Game Thrills

Thrills on Tape

ThunderJaws
PLAYABLE DEMO

It’s ace! Play the first two bits of Tengen’s latest smash!

Deep down in the murky waters of the ocean lie the evil Madame Q’s headquarters. It’s not exactly convenient for the shops, but she’s not interested in shopping. She’s far more interested in taking over the world with her crazy army of cybernetic fighters and lizard warriors! And you can have a go at stopping her!

Here it is — your chance to take a look at Tengen’s latest smash ThunderJaws and see how completely brill it is. You’ve got parts one and two of level one, in their entirety.

Four lives, a gun and loads of energy — this cybernetic shark doesn’t stand a chance!

In part one you’re swimming along the route to Madame Q’s HQ but the water’s patrolled by cyber-sharks and lethal enemy divers. Blast all you see with your harpoon gun and make your way to the door which leads into the first of Madame Q’s bases. Don’t forget to pick up any weaponry the opposition drop and use it best you can.

In the second bit you’ve removed your scuba gear, leaving you free to roam the base. But, look out!, loads of particularly violent creatures are also lurking around the place. Swiftly dispose of them with your weapon. You can leap onto the platforms and annihilate the guards up there, but watch out for lasers and other booby traps that line the route!

And that’s it! As you can see, the whole caboodle is a bit of spiffy Speccy programming and a really good game to boot. And for that full ThunderJaws experience, why not pop down to your local software emporium and pick up a copy today (you’ll be glad you did).

CONTROLS

Easy — it’s on keyboard (with definable keys) or joystick controls. What you do need to know is the actions the controls perform, and here they are:


Into Africa
FULL GAME

Sprawling arcade adventure from Hewson!

Africa! Vast, isn’t it? It’s got, like, loads of spook countries all wrapped in one huge continent. It’s got deserts, jungles, lakes and lots of people who fight for their native freedom and that sort of thing. Yes, as you may have guessed, we haven’t much of a clue about Africa at all. We’ve never been there (though Oli’s planning to go in September). But, here’s your passport to an African adventure, it’s Into Africa, a great arcade adventure which has you performing all kinds of daring escapades (under the guise of many different characters). Under the rule of Chief Kasula, holder of the Golden Mask, the 35 tribes that inhabit an area of Africa have lived peacefully for many years. But now the Chief is diseased and dying, and the mask has been stolen. The tribes have drifted apart and face extinction when their land is invaded by rebel forces from the southerly neighbouring country. The rebels, desperate for supplies, are attacking villages. Your task is to find the mask and reunite the tribes in order to defeat the rebels.

The location of the mask is shown on the map, which is split into ten pieces and located in ten sections spread throughout the region. Only Professor Caine can piece together the map. Once it’s complete Warden Harry Smith can use it to locate and retrieve the mask and return it to the Chief. This gives you control over all the characters.

Most characters can be recruited individually if approached by someone who has the allegiance. Since the Chief holds most of their allegiances he has to be cured by a vaccine that only Doctor Awari can administer (she’s got to find it first).

Rebels invade in units of 40. Between the waves of rebels, grass fires sweep the land, destroying everything in their path (only on the flat plains). Fires can be put out by the characters, but they should only attempt to extinguish burning grass otherwise they may be killed.

The land is occupied by many animals for which everyone has respect; no-one can move onto land where an animal stands (so, plotters, rebels are diverted by animals). There are, however, big game poachers who systematically kill the wildlife (making things easier for the rebels). Poachers can be killed.

