YS
Back on the bench again, our joystick jurors are here to pass judgement on all the latest software. Read their sentences before you commit your cash.
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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| Up before the beaks - Dave Nicholls, Roger Willis and Ross Holman - comes all the new games software, from the greatest to the grottiest.
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PSYCHEDELIA
Llamasoft / £6.00
Dave: Have you ever had the urge to fly
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aerobatics with the Red Arrows? You
have? - then rush out and buy
Psychedelia. It's not a flight simulator but
the feeling of nausea that came over me
while waggling the joystick with it, was
like nothing on earth! What's more,
Psychedelia isn't a game: it's really a sort
of light synthesiser where you use the
joystick (or keyboard) to produce
patterns on screen. It offers the facility
for presenting patterns so you can play
them back with a single keypress, and
your efforts can be recorded into memory
or onto tape for later playback. Think of
it - now you and your friends can bring
on an attack of nausea and dizziness at
parties without so much as a drop of pop
passing your lips.
It may be true that you are limited only
by your
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imagination (or so it says here),
but boredom (and an unwell feeling) set
in long before I'd even got my
imagination into gear.
It's worth a look - otherwise a ride on
a Waltzer at the fun fair is cheaper and
has much the same
effect. 1/5 
Ross: Not the sort of thing you expect
from Jeff blast-it-if-it-moves Minter. I
prefer watching pictures, not patterns
erupting from my T.V.
screen. 2/5
Roger: Turn on, tune in and drop out or,
in my case, drop off to sleep. When old
hippies aren't bogarting that joint, they're
producing crap like
this. 2/5
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MOON CRESTA
Incentive Software / £6.95
Dave: Moon Cresta is an officially licensed
copy
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of the same name arcade game, and
as you'd expect, it includes all the main
features of the original. If you've never
seen it (which pubs did you misspend your youth in? - Ed.), the basic idea is
just for a change, to zap aliens. There are
four types and each of them appears for
two screens in succession. Your ship is
made up of three parts, the first of which
is given to you gratis, but you've got to
earn the rest. You get the next part by
clearing four sheets, after which you have
to carry out a successful docking
manoeuvre. Two more sheets - watch
out for the nasty surprise - then a repeat
performance of the docking procedure.
If, or should I say, when you get killed
you'll lose one part of your ship.
Incentive has done a reasonable job
translating Moon Cresta to the Spectrum
but
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it's a bit long in the tooth now. So,
unless you're an arcade freak who likes
scoring millions it won't have much
lasting appeal. Still, if you are an arcade
freak, you'll be itching to have a crack at
Incentive's Moon Cresta competition -
the booty is a real arcade
machine of the game. 2½/5
Ross: It's taken aeons for this old arcade
classic to appear on the home computer
market. It plays fairly close to the original
and kept me amused for an
hour or two, or three. 3/5
Roger: It advertises a 'Trip To The Space
War' but give me a trip to Margate than
yet another trip back down
memory lane. 2/5
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WIZARD'S LAIR
Bubble Bus / £6.95
Roger: Having finally overcome Pothole
Pete's
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frustrating reluctance to LOAD,
let alone summon up the necessary bottle
for tackling many rooms of the wicked
Wiz's extensive and well-appointed Lair,
I was somewhat less than enthralled by
this Bubble Bus offering. Apart from
being as bored with a predictable ragbag
of Sword'n'Sorcery imagery, I found the
graphics rather lurid, the rooms
unmemorable and the action mentally
untaxing.
Pete's quest involves hunting pieces of
the 'Golden Lion' - which I always
thought was a public house but
apparently in this game it ain't. Shame.
Along the way he must collect the
necessary mystic Weetabix to sustain his
battle against nasties and keep the jolly
old doors opening when required.
Energy, ammunition and objects in stock
are recorded
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on-screen, as are remaining
lives. Probably the most entertaining facet
of Wizard's Lair is guessing how many
other mediocre games it reminds you of.
