed must therefore be very quick off the mark in this situation.

M.T-Ed moves in a realistic mechanical way, and can jump over any monsters that he’s too slow to shoot. Being a Multi-Terrain Droid he can cope quite well with some of the bizarre landscapes which he must encounter. Although the Alps, where he has to sproing from one peak to another, might give him some serious trouble. M.T-Ed must struggle through each terrain until he reaches the Nerve Centre, where he has to rescue Hercules 1, but to get there he must even cross the bed of an underground lake and romp through a castle. Once Hercules 1 has been rescued there is another small game-ette to be completed before the end is in sight for M.T-ED.

On the bottom of the main screen is the score with the current high score for the player to aim for. Power is shown at the bottom of the screen, and when this reaches zero M.T-Ed loses one of his lives. At the top of the screen are his lives and the type of weapons he has collected.

CRITICISM

‘Kat Trap is a fast furious game that is more than just a trek around a few bits of scenery. You really have to look at each nasty before you blow his head off, or you could choose the wrong weapon and get thrown around yourself. The graphics are well designed but don’t seem to be solid enough to look real. Sound is a bit basic, but the spot effects serve their purpose. I wouldn’t mind if someone put this in my Christmas stocking (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, ’nuff said Santa).’

‘The first couple of levels are fairly easy, but they do prove to be very frustrating, after these two the levels become a lot more challenging so the game as a whole proves to be very compelling. Graphically Kat Trap is slick, the characters are well animated and the backgrounds are colourful. The sound is a bit on the lame side, there are no tunes and the spot effects are minimal. I quite liked this as it plays well and it looks good, well worth a look.’

‘We’ve seen plenty of preview versions of Kat Trap, so the finished version isn’t anything unexpected. When playing the more complete versions, I didn’t think much of it — it seemed very like an average sort of shoot em up. After giving the finished version a good half hour, though, I began to think I was hooked. Immediately, I wasn’t hit by it, but perseverance certainly reaped its reward. I hope Design Design can get together with Domark again and produce more of this sort of game. It might well do them both a lot of good!’

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable, up, down, left, right, fire
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: speedy
Use of colour: adequate
Graphics: detailed and amusing
Sound: the odd spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: 196
General Rating: A humorous little shoot-em up.

Use of Computer

81%

Graphics

82%

Playability

86%

Getting Started

83%

Addictive Qualities

86%

Value for Money

83%

Overall

84%

KINGS KEEP

Producer: Firebird Software Ltd
Author: Ian Wright
Price: £1.99

Harold is a very nasty King. He rules his kingdom by bullying the inhabitants and locking up their cabbage patch dolls if they’re naughty. However, King Harold has a son who is a little more broadminded than his dad. Harold’s son objects strongly to the way that his dad rules the country. But King Harold knows that his son has sympathies with the locals and won’t let him out of the castle in case he tries to start a rebellion. So Harold’s son will remain a prisoner for ever and ever unless you can help him to escape from his father’s evil clutches.

Harold Junior really wants to escape from his father’s tyrannical rule, but first he has to find a way out of the castle. Old Kingy has been very sly and has blocked up some doors and made moving around the castle very difficult. Luckily Harold junior is a smart lad, and by using everyday objects which he comes across on his travels, he can attempt an escape.

When the imprisoned prince enters a new room in the castle, the location scrolls across the bottom of the screen. In the same way conversations can be carried out with the various characters who live in the castle. These characters often give Harold’s son hints and tips regarding which objects are useful to collect. There are options to give objects, examine them fully and use them. The conversation with the characters can be carried out by selecting the TALK option.

Harold Junior moves around the castle on foot, but he does have quite springy legs which is just as well really, because some rooms can only be entered and exited by way of platforms and large jumps.

CRITICISM

‘Kings Keep is yet another trite arcade adventure. To be fair this has some nice features like the messages under the playing window but all in all I couldn’t really play this for more than ten minutes without losing what’s left of my sanity. The graphics are pretty much run-of-the-mill for this type of game, lots of colour but not much detail. The sound is also a bit limp, no tunes and very few effects. As always the instructions given were a little lacking in content so it could take a while for you to learn the ins and outs of the game.’

‘A surprise!! Firebird have come out with another budget arcade adventure. I’m sorry to say this, but, I really have got to hate this type of game. There seems to be very little programming thought involved in this type of game nowadays. The characters are fairly large but aren’t detailed enough to look like real things. Colour is well used and clashes are almost nonexistent. Kings Keep is very easy to get into; but basically the game is another boring adventure that doesn’t excite any of my feelings, and the result is a very dead end game. Only for the dedicated arcade adventurer, with a small budget.’

‘This is the sort of thing that gives budget a bad name. Back in the days when full price meant a program and budget meant a few hours doodling with a game designer this would have been acceptable, but these days it belongs in the waste bin. There is nothing original in this game at all. Just think what you could do with two quid instead. Hire a video, buy a paperback, just about anything, just don’t buy this.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: jump Q; left O; right P, pick up 1; inventory 2; list commands 5
Joystick: Kempston
Keyboard play: strange at first, but quite straight-forward really
Use of colour: reasonable
Graphics: dull
Sound: unusual spot effects
Skill levels: one
General Rating: Budget tat.

Use of Computer

42%

Graphics

50%

Playability

58%

Getting Started

50%

Addictive Qualities

31%

Value for Money

45%

Overall

42%

MARBLE MADNESS CONSTRUCTION SET

Producer: Melbourne House
Price: £8.95

Following the recent spate of Marble Madness clones, along comes the grand master himself in the form of a construction set from Melbourne House. Once more the hero of the game is Mr Spherical, a ball, who takes to the slippery slopes of the crooked palace of power. The game is split into two parts; firstly the game... Life as a marble can’t be an easy one; especially when you’re trapped in a strange world of unreality, where the laws of physics that you once held true no longer apply. So, to pass the time Mr Spherical enters himself for the local races. The aim of these is a simple one — to reach the end of each level before your time runs out.

With four directions at your disposal, you must keep Mr Spherical under control as he winds his weary way to the bottom of the racetrack. Racing over the flat planes isn’t so bad, but the narrow ramps and bridges can prove extremely hazardous — one small roll out of place, and with a resounding scream poor old Mr Spherical plunges to his death in the murky swamplands which surround the track. Many creatures inhabit the swamplands, and some of these occasionally force themselves up onto the racetrack — in search of any slow-witted contestants who may fall prey to the difficult corners. The most notorious of the lot are the evil marbles who roll carelessly along the plains, they also bring with them their sproingy mates who move in a slinky fashion on the surface of the slopes. Contact with these, and any other of the various nasties leads to obliteration as well as a loss of time.

