Game Thrills

CRASH Towers has been flooded with your questionnaires! Sorting out all the info is going to take yonks, but in the meantime here’s some proof of what you think: CRASH sales are on the rise! Yep — we’d like to welcome over 4000 new readers who’ve signed up to CRASH over the past few months! And make sure you stick with us, as we bring you the hottest in Speccy gaming both on the page and on cassette! Expect to see a whole barrage of exciting game thrills coming up on the cover, with some stunning full-price software exclusive to CRASH! And, if we can do it, we’ll be bringing you one of the very first SAM Coupé games too! Wait for it...

THRILLS ON TAPE


MASTER BLASTER

A BRAND NEW ACTION SHOOT ’EM UP EXCLUSIVE TO CRASH!!

Create cosmic chaos with Cybadyne!

You won’t have played this game before — but once you jump into the cockpit of the Master Blaster you’ll find it difficult to get out! The graphics are stunning and the action’s so hot it’ll melt your Speccy!

The Master Blaster is the most advanced and deadly space fighter ever created — and it’s on a mission to hell! Berlimey! Trekking out into the uncharted backwaters of the galaxy, all seems to be going well until a strange gravitational force begins tugging the Master Blaster off course — the cockpit judders, you slam your head against the side and black out (Urgh).

Who The Hell do CYBADYNE Think They Are Anyway?!

Cybadyne combines the dynamic programming and graphic talents of Mike Smith and Christian Urquhart. Together they’ve worked on, amongst many games, Xecutor (The Edge), Inside Outing, later rereleased as Raffles (The Edge) and Gunrunner (Hewson). Also to their credit is the original Hunchback game from Ocean. Though Mike now runs a software shop and Christian works for a computer consultant firm, they’ve not forsaken their Speccy gaming completely. Bravo lads!

DAWN IN HELL

Waking up, strange new scenes confront your eyes — the Master Blaster is heading into a deadly alien canyon, both sides packed with vicious weaponry. The signal blows as alien forces realise your presence and send destruction fleets down the metalic valley pumping laser bolts in your direction!

You can’t turn back — only go on blasting your way through until you find the exit! And, if all this wasn’t enough to give you the heebee jeebies, the Master Blaster has lost most of its vast power and speed. There’s only one solution...

Blast your way through level after level of hostile aliens, wiping out each formation with your weapons. Shoot canyon installations to reveal a power-up pill — collect enough and you can select a bolt-on weapon from the selection panel on the left-hand side. Watch out — don’t shoot a power-up pill as you’ll destroy it! The thing is — can you get up to full power before meeting the mega aliens at the end of each level?

MASTER CONTROLS

On keyboard use S/up, X/down, N/left, M/right, A/Fire and I or O to select a weapon. Joystick compatible too!



ROCKFALL

Boulder pushing antics from Ian Collier!!

Maze games are always a bit of a laugh, aren’t they? And here’s one to tickle your ribs — bash your way through 28 levels of underground tunnels and collect heaps of diamonds to make yourself jolly rich!!

The object of Rockfall is to collect as many jewels as possible by scurrying around each level. When you’ve collected the right amount (the total number needed is shown bottom-right of screen), an exit appears. Hurry to the exit and you’re whizzed off to the next brain-blending level!

You’ve got five lives to play with. When a game is finished, and you’ve entered your highscore, the title screen is displayed showing you the highest level you reached. If you get past level zero on your next game you’re asked which level you wish to be transported to — this can be any number between zero and the highest level you’ve reached. Which saves you battling through levels you’ve already played.

BUMPY RIDE

Throughout the 28 levels there are loads of things you bump into. Like what? Like this...

ROCKY CONTROLS

Bash the boulders using keys, which are redefinable, but don’t use H as that’s the pause key and you start the game by pressing P.

IT SPEAKS!!

Rockfall has some smashing sound FX if you’ve got a Currah Microspeech attached and PSGIO compatibility (and of course compatibility with the 128K sound chip, even though it works in 48K mode). If you don’t know: the PSGIO is a three-channel sound chip with a AY-3-8910 chip from Protek.


KARYSSIA
QUEEN OF DIAMONDS PART TWO

How did you enjoy the first part of Incentive’s fab adventure last month? Good, oh?! Here’s part II — for the full instructions see last issue. First of all you’ll need the password to get into this part of the adventure and — if you haven’t worked it out for yourself — it’s XAOR. If you thought ORLA was the password you’ve been fooled — it was a red herring!

