Issue No. 21 OCTOBER 1985

FEATURES

THE GREG FISCHBACH INTERVIEW
Mainly Minson, but a bit of Bunder — we learn lots from the main man at ACTIVISON

CRASHTIONNAIRE ANALYSIS
We analyse the response to the CRASHTIONNAIRE forms which appeared in the February issue

HOLOGRAFIX — 3D IMAGERY
Mark Eyles and Caroline Hayton explain how holograms are made in the comfort of their own home

MARSPORT
Greg Follis and Roy Carter from Gargoyle introduced their latest game to the Candyman. Now he introduces it to you...

ASTROCLONE
Preview Two. Robin introduces Steve Turner’s new Hewson game to a wider audience. Yes, that’s you again!

ELITE
Soon Robin will be trying to join Lloyd in the ‘overworked and underpaid’ department. He previews Firebird’s Spectrum version of ELITE...

DESIGN DESIGN PART TWO
The Auto-Profile continues and we learn about Graham’s New Game — which may yet feature a famous dog!

PLATINUM PRODUCTIONS PROFILE
A chat with the canny converters from Scotland who have brought three Smashes from the Commodore to the Spectrum: TAPPER, WORLD SERIES BASEBALL and RAID OVER MOSCOW

SCOOBY DOO
Coming soon from ELITE SYSTEMS, a cartoon adventure featuring the cuddly canine. We take a look at progress on the game of the cartoon of THE CASTLE MYSTERY

ON THE COVER
Ian Craig is the subject — a fine artist as well as an illustrator, whose work has graced many a magazine and book cover

DIY

DAN, DAN THE DYNAMITE MAN
The lovely Pat from Mirrorsoft agrees to a competition. Search for the words to win a Smash!

ZE FRENCHIPOOS PINBALL GAME
Known as MACADAM BUMPER, PSS are proud of their new acquisition. Pinball Wizards can win prizes...

SOUND OFF WITH DK’TRONICS
POPEYE competition, with games and sound units up for grabs

MATCH FISHING
In case you missed the ALLIGATE Entry Form last ish, here it is again

THE GREAT MUD CHALLENGE
In which you could become famous, through representing CRASH in a Telecom Tournament

REGULARS

EDITORIAL
Pondering the PCW Show

MERELY MANGRAM
Lloyd overcomes his agoraphobia (LM’s Long Word Dictionary) just long enough to nose round the PCW Show: his findings follow

NEWS
Keeping abreast of the times with News Input

CRASHBACK
Six games celebrate their first anniversary this month: Lloyd and Robin look back on them

FORUM
Your views become public, courtesy of Lloyd’s Hermes

HALL OF SLIME
More and more High Score Gore

PLAYING TIPS
Candy’s Corner, in which Robin presents the map of NODES OF YESOD and offers advice and assistance on gamesplaying

CRASH COURSE
Rosetta McLeod gives you the lowdown in black and white. More learning experiences to broaden your mind

JETMAN
Is the Hungry Monster really dead? Find out this munf...

CRASH HOTLINE AND ADVENTURE CHART

TECH NICHE
Which sees the start of a new Sub Niche, TECH TIPS. Also, Franco Frey kicks off with Part One of a three part look at alternative storage — is the cassette recorder doomed? We take a quick look at MIDI, too, courtesy of musical maestro Jon Bates

ADVENTURE TRAIL
Derek Brewster visits new lands, trips round London, is puzzled by rampaging rodents and gains access to a girl’s school!

SIGNPOST
More help and hints for avid adventurers, lovingly presented in Brewstercode

RESULTS
Lots of lucky winners get their names in print while their prizes are in the post

FRONTLINE
The strategy column is back, but Angus isn’t. The Vile-penned Ryall hands over his mantle to Sean Masterson who examines THE RATS and CONVOY

Next instalment of CRASH hits the streets on 24th October. Get in quick!