If you become fed up with the preset patterns of the racetrack, there is an option on the title screen which allows you to construct your own. The construction process is controlled by the four standard direction keys plus a fire key. Running down the right hand side of the construction screen is a selection of the various planes that can be used to make up your revised track. They include two angular planes, one flat, one vertical, a left and right slant and two steep slants. Along the bottom of the screen is a text option window. Using this, you can place oddments on the screen such as time displays, points scored, and marks of 100, 300 and 500. These can be put anywhere your heart desires. All of these options are accessed by moving your arrow cursor onto the one you want and pressing fire. Doing this allows you to move the item around the screen until you find a place to plonk it down. Once you have successfully completed the construction of a screen, select Test and a marble appears at the top — now it’s time to see if your Great Design has worked, or like all the other Great Designs has it disappeared down the plughole...

CRITICISM

‘I must confess that after a little while I was quite getting into designing my own screens but when it came to actually playing them the game began to annoy me. Graphically this is run-of-the-mill for this type of game, your ball skids around the playing area fairly smoothly, the backgrounds are detailed and there are no attribute problems anywhere in the game. The sound is very good, a tune plays continuously on the title screen and throughout the game. On the whole if you are a fan of this type of game then perhaps this will appeal to you.’

‘Marble Madness looks far too much like the old Gyroscope to be much of a success. I’m not really too keen on this type of game anyway, but this one is just bad news. The graphics are poor, and though the movement of the marble is fairly smooth, the whole thing is just a mite too unplayable.’

‘I didn’t really like the arcade machine that much, so I was a bit cautious when it came to reviewing the computer version. To be honest, Marble Madness is very badly written. The graphics are of the monochromatic kind, and with these you can’t go far wrong, although the way they are manipulated is very slow and jerky. It took an amazingly long time to actually move the ball from one side of the screen to the other — but once done, it takes ages to flick to the next screen. Apart from being unplayable I also found it very inaccurate — constantly I found myself disappearing down holes that weren’t there, and rebounding off invisible walls. This is a very bad game, and considering it’s from the people that brought us Gyroscope it is even worse.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable, up, down, left, right, fire
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: like nailing jelly to the ceiling
Use of colour: monochromatic play area
Graphics: detailed, with good animation
Sound: excellent rendition of the arcade tune
Skill levels: one
Screens: 11
General Rating: A good idea poorly executed.

Use of Computer

65%

Graphics

71%

Playability

54%

Getting Started

69%

Addictive Qualities

62%

Value for Money

61%

Overall

61%

NOSFERATU

Producer: Piranha
Price: £9.95
Author: Design Design

Nosferatu The Vampyre has been dragged out, dusted down and brought up to date. Those who remember the Twentieth Century Fox film of the same name will know that Nosferatu was the only Vampyre to have his deadly fangs firmly in the front of his mouth, and not at the side like the Bela Lugosis and Peter Cushings that were to follow.

Nosferatu is divided into three sections, and predictably enough one section has to be completed before the player can progress to the next. The first part of the game takes place in Dracula’s castle. Jonathan Harker is an estate agent’s minion. The Count wishes to move from his draughty house on the hill. When Jonathan gets to the castle, his worst fears are realised. Being a smart man, he realises that if Nosferatu moves into the peaceful town of Wismar, the inhabitants of this sleepy village could soon become his unwitting victims and turn into Vampyres themselves, Eeek!

Unfortunately, Jonathan has made a slight faux-pas. He has left the deeds to the house on the dining table in the Count’s castle, and when he returns they are gone. Mr. Harker must recover these deeds and escape from the Count’s castle to complete section one of the game.

Apart from Nosferatu, there are other nasty things for the poor man to wrestle with. Vampyre bats, sewer rats and large rabid wolves are all a potential threat as they guard the castle while the Count takes his beauty sleep. These creatures will sap away Jonathan’s life energy if they make contact with him. This life force is represented by an ever-growing coffin at the bottom of the screen, when the coffin is completed he dies. Apart from these creatures, the Count has also conjured up hallucinations which haunt and trick Jonathan as he stumbles around the castle’s rooms in search of the deeds.

Food can be picked up along the way to replenish his energy, and the crucifixes, swords and candles which can also be picked up all help to make his task a mite easier. The time of day or night is shown by a change in room colours and by a chart at the bottom of the screen. It is not essential for Jonathan to have the deeds before he leaves the castle, but if he does have them it will make his task a lot easier in the next section.

In level two the action takes place in the town of Wismar and the player controls three characters; Jonathan Harker again, his wife Lucy and a chap called van Helsing. Play can be switched between the three by using keys 1 through to 3.

Nosferatu has been lured to Wismar by Lucy’s unique powers of attraction. While in the town he takes good advantage of the healthy population and begins to feed off them. However, unbeknown to Lucy’s husband and van Helsing, she is the only one who can kill Nosferatu. This makes things tricky in the third section. The two men must make short work of the hundreds of sewer rats which swarm around, while at the same time fending off the inhabitants who have already been turned into Vampyres by the Count.

In section three the player controls just Lucy. The object of this level is to lure Nosferatu to Lucy’s house for the Final Conflict. Jonathan and van Helsing are still unaware that Lucy alone can kill the Vampyre and are united in keeping her away from danger. The two men must be locked in the house while Nosferatu is lured to Lucy’s bedroom where she must keep him with her until dawn. If you are successful, the game ends with Nosferatu’s quick demise at the first rays of the sun!

Jonathan explores the dining room. I think those doggies fancy dining early tonight

CRITICISM

“This really is a very good game. The graphics are very detailed and originally drawn. Things like the bats and other animals are extremely well animated — which makes Nosferatu a very pretty game to play — but there is much more than meets the eye, like trap doors and secret passages, which once found open the whole game up. The game is very easy to get into, although I felt the controls were a touch unresponsive, considering the bats move at such a fast pace. After a very hard session of playing I found it very hard to get anywhere near level two. The options are fairly vast, although the old game option proved pretty useless. This is an excellent variant on an old game.”

“Although bearing initial similarities to Design Design’s earlier release, Nexor, the gameplay goes much beyond the simple wander around and collect object idea. The plot is actually very involved and complex. What’s more, it’s a real toughie to play. The most notable occurrence of this is when the bats attack you — they really go for your neck, the little horrors! Despite not be able to get very far into the games I’m sure I’ll play it again as there appears so much just waiting to be discovered. I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone.”

“To begin with it is very easy to dismiss Nosferatu as just another filmation game with hardly any content, but if you stick with it for a few goes I’m sure that it will absorb you as completely as it did me. Graphically this has to be one of the most detailed games that I have ever played, nothing has been left out. The characters move around in the usual excellent filmation fashion and use of colour is understandably limited. The sound is also very good with lots of effects and a lovely tune on the title screen. All in all I’m glad to see that Piranha can still produce excellent games.”