The bottom row of the screen shows all available commands, with the current command highlighted. To select a command, move the highlighter using left and right, and press fire to select. And this is what the commands do:

Warden Harry Smith is about to change — evening wear, one wonders

CHANGE
Allows you to change character. Only the characters recruited are shown. There are 40 controllable characters and eight radio operators.
STATUS
Shows the status of the current character’s strength, location, petrol, men, supplies and water. Strength is dependent on water and supplies.
NIGHT
When all characters have completed their moves, select this icon. All rebels and poachers make their moves at night. Combat takes place at night.
MAP
Shows the portions of map collected by the Professor.
RECRUIT
When a character moves into the same location an an unrecruited character, this command recruits him (depending on his allegiance).
DRIVE
The five main characters can use this command to drive a Jeep. This allows them to move further in a day and to travel at night. You cannot drive through the jungle, mountains or lakes.
WALK
Enables a driving character to leave a jeep.
RECORD
Saves current game position.
INFO
Shows the status screen and a chart of the surrounding locations and who’s occupying them.
MOVE
Advances a character to the location he’s facing.
ROTATE
Enables a character to face a new direction. Use the left and right controls to rotate a character and fire to select direction.
RADIO
If your character is at a radio or warden’s station he can call up any of the eight radio stations. You’re shown a chart of the area surrounding the radio station and the occupants of that area.

TIPS!

CONTROLS

Make your way into Africa using the keyboard controls, which are: N/left, M/right and SPACE/fire.


Nexor
Full Game!

In which you have to save the universe — again

What goes ‘tick, tick, boom!’? That’s right, a bomb. So, what goes ‘TICK, TICK, BOOM!’? Yup, a very large bomb, not unlike the one that’s currently ticking away in this game. Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on...

Look, it’s Phil Collins and his drum kit. C’mon Phil, give us a tune

The military forces of Earth have repelled the Andromedan attackers. The only remaining Andromedan forces occupy the heavily defended Orion Stronghold.

Earth is threatened with re-invasion. The only way to eliminate the Orion Stronghold is by cutting off its supply link from Andromeda — a huge hyperspatial link through which ordnance and supplies pass.

The military forces of Earth created a weapon to destroy the link, codenamed Nemisis, and installed it on the NEXOR (Nemisis EXperimental and Operational Research) planet. But (but! BUT!) as all the members of NEXOR, except for one lone security officer, were at a conference deliberating the date of Nemisis’ deployment, the Andromedans invaded NEXOR.

Now — quelle suprise — that lone survivor is you and it’s your job to prevent the Andromedans from getting hold of the Nemisis device. The device is made of five modules and there are five duplicates of the models, also within the NEXOR planet. These ten modules must not be taken by Andromedan forces, nor must the blueprints (held on magnetic tape).

And here’s Phil about to perform a suicidal leap (don’t think he’s high enough, really)

The only way out of the NEXOR complex is via the Matter Transfer Beam (MTB), but its control panel was shattered in the Andromedans’ attack. There’s also a self-destruct system which will destroy the complex and its contents. The tape blueprints must be recovered as their hardened case could survive the explosion, and preventing the blueprints failing into Andromedan hands is your overall objective. Additionally, you have to get the MTB operational, searching the complex for the control panel’s spare components, find the blueprints and beam them to safety.

There now only remains the problem of recovering the ten Nemisis modules and beaming them away. At least one of each module Is required to recover a complete Nemisis device, enabling the planned deployment to take place. This is your second objective.

Any modules that fall into the hands of the Andromedans can be destroyed by the self-destruct system. There’s a time limit here as an Andromedan shuttle is expected to transport any captured modules away for examination. It’s up to you (help!).

CONTROLS

Prevent all kinds of disaster using the keyboard or joystick control. Joystickers need to plug into a Kempston, Protek or Sinclair interface, and keyboard players, your controls are redefinable! Hurrah!


Rockfall 2
Full game!

This is no time to perform a merry jig, there’s a guardian on the way!

It’s the most eagerly awaited Powertape sequel!

Here it is! Rockfall 2 — the sequel to the game that had everyone blending their brains last year! The puzzles are more devious because they’ve not only been created by Rockfall’s authors, Andrew and Ian Collier, but also CRASH readers have designed some of the levels (and there are 20 of the bloomin’ things)!