Pass me the dungeon key, mum,
'cos I want to go home ... 1/5
Dave: If this had come out at the same
time as Atic Atac, Ultimate would've
looked very silly. Now the idea's rather
old hat and even the superior
graphics don't make up for that 2½/5
Ross: Take a dash of Atic Atac ideas, mix
in more than a smattering of Sabre Wulf
graphics and what've you got?
- not a lot. 2/5
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| J O Y S T I C K J U R Y
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HALAGA
Interceptor Software / £5.50
Ross: The Federation of Space Research
has
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just found a new solar system called
Cygnus Major and they want it explored
for mineral resources.
When you arrive you find that the
space invaders don't like having their
space invaded and are hell bent on your
destruction. The only way for you to swot
the insect-like creatures is to use your
anti-matter plasma gun.
This game is in fact very loosely based
on the arcade favourite Galaga and is a
2nd generation Galaxians. This version
does not have all the features of the
original but is never-the-less a reasonable
shoot'em up and will keep your trigger
finger in good shape. The aliens swoop
onto screen, do a few twirls and
pirouettes, dropping bombs as they go,
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then fall into formation. This continues
until the screen is fairly full up with them,
at which point they begin to drive down
on individual kamikaze style bomb runs.
Once you have cleared the skies the
inevitable happens. Yes, they all come
back but are just that bit meaner.
Nothing new again but O.K ... 3/5
Roger: There are no flies on me but the
same cannot be said for this dose of
futuristic insecticide ... 1/5
Dave: The shoot'em up is alive and
kicking. Fast, frantic, colourful and noisy
- just the thing for an evening of mindless slaughter. 1/5
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RAID OVER MOSCOW
U.S. Gold / £9.95
Dave: A pre-emptive strike has been
launched
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by the Ruskies and your duty is
to lead your airborne commandos to
destroy the Soviet defence centre.
First off, you'll get a view of Russia
and the US as seen from space showing
launch sites and targets in the two
countries. The time to impact of the
launched missile ticks away, so you've no
time to lose. The number of fighters you
can manoeuvre out of the hangar
determines how many you have in the
ground attack sequence. Here you fly
from left to right negotiating pill boxes,
trees, towers and avoiding tanks,
helicopters and deadly heat seeking
missiles whilst wreaking as much
destruction and havoc as poss.
When you reach the launch silos your
target computer helps you to line up and
destroy them. Once that's done you're
free (well, this is
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a democracy!) to attack
Moscow itself. Then it's on again to
annihilate the robots protecting the
nuclear reactor. If you can kill enough of
them you'll live to fight another day in
the battle between Marx and
MacDonalds. If not, then it's Mutually
Assured Destruction time. 4/5
Roger: Get your finger on the button with
sicko software that extracts technically
excellent entertainment from
nuclear nightmares! 5/5
Ross: Praise for its originality and
cleverness has to be tempered with moral
abuse but it is, nevertheless,
a direct hit with no survivors ... 5/5
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TOY BIZARRE
Activision / £7.99
Roger: Lightning fast arcade action occurs
as
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you feebly attempt to keep up Merton
the Maintenance Man's work rate in this
simplistic game of platform pretension.
Our Mert's night shift is supposed to be
in a toy factory where valves blow up
balloons which, in their turn, convert into
terminal toys if not avoided and/or dealt
with. Just to complicate matters a little,
an unpleasant character called Hefty
Hilda wanders about, turning back on the
valves Merton has turned off and
thoroughly nobbling the poor devil in the
event of, er, body contact. Piston
platforms can also deliver unpleasant
surprises to both hero and villainess. The
single screen 'wraps round' so exiting our
hero from one side. Within its relatively
limited content, Toy Bizarre hangs on as
reasonable
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entertainment value for those
with quick reactions but it's difficult to
avoid thinking that this is one format that
has almost been caned
to death. 2/5
Dave: This game is in need of some
maintenance - the controls are sluggish
and the collision detection leaves a lot to
be desired. Unfortunately, Merton the
Maintenance Man isn't up to
the task. 2/5
Ross: This is a fairly simple platform game
with nice graphics and some novel ideas,
but not much else. I liked the balloons
but was bored by the
rest. 2/5
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WRIGGLER
Romantic Robot / £5.95
Ross: Romantic Robot's not a name I'd
come
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across before, so I was very
pleasantly surprised by this game. You're
a contestant in the Annual Maggot
Marathon, so all you have to do is wriggle
your way to the finish.
