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| JOYSTICK JURY
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| From their bench on high, our regular panel of jurors - Ross
Holman, Dave Nicholls and Roger
Willis - pass judgement on the latest games software!
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You're probably getting used to our
joystick jockeys by now but, for the
record, there's gamester supremo Ross
Holman; the hairiest of hackers, Dave
Nicholls; and the fastest reviewer on
two wheels, Roger Willis.
WARNING!
Just in case you find our scoring
system too confusing, here's what it's
all about. The score out of five at the
end of each person's review is based
on their own experience of the game.
But that's pretty subjective ... so they
also use the HIT and MISS system to
indicate its potential as a commercial
success.
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SKOOL DAZE
Microsphere / £5.95
Ross: In Skool Daze you get a chance to
re-live
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your youth or, as in my own case,
do all those things you didn't dare do!
You play Eric, and if you want to be
able to sit down for the next week, you
must retrieve your school report from the
safe before your parents get to see it. The
first thing to do is to hit all the shields
hanging on the walls. This in itself is not
so easy and may require using one of the
other boys as a spring-board, or even
deflecting one of your catapult pellets off
a teacher! Once all the shields have been
hit the masters can be persuaded to
reveal their letter to the safe's four-part
combination.
Eric and the other children can go to
any room but must obey the bell which
signals the start of lessons.
The graphics are very clear and well
animated, and the independence of all
the other
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characters makes the game fun
to watch. However I didn't really find
that I wanted to play it for very long. It is,
nevertheless, a very
clever piece of software. 3/5
Dave: This is a very original game with
good graphics. The playing area isn't very
big, and it does seem rather unfair that if
you go to a lesson where there aren't
enough seats you get lines every time you
get pushed out of your seat.
I want my Mummy! 3/5
Roger: Buy now - before Sir Keith
Joseph has it banned! This is as near to
the real thing as I'm prepared to get. If
you're still at school, learn and
inwardly digest ... 4/5
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MUTANT MONTY
Artic Software / £6.95
Ross: If you were going to write a piece of
software but couldn't think of an original
idea
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then you might end up doing what
everybody else seems to have done ...
and that's to borrow a bit of inspiration
from Manic Miner or Jet Set Willy.
The game itself has 40 screens, each of
which has a name and a number of pieces
of gold to collect. Monty (a similar
character to Miner Willy) moves left,
right, up and down, and has to career
around the screen dodging the
horizontally or vertically moving graphics.
The lack of jumping ability means that
this is not a true platform game.
Despite its many familiar features,
Mutant Monty does have a few things
going for it. Firstly, Monty accelerates
when moving left and right if you keep
the key held down and will continue to
move until you press another key. This
means that avoiding the nasties is a little
more tricky than your average game.
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Secondly, the sprites move and animate
smoothly.
The screens are all very colourful and
lively, but unless you're a real fan of this
kind of game it offers
nothing new. 2½/5
Dave: Reasonable graphics, but the
controls seemed rather slow to react.
After wandering around so many games
like this and collecting gold, I should be a
rich man - where am
I going wrong? 2/5
Roger: Forty-seven cans of Special Brew
and a blindfold might prepare you for
staggering through Monty's many rooms
in an imprecise and frustrating quest for
gold. But I suppose any
ol' anaesthetic will do! 2/5
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CYLON ATTACK
A'n'F Software / £5.75
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Roger: Having always thought that 'Cylon'
was something they made cheap shirts
out of, I was disagreeably surprised to
find it cropping up as yet another alien
life form. Here we go again, striving to
protect the wholesomeness of one's
mother ship.
Launch and landing sequences, and on-
screen instrumentation (including radar
and cockpit sights) complement
protective screens and lasers that
gradually expire from over-exposure to
malevolent cheap shirts. As one would
expect, these garments are cleverly
disguised as spacecraft, getting bigger as
they get nearer.
That, more or less, explains the
pretension towards 3D graphics, in which
case I can only wish there were more -
dimensions, that is.