It’s him — the hero with no name in a screen that looks like something from the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

The object of Rockfall 2 is to collect the required amount of jewels from each level; the number you need is shown at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. When you’ve done that, an EXIT sign appears — usually in some hard-to-reach place — and you’re whizzed off to the next level.

When a game is finished and you’ve entered your high score into the table (which can be saved out), the title screen is displayed, showing the highest level reached. If you get past level zero 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.

CONTROLS

Bash boulders using the keyboard. The controls keys are definable but don’t use H, that’s pause, and you press P to begin play!

KNOW YOUR BLOBBY BITS!

SPACE
A black square; anything that moves can happily trundle through it.
GRASS
A green square; you can walk through this leaving a trail of black spaces behind. Rocks are often supported by grass, so when the grass is removed the rock falls (hence the title!)
ROCKS
Round, red and hard! They can be supported by grass or any other solid object. You can support rocks if they haven’t already fallen — but if one comes hurtling towards you, step outta the way, pronto! Single rocks can be pushed sideways, if there’s space available.
WALLS
Inner walls have a red and yellow brick pattern and outer walls, which only appear at the edge of a level, are blue and yellow. Nothing can pass through walls — though you can destroy inner walls with a controlled bomb explosion.
EXIT
A large E in a square. Beware of burying and blowing up an exit, if you do the level can’t be completed.
JEWELS
Yellow diamond objects. These fall exactly like rocks and lose you a life should they collide with your head. The exit only appears when you’ve collected the required amount of diamonds.
BOMBS
The purple bombs can be pushed but explode when they fall, destroying nine surrounding squares.
ALIENS
The three types of alien can only move in black spaces and can be killed by dropping a rock or bomb on them.

Finally, time for a rousing hurrah for all these CRASH readers and their amazing maze designing skills which brought this little gem of a game to life: Paul Howard, Claire Priestly, Ben Wyatt, Paul McKeown, Mrs C Miller, John and Alan Sheilds, Richard Collin, and of course, Andrew and Ian Collier for dreaming up the shebang in the first place. Hurrah! Wot a clever lot you all are!



Starburst
Full Game!

Over area two in StarBurst — watch out for the alien, cunningly disguised as a hamburger

Shoot till you poop! Action all the way in shoot-em-up style! Aliens — they’re the scourge of the universe. Nasty bug-eyed greenies, equipped with advanced technology (the rotters) and always up to mischief. Especially invading, which is something all aliens seem to be particularly good at. And here they come again, keen to wipe out the Earth’s population. Against them? One lone fighter. And that’s you. The lethal assault has begun, aliens already swarming over the planet. The aliens have invaded five different areas, each area makes up one of StarBurst’s levels.

Your first job is to halt further alien waves breaking into the Earth’s atmosphere by assaulting the alien waves deep in space. Shoot to kill as the backdrop scrolls (rather well, don’t you think?) past. Here a good tactic is to collect as many of the power-up icons (small shields) as possible to increase your ship’s strength. Here’s what you can bolt on:

Collect the bonus shield to build up your fighter’s power

As you complete each level you’re transported to the next invaded zone. As you progress through the five levels the alien attackers become more powerful and it may take more than one shot to eliminate them. Alien fire is lethal and a hit from their shots causes the loss of one of your lives and the loss of a bonus power-up.

By the time you reach the end of level five, make sure you’ve got all bonus weaponry on board — you’ll need it: there lurks a huge mother alien ship! Screeeeam!

CONTROLS

Blast away to your heart’s content with controls either joystick or keyboard based. On keys it’s Q/up, A/down, O/left, P/right, SPACE or M/fire, X/pause, Q (in pause mode)/quit. Joystick players need to plug into either a Sinclair or Kempston interface.

Oh, and before we forget, a big round of applause for StarBurst’s creator Jim Gardener of Mind’s Eye Software Development (clap, clap, clap).



POKEMANIA!

Graham ‘Turbo’ Mason has been hacking away to bring you another instalment of those gamebusting pokes to cheat your way to success!