A staircase deep in the bowels of the castle. The coffin grows in size, Jonathan’s close to a sticky end

Another tricky room. Some rather terrifying looking spiders have just crawled out of the bath

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: somewhat sluggish
Use of colour: understandably limited
Graphics: detailed with good animation
Sound: tune which can be switched on or off during play
Skill levels: three
Screens: 113
General rating: love at first byte

Use of computer

90%

Graphics

93%

Playability

92%

Getting started

87%

Addictive qualities

92%

Value for money

91%

Overall

91%

ORBIX THE TERRORBALL

Producer: Streetwise
Author: John Pragnell
Price: £7.95

This is the first release from Domark’s new label, Streetwise, set up to promote Domark’s new line in arcade games.

Eeek!, an allied space ship has crash landed on Horca, a distant hostile planet. The crew were unhurt in the crash, but they are now stranded. As supreme commander, your task is to take your Orbix (Tactical Planetary Warfare craft) down to the unfriendly planet and rescue the poor survivors.

However, there is just one tiny problem. The Planet Horca isn’t just unfriendly, it’s positively dangerous. The entire planet is infested with large insectivores (sort of big insects). These nasty creepie-crawlies have taken the crashed ship apart bit by bit, pilfering the food supplies within. Not content with this however, they are now fixing their roaming eyes on the crew. You must get to them before they become the After Eight mints at the end of the insectivores’ meal. The cunning insectivores have also created a species of fierce droids which pursue your Orbix mercilessly. Other perils which you must face include magnetic tar pits which suck your Orbix into the bowels of the planet, and strange vegetation which isn’t actually dangerous but it does knock you off course if you bounce into it.

The screen shows the action scrolling diagonally. You have to bounce your Orbix down through the screen, blasting any insectivores and droids along the way. A constant push in any direction simply revolves it, however, a short push forward or backwards sends you off in that direction. A direction meter is located at the bottom of the main screen, this shows you which direction you are going to travel in. There are eight axes of movement available, so you can romp around the planet avoiding most objects if you’re careful enough.

There are six missing components from the spaceship which you must recover in order to complete your mission. The long range scanner shows the position of the next piece of the ship. The components are usually carried by factory droids. These rather stupid creatures fight if they’re cornered, but they generally flee if approached. When a droid is destroyed, you must still be careful, as it’s booby trapped. This means that you have only 90 seconds to get the piece of ship back to the launch pad, where it is automatically assembled.

The Orbix has unlimited blasting power which comes in very handy for getting rid of all the unsavory insectivores. However, it only has a limited amount of life energy, this is replenishable by ‘feeding’ off the power crystals which are conveniently left behind by the dead droids.

On each level there are eight stranded spacemen to collect, with points scored for each one who is returned safely. There are four levels, which can be selected at the beginning of the game. There is also a two player option, so you and a mate can battle it out together.

CRITICISM

‘The graphics of Orbix impressed me at first, but once I started playing I found that the game was very boring. There is very little to do, and is just a case of looking at your scanner and trying to get to that place on the play area. The scrolling play area works well and is very smooth and well designed, but I feel that the game would have been more fun with less obstacles in the way of your progress. I can see Orbix has the potential of being a good game, if only there was something more challenging to do in it.’

‘Orbix the Terrorball is not really one of the best games around at the moment but it ain’t the worst. The basic idea bouncing around the playing area etc is fairly sound but I think that it could have been made a little more compelling. Orbix is presented fairly well, the excellently scrolling background is dotted with various buildings and trees and your character bounces up and down nicely. All in all I wouldn’t recommend this, there are plenty of games around in the same vein that are easier to play.’

‘Mmm. The graphics aren’t all that good, and the game isn’t either. I don’t know what it is (do I ever?) that gives me the impression of poor quality, but there is definitely something. The graphics have a negative feel to them, and the whole game just doesn’t play very well. The cover artwork is excellent, with the massive sphere dominating everything, but unfortunately, the game doesn’t seem to be of the same calibre. I’m not overly keen on it.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q Increase speed, A Slow down, O Rotate left, P Rotate right, SPACE fire, H Pause, J continue, BREAK during pause to abort
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: hard to get the hang of, but it eventually becomes slightly easier than using the joystick
Use of colour: it’s a bit blue
Graphics: good detail
Sound: the odd spot effect
Skill levels: four
Screens: scrolling playing area
General Rating: Dull game, tricky controls.

Use of Computer

64%

Graphics

67%

Playability

57%

Getting Started

66%

Addictive Qualities

58%

Value for Money

61%

Overall

62%

ROGUE TROOPER

Producer: Piranha
Author: Design Design
Price: £9.95

Readers of 2000AD will recognise the main character in Piranha’s latest game. Rogue Trooper is the sole survivor of the Quartz massacre. The rest of his regiment was systematically wiped out after being betrayed to the Norts and then left to the mercies of the Sun Legion.

The vid-tapes storing the vital evidence which Rogue Trooper craves will probably have survived the blast due to their protective casing. Eight of these vid-tapes must be collected and put safely in a waiting shuttle for transportation to the spaceport where the atrocity of the massacre can be revealed.

Three of Rogue’s friends who died in the Quartz massacre were stored at the moment of their death on micro-chips. These chips are now attached to Rogue’s helmet, back-pack and gun, and each of them, Helm, Gunnar and Bagman have different personalities. These GI buddies cajole and advise Rogue as he roams the hideously contaminated Nu Earth.

The Nu Earth has been completely ravaged by the effects of chemical warfare, although because he is a genetic creation, this only affects Rogue slowly. The Norts who are guarding this desolate wasteland have to wear special breathing masks in order to survive, and can be recognised because of this. As Rogue stomps around the Nu Earth he can either avoid the Norts or blast them with his own weapon. Extra ammo can be collected along the way if supplies get low.

The marauding Norts are not the only perils facing Rogue on this ragged planet. Beware the minefields and the automated pillboxes which shoot anything (even Norts if they get in the way), and take quite a bit of blasting to destroy.

Each time Rogue is shot he loses five strength points, and stepping on a mine will severely dent his reserves. This damage is shown by the amount of strength he has left. When this strength level reaches zero he will die and the game will be over. First-aid packages crop up now and again and will replenish some of Rogue’s energy.

Rogue’s status is shown on a chart at the top of the main screen. This shows how much ammo and first-aid kits he is currently holding and how many of the tapes he has found. Points are scored for any Norts killed and Rogue’s strength is indicated as a percentage at the bottom of the chart. To the left is a small map. It shows up areas containing Norts, the location of the shuttle, and the type of ground around. This is important, as while Rogue is in some terrain, he is slowly healed, whilst the rad desert and other areas will slowly drain his strength. To the right are the three chips and a small screen on which their messages and general running commentary are displayed.

The essential vid-tapes are easily recognised and these, like everything else in the game are automatically picked up when Rogue walks into them.