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Such a facility would
at least allow me to exploit the space/time continuum and slip off for a swift
half whilst Spectrum and Cylons play
'shootie-bangs'. Computers have no
feelings. Neither
have shirts. 1/5
Ross: This didn't quite live up to my
hopes that it would be a good 'blast
everything that moves' game,
but it wasn't that bad. 2/5
Dave: Nice, big, smooth graphics are the
main feature of this game I didn't find it
very addictive, but 'shoot 'em up' fans
might think it's fun. The back-
ground graphics are great. 3/5
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| JOYSTICK JURY
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STRONTIUM DOG - THE KILLING
Quicksilva / £6.95
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Roger: Johnny Alpha is a "Search And
Destroy" agent (a mutant bounty hunter
of the future) who first appeared in yer
actual 2000AD comic and he may well
have been the star of many ripping yarns
in those smudged and inky pages. His
debut, however, as Sinclair superheroette
is somewhat more than underwhelming.
It's desperate! It's a dog's life!!
You can poodle the Strontium woofer
through a generally doggy selection of
extraterrestrial kennels, seeking 'vicious
murderers' who need to be put
permanently to sleep, along with the
'Evil Dictators' who apparently control
this contest of yapping yawns. Watch out
for the 'Steel Kriegs' too!
Owing to a blatant programming
oversight, Strontium Dog fails to cross his
back legs in
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frustration and agony at the
complete absence of life-relieving lampposts unfolds screen by screen. Maybe
they were just hard to find in
two dimensions? 2/5
Ross: Here we have another complex
maze of rooms within which you wander
aimlessly! Occasionally, you come across
a 'nasty' to blast, but otherwise there's
very little to do.
Tedious stuff. 1/5
Dave: 'The Killing' is an apt name for this
game - while playing it, I nearly died of
boredom! Games seem to be getting
bigger and bigger, but with less
and less content! 1/5
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STARSTRIKE
Real-Time Software / £5.95
Ross: About two years ago I first saw a
game
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called Star Wars in the arcades and
looked forward to the day when I'd be
able to play such a game in the comfort
of my own home. Well, that day's here as
it's now available on the Spectrum.
Starstrike has three stages; the first
finds you out in space in control of a
fighter under attack from various alien
craft; the second stage involves you
shooting the gun emplacements and
towers on the alien moon; and third stage
is in a trench (à la Deathstar) where you
must avoid the bridges that cross it and
shoot out more gun emplacements.
Your fighter is protected by a shield
which decreases in strength each time it
gets hit by the alien.
Like Dark Star this game pushes the
Spectrum to the limits with some very fast
line drawing routines. However, unlike
Dark Star,
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Starstrike manages to maintain
its playability. The speed sometimes
suffers if you shoot a lot of things at
once, but the 3D simulation and crisp
response to any adjustments in
your flight path is superb. 4/5
Dave: At last, Star Wars on the Spectrum
- and a pretty good version at that! The
graphics are great, especially the alien
moon trench, but they do slow down
quite a bit when there's
a lot going on. 3½/5
Roger: Suddenly, it says here, there were
the (gasp) Outsiders! Suddenly (yawn), I
fell - completely and unsurprisingly -
into a deep slumber for the
duration of this game. 1/5
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BRIDGE PLAYER 2
CP Software / £9.95
Ross: Bridge Player 2 is intended as an
aid for those wishing to practise playing
bridge, and
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not as a guide on how to play
the game. The accompanying manual
describes all the features of the program,
but does tend to slip into 'Bridge jargon';
having said that, though, I'm far from a
hardened Bridge player and I could still
understand most of the finer points!
The program works by dealing the
pack to all four hands, but there is the
restriction that no more than eight cards
of one suit can appear in one hand; this is
due to the graphical layout of the cards
on-screen. Once dealt, the bidding begins
and follows the Acol system, with
commands such as '5C' being interpreted
as a bid of five clubs; however, as the
human player, you always play south and
enter the card you wish to play with the
suit first and then its value. Some nice
refinements are the automatic play of
cards if you have only one
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legal response,
and hitting the Enter key to play the
lowest card when following suit.