LAST MONTH’S SOLUTION

Here’s the solution to part one — play through it if you couldn’t complete it yourself last month and see where you went wrong!

W, GET SAPPHIRE, W, CLIMB TREE, N, N, GET GOLD, S, E, N, FLORASSIA HELLO, FLORASSIA YES, BUY GROWTH SPELL, S
It is wasteful to test your growth spell by trying it in the shop. Florassia will not approve either!
E, N, N, GET ROPE, PLANT ACORN
Possible because of the soft ground mentioned
CAST GROWTH SPELL, TIE ROPE TO TREE, CLIMB DOWN ROPE, GET AMULET, D, N, OPEN DOORS, N, W, W, W
Remember the secret word Loranin tells you at this point
W, STABLEBOY ENQUIRE
This word has obviously been arranged between Lorainin and the stableboy
N, N, N, E, PAWN SAPHIRE, W, N, W, S, BUY DOUBLESWORDS
These improve your skill
W, N, W, SANTOWA HELLO, BUY SKILL RINGLET, N, N, N, S, S, CAST GROWTH SPELL, CLIMB TREE, GET ORB, GET DIAMOND, D, W, N, N, GIVE ORB TO BOWMEN
Now you are able to proceed North
N, E, OSTLER HELLO The Ostler is demanding an extortionate price for the horse. The diamond will be recognised by the pawnbroker and you get no money for it. Therefore you must give it to the Ostler
GIVE DIAMOND TO OSTLER, MOUNT HORSE
The horse has obviously been trained by the Ostler to do this evil trick. There is no way back across the river. If you had gold pieces left, note that the Ostler will have stolen them all by this point
W, N, EXAM FORESTER, CAST DARKSIGHT SPELL
No need to worry about the effects of this spell wearing off — it lasts for hours
S, W, W, GET RUBY
Of course the malyt is asleep during the day — it’s a troll! E, E, E, N, N, E, E, FARMER HELLO, GIVE RUBY, W, W N, N, W, N, KILL FIGHTER
You will lose unless you are GOOD and ENERGETIC or BETTER
S, E, N, N, N, THROW KNIFE AT THIEF
The thief is the only murderous opponent you will meet
N, N, PULL ROPE, GIVE EMERALD
If you have the sapphire, the ferryman will reject this. The armourer will tell you why.
N
Your password to part two is XAOR, if you have the silver falcon amulet.

And that’s it! Part three next month — along with the solution to part two. But, hey!, see if you can crack it yourself before then!


BREAKPOINT

Be a snookering smarty pants with Airline!

Airline is the company which brought you the skill Ultimate Warrior game to the CRASH PowerTape (back issue 67), and now they’re back with a vengeance with this clever trivia quiz based around the ‘interesting’ game of snooker!

Like the real thing, you start off attempting to pot a red ball. You’re asked a red ball question which is a reasonably simple general knowledge puzzler and scores you — like in snooker — one point.

Four possible answers pop up (A, B, C, and D) and you have to choose the correct one. Get it right and watch with pride as the red ball flies across the table into the pocket! Phew! Easy! But you don’t stop there — now you get to choose a coloured ball — yellow, blue or black. The colour ball questions are worth the amount corresponding to the snooker ball of that colour — two, five or seven points respectively. The higher the scoring ball you go for, the more difficult the question is — and the less time you have to answer it. Oh! Didn’t you know? All questions must be answered against the clock — run out of time and you’ve lost the shot. This prevents any would-be swots sneaking off to look up the answers in the nearest encyclopedia!

Having answered a coloured ball question correctly it’s back to a red ball, then another colour an so on. The game ends when you have potted all 16 red snooker balls — or when you’ve answered two questions incorrectly.

SNOOKERED?

Then check out the controls which are, keys only, A, B, C, ar D to select answers (these are redefinable) and using S to start a game and SPACE to select a colour ball.


TIPS ON TAPE

Graham Mason returns in his Turbo disguise with another pulsating dose of the bit of the tape that helps you poke your way through the toughest games — check out the details for this month’s Pokemania in DJ (Pie) Nicko’s Tips!