ELITE gives its old hits a new lease of life on the compilation label Hit Pak. The latest compilation is The Elite Collection, a strong two-cassette assembly of well-known Elite classics. They’re all very playable, ranging from the very old Bombjack and innovative Frank Bruno’s Boxing to recent successes such as Paperboy and Ghosts ’N Goblins. And on the second cassette is a previously unreleased Elite game, Battleships — yes, a Spectrum version of the pencil-and-paper classic. But to buy it all at £14.95 you’d have to be a dedicated Elitist.

PAXMAN PROMOTIONS, a subsidiary of the Prism Leisure Corporation, has released two ‘theme’ compilations — which Paul Sumner predicted in Issue 45 would be the things of the future, after the success of Ocean’s Game Set And Match. At £4.99 each Paxman’s Thriller Pack and Sports Pack represent good value, but sadly the games aren’t that attractive. The six loosely-related games on The Thriller Pack, all previously released, are more memorable for their hype than as actual games. And The Sports Pack is a poor man’s Game Set And Match.

US GOLD’s recent compilation Summer Gold is now partnered by Solid Gold — probably the house’s greatest compilation yet! Every game is very playable, and the collection covers a wide range from flight simulators like Infiltrator and Ace Of Aces to the CRASH Smashes Winter Games and Gauntlet. Sadly Leaderboard didn’t hit it off with the Spectrum like the others did, but it still fits in the package well.

HEWSON is eschewing the more-is-better theory of many compilations and putting just four Smash hits on a tape entitled exactly that. Four Smash Hits includes two of this year’s top shoot-’em-ups — Exolon and Zynaps — as well as Ranarama and (like Beau Jolly’s Five Star Games Vol. 3) Uridium Plus. It’s available on +3 disk as well as cassette.

OCEAN’s compilations always provide value for money. In October Game Set And Match sent Spectrum sportsmen crazy. In November the shoot-’em-up collection Live Ammo arrived and now Ocean looks set to have a happy Christmas and a VERY prosperous New Year with the final 1987 release, The Magnificent 7. And guess now many games are on it... eight!

If you thought Ocean’s previous compilations were hot stuff, wait till The Magnificent 7 melts the snow with Ocean’s greatest hits — like the mind-blowing Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Head Over Heels, arcade adventures such as The Great Escape and Short Circuit, leaders in their class like the mindless Cobra, and bat and ball with Arkanoid.

And the most interesting addition is Wizball. Reviewed in CRASH Issue 45 just a few months ago, it gained a Smashing 92%, and here it is already on an action-packed compilation. Ocean is backing the + 3 with a disk version of The Magnificent 7.

GREMLIN GRAPHICS are the ones to call if you’re looking for ten great games... and Gremlin’s Ten Great Games compilation gets the CRASH award for Hope-Raising Packaging Of The Month! The box measures 38cm x 20cm and looks tremendous, but it holds a measly two cassettes. There’s a whole range of Gremlin goodies on those two tapes, though: the attractive Monty On The Run, the gun-toting West Bank and even the original Jack The Nipper.

And for those of you who prefer playing with balls they’ve also included Bounder, Trailblazer, Footballer Of The Year and Krakout. At just a pound per game this little (or should that be massive?) package is great value for money — and it fills the stocking up!

BEAU JOLLY is back on the compilation wagon, and the nouveau Beau Jolly is launching a two-pronged attack on the Christmas market with two collections and a £100,000 TV ad campaign for them.

The fourth in the series of 10 Computer Hits includes the Marble Madness clone Spin Dizzy and the Gauntlet clone Dandy. But pick of the bunch is either Pyracurse or Contact Sam Cruise, both CRASH Smashes.

And though Five Star Games Vol. 3 has fewer games than 10 Computer Hits, it’s probably the better package. It’s hard to choose between such greats as Strike Force Harrier, Tau Ceti, Firelord, Aliens, The Way Of The Exploding Fist and Uridium Plus (an improved version of the Issue 35 Smash).