The graphical display is clear and easy
to follow, and the computer plays very
reasonably. This will not appeal to the
masses, but it's worth trying if you want to
become the Bridge equivalent
of the Cincinnati Kid. 3/5
Dave: Hah! Hands up who thought this
was a sophisticated platform game. I'm
not that good at Bridge but, after playing
this package for a while, I
think I'm a bit better. 4/5
Roger: I'd have preferred something a
little more racy ... maybe, Spectrum
poker! Generally, though
card games are a sunset
industry. 1/5
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AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL
Mikro-Gen / £9.95
Dave: "Oh no! I've lost contact with that
737 heading for Heathrow, and the
outward bound
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DC10 has lost
pressurisation so I'll have to re-route all
the aircraft down W17 and put Concorde
in a holding pattern, then I can ..." This
is an example of the thoughts that go
through your head as you play (!!)
Mikro-Gen's ATC.
The program simulates the job of
controlling the air traffic over a section of
southern England, including the main
London and south coast airports. All you
have to do is make sure the planes don't
get too close together and that aircraft
leaving your section are at the correct
height for the air channels they're
entering. You take over for a fixed period
of one hour and, at the end (or earlier if
you quit), you're given a percentage
rating relating to your performance.
Different ability levels are catered for by
varying the number of planes entering the
area within the hour.
Communication with the planes is
handled via
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the keyboard and the main
screen display depicts your radar screen;
you can also have on-screen lists of
aircraft or all flights scheduled to come
through the area.
ATC won't be everyone's cup of tea,
but if you like simulations or turning your
brain to jelly then it's
worth a look. 4/5
Ross: Because this game's such an
accurate simulation of air traffic control,
it's rather slow and dull. No doubt some
of you out there are dying to be master of
the skyways, but it's certainly
not my idea of fun! 1/5
Roger: Such a staggeringly boring and
witless simulation that it'll probably go
nova in Guildford and be even
bigger in Woking ... 0/5
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| JOYSTICK JURY
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BOOTY
Firebird Software / £2.50
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Dave: Booty is a platform game in which
you have to move around in the hold of
the Black Galleon collecting - not
surprisingly - booty. There are 20 holds
to empty and, when all have been
cleared, you have just 45 seconds to find
the key to the next section. Hazards in
the game include deadly parrots, ghost
pirates and exploding treasure.
Each screen has a number of doors
(some of which lead to alternate holds
and others which simply get in the way)
and there are various numbered keys
lying around which can be used to open
the corresponding door.
Music plays throughout the game but
can be switched off when it gets too
annoying. However, now we're onto the
annoying features. The thing that really
bugged me was
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that when you die you
always return to the first hold.
For the price, Booty is very good value,
but it does rather
lack addictivity. 2½/5
Ross: This represents good value for
money. It requires a slightly different
approach to other 'ladder and levels'
games - but I still didn't
find it that compelling. 2/5
Roger: If only my daily life had 'doors' to
escape into the next screen ... but cabin
boy 'Jim' has to cope with parrots that
bode terminal illness reminiscent of the
Inland Revenue on
heat ... 3/5
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MS PACMAN
Atarisoft / £9.95
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Roger: As the Greater London Council
and page seven of The Guardian never
cease to remind us, God was obviously a
woman. And so, we are now told, was the
"Original Atari Arcade Classic".
However, before your imaginations
run riot, there's not a 'lady bump' in
sight. Which is surprising really since she
must be bursting out all over, considering
her diet of interminable dots, intermittent
fruit and interestingly aggressive energy
pills. But never mind, because fat is, after
all, an acceptably feminist issue.
What started out as a simple screen for
simple minds can be viewed through
playground perspectives by pageboys or
sucked dry of innuendo cred by Page
Three readers. After all, pills that can be
consumed prior to the
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termination of
blinking phantom breath have got to be
twinning the jolly old entendres, haven't
they? Ignore this intellectual flatulence.
Ms Pacperson is a seminal and shapely
(oops!) figure in micro software history.
Put her in the display case
next to your mainframe! 5/5
Ross: Surprisingly, this offering from
Atarisoft is much better value and a
superior program to its
original Pacman! 3/5
Dave: I loved Pacman when it first came
out, and I'm sure I'd have loved this one
- if only Atarisoft had changed a little
more than Pacman's
sex! 2/5
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MATCH DAY
Ocean / £7.95
Dave: International Soccer has been
available on the Commodore 64 (Wash your mouth out
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with soap! Ed.) for some
time and has proved popular ...
especially in Dixons' shop windows! Well
Match Day is basically the same game.