The area of play covers 256 screens
and features a whole geography of
distinctly different landscapes, each with
its own problems. You start the race with
three competitors but they soon head off
in different directions. You have the
choice of following them or making your
own way. The paths you follow are
bordered by multi-coloured foliage -
similar species to those growing in Sabre Wulf. All the time you're racing, your
energy decreases, so you must either eat
or become just another pile of bones in
the lonely wastes. Food, in the form of
ice creams or cups of tea can be picked
up and eaten whenever you're
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on your
last legs (legs? maggots? Oh, well! Ed.).
Two varieties of ants and spiders lurk
within the leaves - the first are relatively
harmless, but watch out for the others,
they're deadly.
The graphics are very good if a little
sparse but they do become repetitive and
the game plays on the slow side. All in
all, a respectable runner-up
rather than a winner. 3/5
Dave: A very original game with fun
graphics, but it's a touch slow to play
There's a large area to explore but
illogical layout makes mapping
difficult. 3½/5
Roger: I'd like to say this was rotten to the
core but you won t worm
it out of me ...
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| J O Y S T I C K J U R Y
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BRUCE LEE
U.S. Gold / £7.95
Dave: Clever these Chinese - coming up
with an
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original idea for a platform game
that doesn't involve mines and has more
to it than just leaping about from ladder
to level. Actually, it's not Chinese at all,
but it is about Bruce Lee, so that's close
enough. You play Bruce, out to destroy
the Evil Wizard and gain immortality and
infinite wealth.
You have to face up to all the hazards
of going into another man's castle, like
landmines and electric bolts, before
coming face to face with little Ninjas
(who he? Ed.) and a distinctly off colour
Green Yamo, laying into you with fists
and feet flying. You can return the
compliment, as well as ducking down to
avoid trouble. In each room you'll find a
number of lanterns: collect enough of
them and a passageway will open
allowing you to creep up on the Evil Wiz.
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But you've got to Kung Fu your way
through 20 rooms before meeting him
head on.
The problem is, it's just too easy - I'm
no black belt but I beat the game on only
my fifth attempt. There is an option to
play against an opponent which will keep
competitive cowards happy but in the end
you'll probably long for a bit
of real physical contact. 3½/5
Ross: This can't compete with the typical
Chinese take-away - it left me with an
empty feeling but not
wanting more. 2/5
Roger: Grasshopper say, knee in groin
better than poke in pocket by this
oriental offering. More chop-suey than Kung Fu 2/5
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STAY KOOL
Bug-Byte Software / £6.95
Roger: This curious melange of mystic,
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prehistoric and scatological imagery,
varying from a pterodactyl's lair, vampire
lemons and the occasional sewage
processing installation is really just one
more competent multi-screen platform
game. Trotting from room to room and
jumping are both accurately controlled.
There's a well-defined geography and a
huge assortment of life-depriving nasties.
As usual, the purpose is, to collect objects
and accrue an even higher position on the
'Hall Of Scum' chart.
It's entertaining to play, I suppose, but
stunningly short on originality. You can
almost imagine some programmer
discovering a mixed bag of graphical left-
overs discarded in his machine memory
and deciding that it would be a pity to
waste them. If lack of some
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consistent theme doesn't bother you very much,
then by all means attempt to avoid that
final plunge into the cess pit. 2/5
Dave: They just keep on coming, wave
after wave of them, the Manic Miner
clones. This should-have-been-a-budget-
game from Bug-Byte was one of the first
to bite the dust. 2/5
Ross: Bug Byte are still trying to come up
with another Mathew Smith type success
but this Jet Set clone just isn't the answer.