CRITICISM

‘I found that after only a few goes I was only one tape away from finishing the game. The game is quite addictive at first, but this soon wears off as you realize that it really is a very small play area, as the screen rolls around. All the different types of area contain some well drawn graphics but are all stick drawings, and lack any substance — I also found these areas a bit bare as far as baddies go. I would recommend this to someone who finds games hard to play — but for hardened players Rogue Trooper is much too boring.’

‘The game perhaps isn’t as good or as compelling as it could have been. Stomping around a fairly small wraparound playing area searching for things and murdering the odd baddie is a plot that’s been used all too often in the games world. There is an overall lack of polish to the game. Graphically and sonically there is nothing in Rogue that will raise any eyebrows but they are adequate. I think this will appeal mainly to 2000AD fans as the game itself is fairly run-of-the-mill.’

‘Rogue Trooper is an excellent game. The perspective is very good, and though the variation of colour starts to hurt the eyes after a while, I could play this game for hours. I only have a small gripe, and that’s that it’s a little too easy to complete, and the finishing reward screen is fairly boring. The comments by the biochips add atmosphere to it, and the game is fun even if you forget the tapes, and go around blasting Norts and pill boxes.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Joystick: Kempston, Protek, Sinclair Interface II
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: monochrome
Graphics: isometric 3D graphics
Sound: spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: 72
General Rating: Good game, but a bit easy.

Use of Computer

75%

Graphics

82%

Playability

76%

Getting Started

83%

Addictive Qualities

79%

Value for Money

71%

Overall

79%

SPACE HARRIER

Producer: Elite
Author: Keith Burkhill
Price: £7.95

Anyone who is remotely familiar with amusement arcades will have heard of Space Harrier. In fact so imposing is this arcade machine that it would be very difficult to miss. The arcade version incorporates a huge hydraulic arm on which is mounted a seat and a video screen. Apparently it’s quite an experience to play. Unfortunately the Spectrum version doesn’t include such fancy sundries.

You control a futuristic soldier, a Space Harrier, who is pitting his wits against all manner of nasty aliens who are threatening to take over. One man against so many seems a fairly tall order. Your soldier is equipped with a jet pack and a powerful gun. This enables him to rocket about at great speeds while blasting away at the opposition.

The basic idea is to blast anything that hurtles towards your character from the back of the screen, whether it’s a mean and ugly nasty or the odd bit of countryside. The person perspective action scrolls towards the player at a fair old rate. All the aliens zoom in from the far distant horizon and your soldier has to swoop and duck around blasting them out of the skies. Apart from the many monsters there are also landscape features that have to be avoided. Trees, rocks and large stone obelisks shoot out to meet you and then must be maneuvered around if success is to be yours.

There are sixteen levels to the game. Each one is identified by its distinctive colouring and different graphics. In the later levels the action gets quite furious with inanimate objects hurling at you. The Space Harrier must blast his/her way through all the nasties on a particular level, amassing the biggest score possible. At the end of each level there is a super baddie or baddies who must be conquered before your little soldier sets his feet down on the ground again and awaits the perils of the next level.

Although the majority of the demons in this game are nasty there is an exception. If you get up to level ten, a cute cuddly dragon appears who is obviously very friendly. When he appears in the later levels your Space Harrier gets to ride on his back and together they wreak havoc on the attacking monsters. Gone is his powerful laser and the Harrier and his dragonesque mate simply drive into the approaching monsters and destroy them that way. In fact, huge bonus scores can be achieved on this level.

Your Space Harrier has nine lives in the game. One of these is lost every time he gets shot by one of the monsters. For those that know the Arcade version intimately, the ending is along the same lines.

CRITICISM

‘Wow! This game moves at a pace! The first level is fairly easy, but even that’s hectic first time through, but as you start to clock levels, things really do start getting fast. The score table gave me a massive shock the first time I saw it, but I was fairly pleasantly surprised when my scores went into seven figures after ten minutes playing. Although it’s quite easy, Space Harrier isn’t the worst Elite conversion, and though being far from the best, might be worth considering if you’re a big fan of the arcade version.’

‘The graphics on the arcade version were always what people talked about — but the Spectrum version has tried to make them too detailed, and the result looks very messy indeed. I found that it was very hard to see what was coming up the screen at you — and the difference between the missiles and obstacles was very little when moving at such a speed as it does. To me the Spectrum version shows how little actual game is in Space Harrier. I got very bored with it after only a few games. As far as I’m concerned, Elite can give the seat away with it, and I still wouldn’t buy the game.’

‘I really liked Space Harrier in the arcades but only because the machine itself jerked around on hydraulics so you got a really good sense of motion when you moved about on screen (experience not to be no. 346). This is not at all a bad version of the original, it plays at high speed and it is quite compelling. The graphics are well above average but they do tend to get a little messy at times. Your character is well drawn but I feel that he could have a few more poses to complete the flying effect. The sound is average-ish, there are no tunes and the effects are mediocre only. This is yet another good shoot ’em up — this issue seems to be full of them (hooray!).’

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable, up, down, left, right, fire
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: pretty damn fast
Use of colour: vivid
Graphics: amazing perspective effect
Sound: the occasional spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: sixteen scrolling arenas
General Rating: A near miss.

Use of Computer

75%

Graphics

78%

Playability

76%

Getting Started

76%

Addictive Qualities

72%

Value for Money

72%

Overall

77%

SPEED KING 2

Producer: Mastertronic
Author: Derek Brewster
Price: £2.99

You are a contestant in a motorbike race. The action is viewed from behind your bike, the track scrolling towards the player gives the impression that the bikes are actually moving. At the start of the race, four lights count downwards and then you’re off. The bike is capable of travelling at up to 192 mph, although it isn’t such a good idea to do this when you’re travelling around particularly tight bends. The speed at which you are travelling, which lap you’re on and your position in the race are all shown at the top of the main screen, so that you can keep an accurate check on your progress.

The program includes a choice of track, each based on one of the world’s famous racing circuits. The tracks involved are Donnington, Silverstone, San Marino, Anderstorp, Paul Ricard, Jarama, Brands Hatch, Monza and Daytona. The track you want to race around can be selected from the menu options at the beginning of the game. The player can ride from as little as one track right up to nine, if he/she is feeling particularly fit. There is a two player option so that you and a mate can compete against each other. In the two player option there are just two competitors, yourself and your opponent. In this case, the screen splits into two halves so that the view from each racer is shown.

If a player mis-judges a corner during the race, their bike comes off the track and slows right down to zero. The player loses valuable time when this happens and has to get back on the road and re-accelerate to top speed. If the player hits another bike, then once again their speed drops off and more time is lost.