For those who haven't seen it, this is a
football game where you have a 'cameras
eye' view of the pitch on which two teams
- either both player controlled or where
you get to pit your boots against the
computer - battle it out. You only
control one team member at a time, while
the others in your team run about and try
to get into the best positions under
computer control. If one of your players
has the ball, then you get to control the
player in possession; if you've got the
ball, the Spectrum puts you in control of
the player best positioned to intercept.
If the opposing side shoots for goal
then you get control of your goalie and
you can make him jump up or dive left or
right. Set pieces, like corners and throw-
ins, are handled
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automatically with your
players positioning themselves; if it's your
corner or throw-in, then you've nine
options for the direction/strength of the
throw/kick.
I hate football - but I loved this game
and I'm quietly confident that
it will be a hit. 5/5
Ross: The large graphics animate nicely,
especially the goalkeeper who kneels up
briefly after a dive and looks around for
the ball. A fun game with a good degree
of skill needed if you want
to win the cup. 4/5
Roger: Unrealistic, in that it lacks violent
crowd invasions of the pitch and vicious,
leg-breaking fouls whilst the ref ain't
looking. Still good enough to make
Jimmy Hill mix his
metaphors ... 4/5
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THE WITCH'S CAULDRON
Mikro-Gen / £6.95
Ross: Mikro-Gen are producing some
very good pieces of software these days,
and this text and
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graphic adventure is no
exception. In the best of fairy-tale
traditions, the plot is based on a Prince
who having been turned into a toad, is
now trying to regain his regal form.
The wicked witch, Hazel, cast the spell
that transformed the Prince, and it's her
abode that you have to hop around
collecting all the ingredients necessary to
make a potion in the witch's cauldron
and then drink it. On your travels you
may turn into many other forms, which
can be useful but can also make you
vulnerable to attack; for example, try
turning from a toad into a bat and you'll
be eaten by the cat.
I'm not a great fan of adventures but I
liked this one very much. The illustrations
of each room (which appear at the top of
the screen) are detailed and drawn
quickly, and the idea of the toad moving
about the picture as you give
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it instructions is quite novel. Above all, this
adventure is very user-friendly, it
understood most of what I typed in and
didn't expect that strange dialect I call
'adventure-speak'.
Overall, a humorous and well-
designed game that I'd
recommend highly. 3/5
Dave: Being able to see yourself moving
around on-screen is a nice touch, but
then there's lots of humour in this game.
Red herrings abound and the puzzles are
more than difficult. Addictive enough to
keep you hopping back for
more. 3½/5
Roger: One for the pot - in that any
literate, difficult, but somewhat
sluggardly, cerebral adventure game can
earn its supernatural
keep. 3/5
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| JOYSTICK JURY
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BEAMRIDER
Activision / £7.99
Dave: Beamrider is a 'skim the surface of
the
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planet (or, in this case, Restrictor
Shield) shooting things that appear over
the horizon' game. There are few other
games of this type around and, I'm afraid
Beamrider is nothing really very special.
That said, it's an above average 'Zap 'em'
with quite a lot going on ...
In order to progress up through the
screens, you have to shoot 15 of the
flying saucers that come down the grid,
but there are several other types of alien
flying around which sometimes get in the
way. Some of the aliens can be destroyed
with your 'laser lariats', but others can
only be blown up by a torpedo. As you
only get three torpedoes and you need at
least one to destroy the sentinel ship that
appears at the end of each screen, I found
myself dodging more often than shooting.
Different meanies appear on the higher
screens and, by
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about sector seven, you'll
find yourself very busy indeed!