REVIEWS

- Bounty Bob US Gold

- Convoy Budgie

- Dambusters US Gold

- Halley’s Comet Eclipse

- Letaset Eclipse

- London Adventure Fridaysoft

- Macadam Bumper PSS

- Nightshade Ultimate

- One On One Ariolasoft

- Paint Plus Print’n’Plotter

- Rockford’s Riot Monolith

- The Rats Hodder and Stoughton

- Screen Machine Print’n’Plotter

- The Secret of St Brides St Brides

- Star Firebirds Insight

- Super Sam Budgie

- Tangled Tale Pocket Money Software

- Touchstones Of Rhiannon Adventure International

- Way of the Exploding Fist Melbourne House

Publishing Executive

Roger Kean

Editor

Graeme Kidd

Technical Editor

Franco Frey

Art Editor

Oliver Frey

Production Designer

David Western

Software Editor

Jeremy Spencer

Adventure Editor

Derek Brewster

Strategy Reviewer

Angus Ryall

Staff Writer

Lloyd Mangram

Contributing Writers

Matthew Uffindell, Chris Passey, Robin Candy, Ben Stone, John Minson, Mark Hamer

Client Liaison

John Edwards

Production Manager

Sally Newman

Subscription Manager

Denise Roberts

Mail Order

Carol Kinsey

Cover by

Oliver Frey

Transcriptions

Matthew Wilson, http://www.crashonline.org.uk/

Additional review transcriptions

Chris Bourne, http://www.zxspectrumreviews.co.uk/

Thanks to those CRASH authors who have allowed their work to be reproduced.

ACTIVISION’S ACTIVITIES

This month, we send John Minson into the dark recesses of Activision, one of the country’s (nay, the world’s) most successful software houses. There’s more to the company than just Ghostbustin’ as Activision President Greg Fischbach explained — Leslie Bunder asked the supplementary questions.

ONE OF THE more recent developments in software has been the ‘American Invasion’. Just when we Brits thought we had it sewn up with our Manic Miners and Technician Teds the Yanks were coming. Only that invasion never really seemed to happen as time and time again the trans-Atlantic threats revealed themselves to be shoot em ups that were two years out of date.

Activision intend to change all that. Sure, they were responsible for the frantic blaster River Raid and the caverns and ladders Pitfall II but as their President, Greg Fischbach, admits, those games are old, but they’re classics.

Gregory Fischbach, president of Activision International leans on his desk in an approachable, friendly manner and says ‘Cheese’ for the photographer.

‘Activision’s approach is to move the state of the industry. You can only have so many platform games. Yes, you can revisit them or have them as part of another game, but to repeat doesn’t add value for the consumer.’ Which has led to Activision refining some older ideas to look and sound better on one hand while on the other, developing totally original ideas. There was Zenji, for instance, a love it or hate it attempt to do Zen and the art of computer gaming. ‘It was an attempt to do things the audience hadn’t seen.’

Activision itself was formed in 1979, becoming Activision International Inc four years later when Greg joined. He’s had a wide and varied career including Assistant US Attorney before entering private practice as a principal in his own law firm. Acting as a consultant to Activision started his involvement with the company and he’s also been an advisor in the entertainment industry. It came as a pleasant surprise therefore to find how open and friendly this youthful and enthusiastic 42 year old is.

One aspect of Activision that he was keen to emphasise is its truly international nature. Operating units were established here and in France in ’83 and Activision Germany has just opened. Since last year they’ve also achieved substantial sales in the Japanese market via licensing deals. It seems that the much poo-poohed MSX standard is more at home in the land of the rising yen, where games are available on ROM cartridges. However, Greg doesn’t see it succeeding here — yet! The threat to the Spectrum, et al, will come with MSX II or III, he thinks.

Returning to Europe, a product acquisition and development group has been formed to translate software for this side of the pond and, perhaps more importantly, to originate games here. One of the first fruits is Tour de France (for some obscure machine called the Commodore) which despite its Gallic theme and garlic atmosphere was developed in the UK. This is all part of the recognition that different parts of the Activision empire need different approaches.

‘In the USA our strategy is to deal with larger computer memory. In Europe and Japan it’s different.’ Greg puts this down to radically different markets. ‘They’re going in two different directions. The USA is not a games market — it’s a niche market.’ By which he means mostly home and business applications like Printshop or Music Maker. ‘For Britain, with its established distribution and marketing, the distributors will branch out and have other types of software but the user will determine what the new uses are.’