CRITICISM

‘This is possibly the worst racing game that has come in this year, it has poor graphics that don’t seem to speed up as you do (the white lines in the road go virtually the same speed at 60mph as they do at 190mph) and the sound is no more than spot effects and growling. The game play is about as compulsive as a dead cat, if you don’t come within the top ten in any lap on your first go then there is something wrong with you. The two player mode is its only redeeming feature. On the whole this may appeal if you are really into racing games but I’d keep well away from it.’

‘This seems to be a very bad copy of Full Throttle, but with a two player game added. The two player game is a stupid affair, as there aren’t any impartial bikers on the track and the first person to make a mistake usually looses. I felt that the game didn’t really inform you enough of the things happening to your bike; for instance when in the two player game you don’t know who’s skidding as the noise for each person is the same, and when you hit something you don’t feel like you’re slowing down, but the speed counter decreases. I’m afraid Speed King II doesn’t have the feel of a good bike game, and with Full Throttle at 2.99 it’s got some good competition.’

‘The graphics are incredibly bad, and the game is an awful attempt of a Full Throttle copy. The only thing that it has over Full Throttle is the fact that the characters don’t flicker, and if that’s two years of improvement, I’d rather keep the original. The impression of movement that was quite well put onto Full Throttle is totally non existent on this one, apart from the little stripes down the middle of the road. I think Elite can rest assured that there is no competition from this whatsoever, because it’s dire.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Player One: Q lean left, W lean right, A accelerate, D decelerate. Player Two: O lean left, P lean right, L accelerate, . Decelerate
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: minimal
Graphics: dire
Sound: rather like a very excited mosquito
Skill levels: ten different tracks of varying difficulty
Screens: scrolling play area
General Rating: There are plenty of better race games.

Use of Computer

48%

Graphics

45%

Playability

41%

Getting Started

56%

Addictive Qualities

36%

Value for Money

50%

Overall

42%

STARGLIDER

Producer: Rainbird
Price: £14.95
Author: Realtime Software

For many years, the planet of Novenia was at peace. An automated defence system, called the Sentinels, kept unwelcome callers from outer space at bay. These huge monoliths didn’t ask questions — they just blew away anything that they didn’t like the look of.

All went well until the Sentinels destroyed a harmless flock of protected interplanetary migratory birds called Stargliders. The Sentinels were immediately reprogrammed not to blow these rather bizarre creatures to bits. Although ecologically sound, this produced a fatal flaw in the Novenian defence system — the ruthless Egrons attacked in ships disguised as Stargliders, thus fooling the defence computers. Once past the Sentinels, there was no stopping them. Novenia relied on the Sentinels and did not maintain any conventional forces. So Novenia was conquered.

Jason and Katra, two Sentinel repair workers, witnessed the death and destruction from the safety of one of Novenia’s moons. The two heroes embark on a mission — to destroy the invading aliens singlehanded. All they have at their disposal is an obsolete museum piece of a fighter equipped with lasers and capable of carrying two missiles.

There are more than sixteen different types of Egron craft to destroy and each craft must be dealt with in a slightly different way. The action takes place on the blasted wastes of what was once Novenia, and the antiquated fighter is guided around the dust-laden atmosphere using a co-ordinate system which divides the planet’s surface into a grid of 100 units by 100 units.

Two types of sight are available — fixed and floating — and a choice is made before the game starts. Floating sights affect the control of the ship — the AGAV ‘follows’ the sights. Fixed sights remain in the centre of the screen, and the ship must be manoeuvred until the target appears in target square. An optional centering system may be enabled or disabled at the start of the game — automatic centering can be effected on either the vertical or the horizontal axis, in all directions, or not at all. With fully automatic centering, the fighter returns to flying straight and level when it is left to its own devices.

Two versions of the game have been programmed — the ‘standard’ 48K version and a much enhanced 128K/+2 version. The enhanced version includes digitised speech (the dulcet tones of one Clare Edgeley), a three-voice title tune and missions that either involve destroying an invader or picking up some extra bolt-on goodies for the fighter. Custom add-ons include super missiles with more fuel, power packs which temporarily dispense with the need to refuel, and a rear view mirror (presumably so that the ancient craft will pass its MOT!) In the enhanced version, particularly unpleasant meanies are encountered on the higher levels, to even out the advantage which the extra equipment gives.

At the start of the game, the airborne ground attack vehicle (AGAV) piloted by Jason and Katra is flying close to a repair depot. These depots are vital to the success of the mission. They rotate slowly, and the entry port on one side must be entered accurately, at low speed. Once inside, damage is repaired and a missile, if available, is attached to the craft. Each depot produces one missile every few minutes, but there is never more than one available each time the AGAV is docked. Before relaunching, the depot computer can be accessed for information on enemy craft.

After re-launching, it is vital to note the co-ordinates of the depot so the AGAV can return when necessary. The only vital commodity not provided by the depots is energy — this has to be collected by using the inductive power lines which criss-cross the planet’s surface (they can be recognised by the tall towers that support them). Collecting power requires delicate manoeuvring, and there are usually plenty of meanies scattered around trying to stop the AGAV tanking up.

The AGAV’s instrument panel includes horizontal bars that reveal the status of the shields, reserves of power and fuel levels, while two vertical indicators give the height and speed of the craft. The height bar flashes red if the craft is close to the ground and in danger of crashing — hitting the ground does the shields no good at all.

When a missile is fired, the view is supplied by a remote camera on board the missile. Missiles have a limited amount of fuel, fly very fast and have a wide turning circle. Consequently, a missile must be homed in on its target before the fuel runs out — so the target must be fairly close. Generally, there’s not usually time to circle round and try again...

It takes three missile hits to destroy an Egron Starglider. As the AGAV can only carry two missiles at once you’ve got to go and find a depot with a missile ready, dock, and then find the Starglider again, even if you score two direct hits. The reward comes when an Egron Starglider is destroyed — an ‘instant replay’ of the moment of destruction appears on screen.

After 10,000 points have been scored, the game moves to the next level where the Egron craft take more hits before being destroyed....

CRITICISM

“Starglider, without doubt, ranks amongst the best games to grace the Spectrum’s screen. The whole of the game is excellently done, and its presentation and packaging has been executed in a most professional manner. The loading screen sets the player up for the game-of-the-year on any computer. If you’ve seen the Atari ST Starglider then you’ll be amazed at the Spectrum version because they’re so alike! The sound effects are extremely good, and very effective. The number of frames of animation is unbelievable — it’s just so smooth and incredibly fast. The options are vast and very useful. There’s certainly a pot of gold at the end of the Rainbird (Eugh!).”

“Wizz neeaw zoom! ... Zap zap zap kapow! Budda budda budda. This really is my kind of game. It combines a fantastic shoot em up with a bit of brain work (but not as much as Starstrike II). From the word go it is easy to get totally enthralled in the world of Novenia, especially if you read the 64 page novelette (if you can tear yourself away from the game!) I can see myself playing this for weeks. Graphically Starglider is the best vector graphics game to date — my only niggle is that in a game of this quality it’s a shame that no one’s worked out a way of erasing objects and horizons that appear behind other objects. The sound is a bit disappointing: there are no tunes but the effects are well used. If you are a fan of shoot em ups or vector graphics then this must take pride of place in your software collection. Go and buy it, you won’t regret it.”