This won't even compete
with Technician Ted. 1½/5
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SUBTERRANEAN STRYKER
Insight / £6.95
Dave: When I first started playing this
game I
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got that feeling that I'd been here
before. On reflection, I decided that
though the game as a whole is new, it's
blagged a lot of ideas from other games.
Your aim is to destroy the enemy's
Power Crystal which is situated on the
fifth level of an underground complex.
Off you go, steering your ship through
all the levels, avoiding the nasties and
rounding up slave workers. Once you've
collected all the workers, you gain entry
to the next level.
The complex itself is made up of
smoothly scrolling caverns - you can see
where you are on the screen display as
well as other status information about
shields and the like. Each level is about
eight screens wide and you'll find in them
a fair old selection of fully
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animated
flying and earthbound hazards I can't see
that the game's got much to offer the
arcade player but the graphics are O.K.
Perhaps it's worth a look for
the rest of us mortals. 2½/5
Ross: This combined shoot 'em up and
maze game has some nicely animated
graphics. Shame the flickery
scrolling spoils the effect. 3/5
Roger: The name hints at this being
Arthur Scargill's favourite Spectrum
game.
If only the enemy Power Crystal wasn't
in the hands of Auntie Maggie! 4/5
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SAM STOAT
Gremlin Graphics / £6.95
Ross: Sam Stoat, Gremlin Graphics' latest
anti-hero is an evil little burglar. His
beady eye is
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trained on four houses in a
very select area and he's intent on
purloining the jewels concealed within.
The four houses are graded in difficulty
and you can choose which one to start
Sam off in. There are twenty rooms per
house (see what I mean about a select
area), one of which contains a safe, and
each safe contains a diamond.
To get his mitts on the diamond, Sam
must blow up the safe with a bomb which
he finds in each house. Then it's a case of
light the blue touch paper and retire
rapidly. With the diamond and any other
jewellery in his swag-bag, he can move on
to case the next joint. At the bottom of
the screen is an unusual timer (a
bloodometer) which the anaemic Sam has
to keep topped up by tippling at a bottle
of Sam Stoat elixir. That's his excuse!
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Sam's not alone on his blagging jaunt
but has to contend with a variety of other
creatures, most of them gnomes. Probably
got bored with sitting round the pond
with a fishing rod. The game's very
colourful but the breaking and entering is
needed to get the adrenalin
running. 2/5
Dave: What a rip off. The sleeve says
there are four houses but they're just the
same room with different
meanies, so it really amounts
to four skill levels. 1/5
Roger: Respectable, upstanding members
of the community would, no doubt,
disapprove of this glamorisation of light-
fingeredness. Spectrum tea
leafs will love it. 3/5
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| J O Y S T I C K J U R Y
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TECHNICIAN TED
Hewson Consultants / £5.95
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Roger: Well even Willy has had to leave
the Jet Set, apparently, changing
nomenclature and seeking humble
employment, just like the rest of us.
The Job Centre has fixed him up with a
technician's slot in this chip factory, but
the broad and erratic selection of
munchkin equipment doesn't give much
of a clue about whether we're talking
silicon or spuds - whichever it is we're
still talking the same old game ...
Being hamstrung with such a blatantly
derivative and unoriginal nature isn't
going to do a great deal for Technician Ted's popularity but, having said that, it
is still a well-crafted slice of software.
