Let’s face it folks, everybody’s family racks
’em off every now and then — it’s an irreversible fact of
life. But nothing, NOTHING, could be as bad as the Addams Family, who get their
kicks from torture, electrocution and poisoning, consider a holiday in the
Bermuda Triangle as the ultimate and keep floating hands as pets.
The recent smash hit movie based on the crazy clan grossed 20 million big
ones (ie, pounds — what did you think we meant?!) in its first two weeks.
They first emerged as a cartoon, written by some fella called Charles Addams,
who apparently based the characters on his own family — poor chap! In the
mid-Sixties they landed their own TV series.
Now Ocean — ever on the ball when it comes to scooping big film names
— are converting the terrifying tribe, who make Hannibal the Cannibal
look like a pussy cat, into a Speccy game! Keep your eyes peeled for our
preview piece, coming soon...
BORN TO BE WILD
Ah, motorbikes. Wonderful machines. Cruising along the highway,
free as a bird, with all that throbbing power between your legs
(oooooooo-errr!), the wind whistling in your face and no traffic jams.
And, if you ride ’em fast enough, you could knock spots off Arnold
Schwarzenegger as The Terminator — look at Barry Sheen, he’s got
more metal in his lower regions than Arnie’ll ever have. Thing is,
you’d have to smash your bike up at several hundred miles an hour and
endure excruciating pain before the Hollywood bods would even think about
auditioning you. Oh, and you might die, but nothing comes easy in this
life.
Our esteemed editor’s first experience on a brum-it gave her one hell
of a buzz — zooming along a little country road on a racy little 125cc
trial bike with her sexiest mini-skirt on, an inquisitive little bee decided it
was a damn good view and went to investigate further. Yep, you’ve got it,
one bee, straight up the skirt decided an upper thigh looked like a great
stinging spot, screech of agony, one Hickman splattered all over the road!
Zeppelin Software are pretty keen on motorbikes, so (surprise surprise)
they’re creating a game all about them, specifically the go-fast Kawasaki
(give me a Harley Davidson any day — Ed), so that’s what
they’ve named the game. Let’s have a butcher’s at what
it’s all about:
Opening sequence
Biker chuggs along on 125 and pulls up outside Kawasaki UK HQ
offices. (Gets off and goes in.)
Man at desk: “So you wanna join Team Green?”
Form on desk:
Name............
Previous Experience: Yes ( ) No ( )
You enter your name and if no experience is selected you’re sent to
the track for a practice session. If yes, previous data under that name is
presented as a race history.
The bikes
Over a number of seasons the user progresses through the bikes
starting with:
ZXR 400 (top speed 150mph, sharp handling)
ZZ-R600 (top speed 150mph, medium handling)
ZXR 750 (top speed 160mph, sharp handling)
ZZ-R1100 (top speed 178mph, medium handling)
The bigger the bike the faster it accelerates and the higher the speed
needed to bank round corners. Banking too far causes rider to part company with
bike. The bike displays speed, revs, fuel and gear.
Each bike has six gears and manual change. Under normal usage, a tank of
fuel is enough for 16 laps, no matter what the bike. Excessive accelerating
and incorrect use of gears wastes fuel.
Race sequence
A season consists of 12 races on the same bike against 11 other
riders on six courses. Each race consists of: -
Display of bike and its
specification followed by a display
and details of the course.
A practice session.
A timed lap to determine grid position.
A race of 15, 20, 30 or 40 laps depending on bike size.
If the user wins, a ‘lap of honour’ animated sequence is displayed.
Crashes
All bikes can crash, not just the user’s. A bike that
drives into the back of another could be disqualified. Where two bikes have
collided ahead of the user, a yellow flag appears as a warning to slow down and
take evasive action. In the event of a single incident causing the collision of
one third or more of the bikes, a red flag indicates a restart.
Collisions result in damage that must be repaired at the next pitstop. A
serious, high speed collision puts you out of the race.
Well, there you have it, watch out for Kawasaki in our preview pages —
coming soon...
CRASH GOES GREEN
It’s a jolly welcome to Big Al Green, who joins the CRASH
team after the traitorous defection of Corky Caswell to our Commodore
counterpart, ZZAP!
Big Al comes to the magazine fully qualified (many years of experience and
research in tea making) and not only is he in the process of revolutionising
the entire magazine, he’s also a beacon of fashion in the office with
designer sportswear (baggy Lee T-shirt and flappy ‘MC Hammer’ trousers) and a
‘bad’ haircut (in other words he’s as bald as Captain
Picard).
He often rolls erratically into the office carpark of a morning in his flash
motor (a beaten up Lada), after wild nights in his heady home town of
Wolverhampton. On arrival he’s usually dozy and generally useless, having
spent all his spare time listening to extremely loud music of bizarre nature
(Bucks Fizz, The Brotherhood Of Man, Gilbert O’ Sullivan etc). In fact
he’s now completely deaf (watch out for this one’s sound
ratings!).
Alan likes toast, sleeping at his desk, falling out of tall trees, driving
very fast and boogieing (his greatest ambition is to appear on Dance Energy).
On the other hand, he particularly dislikes boring games, his van breaking
down, and zoos — he can’t get any girlfriends from there!
So bye-bye, Corky Caswell, we’ll miss your ugly mug around here, and
hello to Big Al (this one’s so much more fun to whip — he screams
much louder — Ed)