“Wowee!! The last time I saw a game that made me go into the same sort of totally freaked-out ultra-amazed mode was Starstrike II, also by Realtime. This one is even better, to the extent that I don’t think I can find fault with it. The animated vector graphics are just sooo great! The whole thing is destined to become a classic. I think I’d go as far as to say that if this was in the arcades then I’d spend a fair bit of time throwing ten pences into it. If you’re the not-so-proud owner of a 48K machine, then I suggest that you go and buy it now. If on the other hand, you’ve got a Plus 2, then buy this, and spend the rest of your existence playing it (until the follow up, anyway!)”

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable: up, down, left, right, accelerate, decelerate, launch missile, fire, pause. (128K version only: launch super missile)
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: slick
Use of colour: helpful
Graphics: incredible speed and animation
Sound: good effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: wraparound play area
General rating: It’s hard to imagine a better shoot em up

Use of computer

96%

Graphics

95%

Playability

95%

Getting started

94%

Addictive qualities

96%

Value for money

92%

Overall

95%

The 128K version represents quite an enhancement on the 48K game. It deserves a separate critical comment and a revised set of ratings.

“Starglider on the 128K is far superior to the 48K version and indeed to any other 128K games that I’ve seen to date. I had difficulty believing that a humble (but fat) Spectrum could actually produce a game this fast and with so many sound effects. Graphically, this is no step forward from the 48K, except that you get a few more nasties on the higher levels. The sound is the best I have ever heard on a Spectrum: there is an excellent David Lowe tune on the title screen and some worthy effects during play. Above all, there is speech the like of which has never been heard on the Spectrum (it even knocks the stuffing out of the Atari ST version). The voice is recognisably that of nice Clare Edgeley from Rainbird who actually gives you useful bits of information (like when you are going to die) during the game. If you are a 128K owner who is getting a bit fed up ’cos there isn’t really any neat software around for your machine this will restore your faith. Halleluja!”

Use of computer

97%

Graphics

95%

Playability

96%

Getting started

94%

Addictive qualities

98%

Value for money

95%

Overall

97%

TARZAN

Producer: Martech
Author: Jaz Austin and Dave Dew
Price: £8.95

Lady Jane Greystoke — she of “Me Tarzan — You Jane” fame — is in mortal danger in the jungle. She has been captured by Usanga, the chief of the Wamabo (thank you ma’amo). The chief has had seven gemstones stolen from the tribal shrine, and being a sensible chap, he realizes that the only person who stands any chance of recovering these gems for him is Tarzan.

This isn’t as easy as it seems though, the chief and Tarzan aren’t exactly the best of pals, so the chief kidnaps Jane and threatens to feed her to the ravenous Panther if Tarzan doesn’t come up with the gems — and pronto.

Tarzan has just three days to find the seven gems stones (or The Eyes of the Rainbow as the primitive chief calls them), if he has not found them after this time Jane will be slaughtered.

Tarzan’s journey will take him from the leafy jungle — where he will confront vicious panthers, lethal quicksand and unpleasant natives — to the Dark Caves and and Temple of the Sun where even more danger lurks.

Each time he encounters one of these dangers some of his energy decreases. Tarzan’s energy is shown at the bottom of the screen as a tree creeper. The action takes place over three days. During each day the sun slowly sinks and the screen colour changes from vivid yellow through to more dusky shades, until it’s night and it turns to shadowy blue. However, if Tarzan loses energy by falling into quicksand or being leapt upon by a panther, then time passes more quickly. When the sun has set three times the game is over and Jane is fed to the ravenous hordes. Eugh.

Although Tarzan is Lord of the Jungle, he still needs various objects to help him. These are shown on the screen as black boxes, and Tarzan doesn’t know what’s in them until he picks them up, their contents are then shown at the bottom of the screen. These can be used to help Tarzan look for the gems which are also shown as black boxes.

The playing area is viewed from behind trees and shrubs. Tarzan can run left and right from screen to screen, but he can also move upwards and downwards to other screens by finding a clearing in the jungle vegetation. These clearings are not often easy to see and may take some searching for. Tarzan is an agile fellow and can somersault over some obstacles and run through the undergrowth. He can also take on some of the vicious animals, but he only has his bare hands, so sometimes it’s better to just try and avoid them. Some of the larger dangers, such as wide stretches of quicksand, must be swung over using tree creepers.

CRITICISM

‘I like the way that Tarzan is presented — the side view is an excellent idea and gives the game a whole new perspective. The sound is practically non-existent, bar a few spot effects, which don’t enhance the game at all — this didn’t help the atmosphere of the game very much and I didn’t feel that it involved the player very much at all. Tarzan is very slightly based on the film, but basically very like Tir Na Nog — and not too exciting at all. Martech have come up with a good game, but I’m afraid I’ve seen it all before.’

‘On the whole it isn’t a bad game, trudging around the seemingly endless jungle (probably in circles) gets a little tiresome after more than half an hour, but if you manage to get some interesting objects you can become absorbed in the game. My only real moan is that the screens take a while to generate, which can really spoil the flow of the game. The graphics are very good, the backgrounds are exceedingly pretty and the characters are well defined. On the whole this isn’t really much of a variation on arcade adventures so I wouldn’t buy it unless I was an aardvark freak.’

‘Gosh, thought I as I loaded up this one, what pretty graphics. Well, I didn’t actually think that, but it sounds good. The graphics aren’t actually all that good, because the effective border around the screen not only serves as an excuse not to use the whole display area but also masks some rather poor quality sprites. I think this game isn’t very playable; this is probably because all the game has to it is wandering through the same ol’ screens again and again. No. I don’t like it.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Keyboard play: pretty neat
Use of colour: monochromatic
Graphics: detailed and effective
Sound: some spot effects when played on the Spectrum Plus 2
Skill levels: one
Screens: 300
General Rating: Just another aardvark in the software jungle.

Use of Computer

75%

Graphics

79%

Playability

67%

Getting Started

73%

Addictive Qualities

72%

Value for Money

72%

Overall

73%

TERMINUS

Producer: Mastertronic
Author: P Hargreaves
Price: £2.99

The Wanglers are very anti-school. In fact they’re so against the system that they are campaigning for less lessons and more free time. However, the Emperor takes a very dim view of this, and has taken serious steps to cut down on this type of insubordination by arresting Brains, the Wangler’s leader. Poor old Brains has been locked up in Terminus, the most impregnable prison in the galaxy.