If you're looking for a fast shooting
game, then Beamrider is probably worth
a look - but it's not exactly
state-of-the-art stuff. 2/5
Ross: This is a very 'old' game ... and it
shows! The different behaviour displayed
by the nasties and the hectic pace of the
game on the higher levels make this a
reasonable 'zap and blast' game. It does
however, have rather a
short-lived appeal. 2/5
Roger: Clearing the sinister Restrictor
Shield that surrounds one's planet is
about as vibrant as outgrowing
the brace on one's teeth. 1/5
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SON OF BLAGGER
Alligata Software / £5.95
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Roger: When you've finally managed to
keep the Blagger loaded by persuading
this program that you have actually
entered the correct master anti-piracy
code deduced from straining peepers at a
minuscule key on the packaging,
disappointment soon follows ...
Son of Blagger ain't just another
platform game - it's a bad platform
game. Less-than-witty graphics are
notable only for their crudity, abetting
annoyingly erratic control of the Blagger
himself. As he hops, jumps and creeps
around the two-dimensional scrolling
screens of Spectrum Security HQ, our
boy is expected to scarper out of each
room with all the 'hidden' gold keys
before exhaustion of limited air supply.
Quite what he's supposed to do with a
binful of such upmarket locksmith's
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accoutrements, I don't know ... not
having hung around to find out.
Do yourself a favour and blagg
a better game than this! 1/5
Ross: It's nice to see a scrolling Manic Miner type game - after all, they're
really popular on the CBM 64 and BBC
Micro. Catching the occasional brief
glimpse of an as yet unreached area can
make the game that much
more interesting! 2/5
Dave: I found movement on-screen a little
sluggish, and play was a bit boring.
However, the scrolling techniques used are clever 2/5
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WORD GAMES WITH THE MR MEN
Mirrorsoft / £9.95
Dave: This is one of a series of
educational programs. Included in the
package are two
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cassettes (one for each
game), an explanatory booklet, and a
plastic keyboard overlay which covers the
alphabet keys and masks off the
Spectrum keywords.
The package is aimed at five to eight
year-olds; to be realistic though, it's more
likely to appeal to children at the lower
end of the scale.
On the first cassette is Mr Noisy's Word Game, which is designed to teach
words like 'small', 'wide', 'smallest' and
'widest'. There are nine different games
to play, each of which can be selected
from the main menu.
Other games allow various
combinations of reading and writing
exercises ranging from matching up a
picture with the correct word to choosing
the opposite to a displayed word.
The second cassette contains Read with Mr Bounce, which teaches position
words like 'above', 'inside', and 'on'.
Again, there are several different options
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to teach different uses of the words.
The graphics are large and clear, and
this is just about the best educational
package I've seen on
the Spectrum. 5/5
Ross: The colourful screen layout and
large, well animated graphics make this
series of educational games very
appealing. The pupil is led through a
number of increasingly difficult tasks,
from single key answers to full sentences.
A very good
educational package. 3/5
Roger: A vital training aid for the illiterati
scribbling in this rag. Your Spectrum
rumours allege that it constitutes
Troubleshootin' Pete's
favourite screentime! 5/5
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KNIGHT LORE
Ultimate / £9.95
Roger: Beginning life as some sort of
gothic Noddy, the quest through
Melkhior's castle is
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frequently interrupted
by one's temporary transformation into a
werewulf, which is what, ultimately ...
(groan) ... this superior escapade is all
about. In a mere on-screen 40 days and
40 nights, your canine metamorphosis
will become tragically permanent and the
game will be up in all possible senses.
Better get moving, eh?
Splendid isometrically-projected 3D
cartoon participants and hazardous, but
cleverly defined, rooms demonstrate how
this program leaves most of the rest in a
technical Dark Age. Despite my getting
somewhat chunderesque about these
programming chaps who even blow their
noses in machine code remaining
unimaginatively fascinated by
Sword'n'Sorcery plots, this remains one
slice of mysticism that isn't stale.
I'll personally front up with a bottle of
fizzy
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'falling-over' pop for the first
infinite lives POKE - so that I can
actually survive for more than my current
appalling 8% of the total
cataclysmic content. 5/5
Dave: Ultimate shows no sign of
stagnating and producing duff games -
in fact, the games get better and better.
Knight Lore is original, playable and has
superb graphics. Show it to your Atari/
Commodore-owning friends
and turn 'em green! 5/5
Ross: What can you say about Ultimate
when it comes up with software as good
as this! The graphics are second to none
and the other characters in the game
seem to have a life
of their own. 4/5
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