One of the company’s most recent successes has been Ghostbusters, which has already sold over half a million copies in its various versions. It led me to ask Greg about his attitude to tie-ins and it transpires that he has a somewhat privileged position. Based in Los Angeles and with many contacts in the Hollywood entertainment community, he gets to see scripts before they’re even filmed. ‘But since Ghostbusters I’ve only seen one film I thought suitable for a computer release. A game has to stand alone, and a tie-in can help sell it, but a duff product won’t sell. Ghostbusters was sensational. It had the music, the voice — four or five hooks.’

Some people would disagree — were those hooks quite so sensational when translated to the Spectrum’s limited sound capabilities? A good chunk of criticism has been levelled at the Spectrum version of Ghostbusters, but nevertheless over 100,000 Spectrum copies have been sold since its release last December. ‘I think there was a lot of unfair criticism from the press,’ Greg commented, ‘what they expected was a bit hopeful. There was no way we could incorporate the Ghostbusters music in the Spectrum software because of the way the Spectrum’s sound output works. It isn’t able to produce three voices, like the Commodore, so without additional hardware it’s not possible to get three voices out of the Spectrum. As far as gameplay is concerned, there’s no major difference between the Commodore and Spectrum versions. We’ve kept all the hooks people enjoy, such as the graphics, speech and the way the game is played. Apart from the music, I wouldn’t say there was a major difference between the two versions.’

Some people felt that Ghostbusters was overpriced at £9.95: ‘Yes, but again that came from the press. If people thought the game was overpriced, do you think we would have sold over 100,000 copies? The public seem to have loved the game; as far as the pricing is concerned, we didn’t get one single complaint from the public. For £9.95 you have a game you can play again and again.’

Naturally I was interested in Activision’s attitude to conversions. Talking with the members of the British end of the operation, I got the idea that they too were worried about bad comparisons with Commodore versions (that thing again — I must ask Ed what it is) and are not averse to originating software for Sir Clive’s brainchild.

As the occasion of the interview was a preview of pre-Christmas releases, it was interesting to see that only three out of seven will be available for the Spectrum. Too many games have proved impossible to convert. ‘We look upon the Spectrum as a games machine. It’s popular because of the machine and software prices. Programs went into the marketplace quickly and kids were soon writing for it. So despite the limitations of sound and colours, I don’t think it is going to go away.’ We can guarantee that, Greg!

Of these three releases, Mindshadow is an illustrated adventure in which you awake on a deserted beach having lost your memory. Though I didn’t see enough of the game to be able to evaluate its originality, it claims to contain a special help character to assist and entertain the player, as well as the more usual logic puzzles.

Activision are pledged to adding depth to their games, so their forthcoming addition to the spate of boxing games comes with a strategic element as well as Barry McGuigan’s name attached. There are different fighting styles and training routines as well as more basic matters like the colours of your man’s trunks (I always choose red — less likely to show the blood). It’s been written by Sportswar Productions, a specialist house noted for such simulations, and Greg told me that its writer even went a couple of rounds in the ring to ensure accuracy! Your opponents even boast limited AI, changing techniques as the fight progresses.

Sport of the future is the theme of Ballblazer from Lucasfilm Games. It’s the Hollywood connection again as the people who gave you Star Wars (the movie) let their software wing create an ultra fast-moving ball game, taking place over the surface of one of those odd checkerboard planets with split screen views and lots of one or two player action. It looks great on the Atari, so let’s hope the Spectrum version doesn’t lose out.

Sadly, the innovative Somebody’s In My Computer, which opens a window on Lilliputian micro-squatters, is far too complex to convert, but The Great American Cross-Country Road Race, a release which adds route planning and speed-trap dodging to the driving game, will appear as The Great European ditto. This has created its own problems though. In America you just drive West till you fall in the Pacific — Europe isn’t such a neat shape.

Possibly the most intriguing program not at the preview is provisionally titled Music box. While the joke at Activision’s HQ was ‘How do you get stereo sound out of the Spectrum?’ ‘Hold one up to each ear’, valiant efforts have continued to provide our beloved if a trifle quiet machine with an equivalent of the Commodore success, Music Studio. While its capabilities are still to be finalised, being a matter of trading off features against each other as memory allows, it’s 90% finished and sounds fascinating.

Meanwhile, Activision moves into its second five years with a positive approach voiced by Greg Fischbach: ‘We try to push ourselves as leader and sometimes we stub our toe because we’re willing to take the chances, because we’re willing to offer the consumer something they’ve not seen before.’