Brains’ colleagues decide that he must be rescued from the prison so that their quest can continue. They set out for the prison in order to help their friend.

There are four friends altogether and each one has his own special talent which he can put to good use in attempting to release their leader. Each of them has a protective suit which shields them from the force-fields and other perils which await them. However, these only work if their batteries are fully charged. The energy level for each character’s suit is shown at the top of the main screen. The control panel also shows how much thrust energy and lasers they have left. When any of these levels reach zero, then that particular character perishes, and the others have to carry on without him.

Mobod and Xann move by flying. However, once their thrust energy drops off, they have to find somewhere to recharge before they can become airborne again. Magno is a cat burglar, although he doesn’t look like one. His main talent is being able to stick to ceilings in order to avoid traps. Spex does possess legs, but he prefers to bounce everywhere for some odd reason. You can only control one of these characters at a time, but they can be called in to action at any time as long as you’re on a teleport pad.

CRITICISM

‘The game is very similar to Tantalus but it isn’t really as playable or as addictive, as it takes a long time to get into. Graphically I can see a lot of people really hating this as there is almost too much colour, I like it as there isn’t any colour clash and there is a lot of detail. The sound is a bit on the lame side, no tunes and only a few spot effects. I think that this will only really appeal to Tantalus fans as it doesn’t really offer much to the arcade player.’

‘Terminus contains nothing much more than Tantalus did. The game is immediately attractive. As with Tantalus, the screen is jam packed with pixels, all them full of colour and detail. But the game itself doesn’t have much substance. The idea of controlling different characters is nothing new in arcade adventures, but, seems to work well and is one of Terminus’s good points. Terminus features some nice touches; like the dissolving walls and different bullets — but I didn’t really like the game as a whole very much.’

‘Golly! It’s Tantalus with new sprites! I didn’t like that program, and I don’t like this. All the main characters have really awful control methods which makes the game frustrating from the very beginning. It’s even more frustrating trying to work out where to go and there isn’t much in the way of clues to help. The graphics are nice, but rather superficial and they don’t really interact with the game in any way. If you liked Tantalus I suppose you’d like this, but personally I prefer more arcade action and more adventure in my arcade adventures.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: different for each character. Mobod and Xann: Q fly up, M laser fire, O left, P right. Magna: Q fly up, M laser fire, O left, P right, A detach. Spex: Q increase bounce, A decrease bounce, O left, P right, M fire
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: a riot of colour
Graphics: detailed
Sound: a few spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: 512
General Rating: Unoriginal and confusing.

Use of Computer

65%

Graphics

76%

Playability

53%

Getting Started

56%

Addictive Qualities

48%

Value for Money

52%

Overall

52%

THEY CALL ME TROOPER

Producer: CRL
Author: Colin Ajayi-Obe
Price: £8.95

A conference between all the super powers is being held on the planet Therop. However, the sneaky Theropi, have plans for Galactic domination and have subjected the Earth Members to the Theropi’s irreversible Brain Drain machine. They have been turned from loyal Earthlings into lethal exterminators working for the Theropi. However, there is one survivor from the Theropi’s dastardly plans. Major R A Trooper, Squad Captain, has somehow avoided the Theropi, and now stands alone in a bid to stop their evil plans.

The Major, must exterminate the brainwashed Members, and escape from the planet alive. The parts of his spaceship have been scattered all over the planet’s surface, so before he can even contemplate waving bye-bye to Therop, he must collect all these pieces and assemble his craft again. There are a certain number of pieces of the ship per sector. Each piece must be collected before he progresses to the next.

If Major Trooper encounters one of the green Members, he must fight them at unarmed combat, the screen automatically flips into combat mode. The action zooms in on the two fighters, and shows them greatly enlarged and in much finer detail on the screen. Using the relevant keys or joystick positions, Major Trooper has to high-kick and punch his way to victory by draining his opponent’s energy and stamina. However, the Major has to watch out for his own reserves. There are two bars on the Combat screen. The blue one showing the Major’s energy and the magenta one showing his stamina. The idea is to get the opponent’s energy and stamina down to zero. However, if the Member gets the better of the Major, then he loses one of his lives. These lives are displayed at the bottom of the screen as hearts, and are gradually eaten away as the Major’s energy is lost. When a Member has been destroyed, the Major can then progress in the game. The screen then returns to the normal view, showing the characters and background in quite small detail.

Apart from the Members, the Major also has to fight against the Theropi, natives of this strange planet. These small yellow blob like creatures can only be destroyed by shooting them. They knock over our hero and drain his energy. The planet Therop is composed of sheer cliffs and large drops into huge valleys. The Major does possess quite good jumping abilities, but some of the cliffs are just too much for him. When he comes across one of these he must find some rope and tackle. Other objects can be picked up and put into the Major’s pockets. These can then be used by selecting the relevant pocket.

CRITICISM

‘I really do wish CRL would make their mind up. Academy is, without doubt, superb, but Dr. What and this one, well, a different matter entirely! The graphics of the fighting characters are excellent, big and well animated. There is no doubt in my mind that the game would be vastly improved if the wasted arcade adventure part was scrapped, and the memory used was put towards improvement of the combat section. Overall, the combat section has potential, but the other part is a disaster.’

‘This is the first 128K only Speccy game that I’ve seen, if the rest are of the same quality as this then I’ll take back my oldie rusty 16K door stop Sinclair any day. C’mon CRL surely a +2 can do a little more than this. Graphically the overall effect is shoddy: small undetailed badly animated characters and a garish use of colour. The sound too is well below average for the 128K, there are a few average tunes and minimal use of sound effects. The game at first seems as if it could be fun but after a few plays it does get very boring.’

‘I was bemused with this game at first, but after some help from a colleague I got well into the game — I would have been stuck without him! As a game designed specifically for the +2 I was amazed to see that there is no Sinclair joystick option — you have to define the keys for the joystick — is this why it didn’t get a Sinclair Quality Control sticker? The game contains some good features; such as throwing the rope and the dying effects.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable; up, down, left, right, fire/punch, jump, flying kick/hold, high kick/pick up
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Sinclair
Keyboard play: hard to get the hang of at first
Use of colour: uninspired
Graphics: not much detail
Sound: nice tune at the beginning with spot effects throughout
Skill levels: one
Screens: 200
General Rating: Most 48k games are better than this.

Use of Computer

54%

Graphics

47%

Playability

47%

Getting Started

53%

Addictive Qualities

46%

Value for Money

42%

Overall

46%

THEY STOLE A MILLION

Producer: 39 Steps
Author: Tigress Designs
Price: £8.95

This game comes in two parts. In the first, you pick one of five targets. The money made from one job is then re-invested in the next. A raid on the local coin dealers should net you a few thousand. This can then be used to buy the information you need, and a team of crack specialists, for the art gallery job.