The programmer's claims that:
"graphics are
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ultra-smooth and collision
detection is exact" are actually truer than
the average sales blurb's pork pies and
the result is an extremely difficult
platform job that demands practice and
concentration. It is, nevertheless, best
described as a triumph of technique over new ideas. 3/5
Dave: Some day all games will have
graphics that animate this smoothly. This
makes it one of the best platform games I've ever seen. 4½/5
Ross: Willy by any other name ... yes, it's
another Jet Set copy! I'd like to know
who still buys them all. If it's you, then
you could do worse
than this. 3/5
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PROJECT FUTURE
Micromania / £6.95
Ross: This latest offering from
Micromania is a
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classic arcade adventure
that we're now so familiar with on the
Spectrum. It's set on the SS Future, a
large space ship composed of 256 rooms
and spread over 5 decks. You're
entrusted with the task of destroying this
vessel but why is never satisfactorily
explained. Still, I'm sure there's a jolly
good reason for it, even if it's only for a
bit of interstellar vandalism. To bring off
the big bang, you have to collect the eight
destruct codes which are scattered all
over the ship and take them to the
destruct activation control.
Just to make sure things don't all go
your way, the SS Future is protected by
a selection of nasties that materialise out
of the floor and home straight in on you.
Luckily, you can blast them back to their
constituent atoms with your laser. You'll
also find scattered around
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the ship
energisers that make you unstoppable for
a few seconds.
I can't say that this is the most original
idea for a game but it's done well and it
does have very colourful graphics. It is,
however, the first game to feature a jet
powered C5 which can be used to glide
around the ship - it's the only
way to travel! 4/5
Roger: Beam me up, Speccy, and plug in
the joystick. It looks like the Self Destruct System is gonna get me before
liver cirrhosis sets in ... 3/5
Dave: Why didn't they sub-title this 'Sabre Wulf in Space'? Still, if you like running
around in mazes and collecting things,
then you won't be disappointed. 2/5
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VIKING RAIDERS
Firebird / £2.50
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Roger: This knockabout Nordic wargame
features up to four armies slapping each
other around a map showing angular
fjords and the various battle formations.
Swordplay, siege catapults and seafaring
sorties are only a part of the potential
conflict.
The hordes of Wotan The Wicked,
Odin The Odious, Brunhilda The Bold
and Egbert The Execrable, swarm across
the northern tundra to battle it out under
human control or computer substitution.
But it's nothing to go berserk about!
To enjoy such uncivilised and
aggressive behaviour demands a special
penchant for this type of action, because
the graphics are seriously underwhelming.
The kick must be on
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a cerebral strategy
scale but, if it is, I failed to find the fun
and my concentration swiftly withered
into plug-pulling boredom. If it's
supposed to be about Scandinavian rape,
pillage and loot tendencies, I think I'll
stick to the crispbread ... 1/5
Dave: I've always found something lacking
in Speccy strategy games.
For the price though Viking Raiders is
pretty good value if you're
a strategist. 2½/5
Ross: This war game is slow and basic (in
both senses). Still, I like the bit when
your army stumbles on some booze and
gets rapidly drunk. I know
how they feel. 1/5
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ATTACK OF THE EMPIRE
Chibur / £4.50
Roger: An extraterrestrial Barbara
Woodhouse
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would not be amused by
attempts to destroy the Irish half-dozen
of 'At-At Walkers' going walkies across
this game's continuously scrolling screen,
and neither am I.
Really, putting the poor pets to sleep
with allegedly lethal laser cannon may be
pathetically easy but I'm sure a gentle
wallop across the nose with a rolled-up
newspaper would suffice.
At least the 'Walkers' only drop 'Smart
Bombs' and growl out 'Laser Bolts' in
reply, which is better than leaving a mess
on the pavement for a chap to step in ...
What can I say? This dreadful load of
sub-Starwars shootiebangs demands an
attention span of just a little under ten
minutes. That's how long it takes to get
good at it, get tired of
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it and start
wondering why anybody should want to
buy it. You can pass the interludes
between woofers by collecting 'rebel
soldiers' from the planet surface but I
really can't imagine why
anyone would want to bother. 0/5
Dave: Ask your granddad about this one.
It's so old and 'orrible you keep playing
to see if it gets
any worse. 1/5
Ross: Right back to the Dark Ages with
this one - it's an old Atari VCS game
and it shows.
The mechanical elephants are well
drawn but hardly flicker-free.
Pretty boring stuff. 1/5
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