There is a rogue’s gallery of 18 hoodlums. Each has a dossier on their past experience, but the nitty gritty is in the last page of information: how much they cost to hire, how much of the ‘take’ do they expect and what are their skills. This determines how long they’ll take to pick locks, disable alarms or blow a safe.

At this stage of the game there is lots of information you can buy on the target. Most of this is vital stuff — like where the alarms are, and what you are after. If you just go in blind and whip everything, the ‘fence’ won’t give you the full value of the items — whatever happened to honour among thieves!

Once you’re happy with your team, load the next section of the game. The raid must now be planned. This means telling each member of the team exactly what to do. This is all icon-driven. First toggle between the members of your team, select one, and then tell him where to move and what to do. Most actions take time. It is therefore essential to make sure that the actions of the various team members are co-ordinated so that, for instance, two men don’t try going through the same door from opposite sides, or no-one breaks in to an alarmed case before the alarm has been dealt with.

Once a ‘track’ for each crook has been made, the program has extensive editing facilities. This allows you to re-organise the raid to make more efficient use of your men. Also at higher levels, you will have to cope with security men on regular patrols, so you must time the paths so as not to arouse their suspicions.

Last but not least, to the raid itself. The men go through their pre-ordained patterns. Messages come up if there are problems, (i.e. locked doors, ‘the filth’ etc.). During the raid, you control the boss (who can do a bit of pilfering himself), or act as look-out. He can assist members of the gang who get in trouble, abort the raid and return to the planning stage, or tell the men to freeze when a police patrol goes past.

After all this, the dosh is split up, and you load up the first part of the game again, just in time to go for another job.

CRITICISM

‘I had great fun playing this. The whole idea of the game is very original, and extremely interesting to play. If you want a fast action game, then you won’t like TSAM as it requires lots a brain work and a considerable amount of note making. The menu system of choosing your options is easy to get used to and is very quick to use. The graphics, during the robbery, are very smooth and detailed. Definitely one for those cold winter evenings! And much safer than the real thing (I would think!)’

‘Generally I really dislike this sort of game as there is often little or no fun involved in playing them. TSAM however has been written and presented in such a way that even mere mortal arcade freaks can actually play it and enjoy it. The first part is a bit boring, flicking through masses of information windows can get very tedious if you haven’t really got into the spirit of the game. The second lottery stage really is good fun. You’ve got to be on the ball at all times. Go and buy it.’

‘Gosh, this game is good! The windowing system is superbly done, and the whole game is definitely one that has been put together very well indeed. The idea is a good one, and one that I can’t say I’ve seen before. Presentation is of a very high calibre, and playability wise, I find it hard to fault. Colourful, and graphically very good, TSAM is pleasant on both the eyes and the brain. I usually dislike strategy games, but this one is certainly well worth while. I like it.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable: up, down, left, right, fire
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: fine
Use of colour: rather restrained
Graphics: lacks detail
Sound: negligible
Skill levels: one
Screens: five large buildings
General Rating: An innovative game.

Use of Computer

89%

Graphics

56%

Playability

85%

Getting Started

82%

Addictive Qualities

88%

Value for Money

84%

Overall

85%

ZUB

Producer: Mastertronic
Author: Binary Design
Price: £2.99

What noise do bees make when they fly backwards? Zub, zub. And coincidentally, Zub just happens to be the name of Mastertronic’s latest release on their MAD label, which, strangely enough, is nothing to do with bees. Originally titled Zob, the name was changed after someone pointed out that Zob is in fact a rather rude word in French.

Zub is a small planet in the Zub galaxy. It is populated by Zubs who fight wars with Zubs from other planets. Right now Zub is in a bit of a pickle. Some nasty thieving Zub has walked off with the valuable Green Eyeball of Zub. It is your job as Zub Private, Third Class, in the glorious army of Zub1 to go and get it back.

In the game the player controls the hero, called originally enough, Zub. Zubs are genetically created creatures whose sole task in life is to fight. This particular Zub happens to be a coward and will need your coaxing to get him through his mission.

You must guide Zub around the planets in search for the Green Eyeball. There is a teleport station located in orbit above each of the planets in the system. Zub has to use small floating platforms in order to get up into the planet’s atmosphere. These must be jumped on by Zub and then moved so that he can jump to the next platform and so on until he reaches the teleport station. From the station he can travel to other planets in the system. A chart to the right of the main screen shows Zub’s progress towards each teleport station.

Each planet has its own security droids who are fairly keen to stop Zub making any progress. Some of these Droids are relatively harmless and will only push Zub off his platform if they touch him. However, on some of the planets there are armed droids and these will do far more damage to Zub. Zub must shoot each alien as it progresses down from the top of the screen towards him. If shot the droid will flee back to the top of the screen and start its progress downwards again. The position of each nasty is shown on the same map showing Zub’s progress.

A picture of Zub in his space suit shows how much energy he has left. As his energy depletes his internal skeleton is gradually revealed until he collapses in a heap of dried bones when all his life force has been sapped away.

There are five skill levels in the game and the player gets to choose which level to play at the beginning of the game. These levels range from Easy, Peasy to Aaaargh (probably quite hard!)

CRITICISM

‘I was expecting yet another boring old arcade adventure while this loaded up, so my eyes bulged a little when I first saw the two title screens. After my initial shock had passed I went on to play the game, unfortunately it didn’t really live up to the great attract mode but it is a good bit of mindless arcade action all the same. Graphically, there is little variation from level to level. The sound is dull although the 128K version is admittedly a lot better. On the whole I really like this, OK perhaps it isn’t the best presented of games but it plays very well.’

‘There’s very little in the way of originality these days so it’s pleasing to see something like Zub which doesn’t bring back memories of other tried and tested formats. Zub, the game, is just about as much fun as the title screen which has to be one of the best I’ve seen in ages — especially the parody on the Bond films. On the 128 the music is excellent with a really boppy tune that plays throughout. The game itself is great stuff and if you don’t know what to do with your next three quid then Zub is a must!’

‘The presentation in Zub is spectacular to say the least. The 007 bit at the beginning of the game is very well done, and the menu screen and the 128 versions’s sound are extremely well designed. But the game I found quite boring to play, although graphically it is very pleasing and smoothly animated. The game is a very basic platform game, that gets very laborious after your first game. I found the game very easy to play, but too simple for any serious game. Zub is a decent enough game for a budget price, but wouldn’t be in my tape recorder very long.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: hard to get the hang of at first
Use of colour: restrained
Graphics: brilliant title screen, simple in the game
Sound: the odd beep on the 48K. Played on the Spectrum Plus 2 is far more interesting aurally
Skill levels: five
Screens: ten three by three arenas
General Rating: Polished presentation, simple but catchy little game.

Use of Computer

84%

Graphics

79%

Playability

81%

Getting Started

76%

Addictive Qualities

73%

Value for Money

82%

Overall

79%