Following our interview with Rod Cousens in the September Issue, news breaks that Rod’s new company Electric Dreams is signed to Activision. As this is being written, Activision are remaining tight lipped — the official announcement is due in a couple of weeks. They would reveal, however, that the tie-up fits in with Activision’s long term strategy, which looks towards starting a second or maybe a third label, and Rod approached them some months ago...

Two titles for the Spectrum are well underway, and should be revealed at the Personal Computer World Show. With luck, and a following wind, there should be further details on the news pages of this issue.

CRASHTIONNAIRE 85

THE RESULTS!!

A long, long time ago in an issue far, far away, we asked you some questions to help us determine how CRASH is seen by YOU the reader (actually, it was the March issue). It’s taken quite a while to persuade someone daft enough to enter all the info into a computer to sort out the statistics, but finally Graeme Kidd’s friend was offered a bribe and did it for us. Here are the results...

First off the age of CRASH readership. We broke the span up into several blocks — 2% were under 10 years. 10-13 25.35%; 14-17 50.47%; 18-24 10%; 25-35 9.29%; and over 36 it was 4.06%. The average age of CRASH readers was (hang on to your hats...) 17.23317591 years old!

We asked you how often you buy CRASH. 90.94% of those who answered said they buy it every month, while 9.9% said occasionally and 0.68% said they read someone else’s copy — pirates!

One of the big questions was what other computer titles you buy regularly and how you rate them. The figures given for CRASH are bound to be a bit inflated as this was a CRASH questionnaire after all, but it still comes out rather well (modest coughs...). In order of popularity then followed by a percentage rating for what the magazine’s readers think of it:

1. CRASH 86.59%

2. COMPUTER & VIDEO GAMES 64.7%

3. SINCLAIR USER 58.53%

4. YOUR SPECTRUM 63.48%

5. P.C. WEEKLY 60.28%

6. YOUR COMPUTER 58.17%

7. SINCLAIR PROGRAMS 50.96%

8. ZX COMPUTING 62%

9. HOME COMPUTING WEEKLY 52.18%

10. PERSONAL COMPUTER NEWS 59.66%

11. PERSONAL COMPUTER WORLD 75.6%

12. WHAT MICRO 53%

We asked you quite a bit about the reviews in CRASH, kicking off with whether reading CRASH has influenced your recent games buying; 75.78% said YES; a measly 2.36% said NO; and and 21.85% said SOMETIMES. Seems a fairly overwhelming vote of confidence, but did you agree with the review having bought and played the game? 15.91% said ALWAYS; a more reasonable 78.66% said MOST OF THE TIME; 5.2% said HALF THE TIME; and an insignificant 0.24% said NEVER (pooh to them).

We wanted to know what you thought of the length and detail of the reviews. 11.15% thought they should be longer; 3.44% thought shorter, while the majority of 85.41% thought they were okay as they are. Of those who thought there could be change, most (30.28%) thought they should be more detailed. You obviously like to have review ratings, an overwhelming 93.03% said YES; only 2.56% said NO and 4.41% said they didn’t know. Having said ratings are wanted, how does the CRASH system fare? 42.08% said it’s EXCELLENT; 51.02% said GOOD; 6.06% said AVERAGE and a paltry 0.84% said POOR (double pooh to them).

How do the CRASH reviews stand up against reviews for games in other magazines? BETTER? Yes said 94.7%, which is pretty staggering. 5.3% said ABOUT THE SAME and only 0.55% said CRASH reviews are worse.

Moving from reviews to other sections seen in comparison, we asked you to vote for each section’s popularity, and here they are in descending order. Sadly the nurd who devised the questions went and left out Playing Tips, but never fear, subsequent answers will reveal all!

1. Reviews

2. Software previews

3. News

4. Competitions

5. CRASH Forum

6. Adventure Trail

7. General articles and features

8. Hotlines

9. Games Index

10. Signpost

11. Hardware articles

12. Contents

13. Editorial

14. Utility reviews

15. Advertisements

16. Programmer profiles

17. Frontline

18. Comic strips

19. Hall of Slime

20. Advertisers’ index

This ordering produces few surprises, although we discovered not that many people enter competitions or vote for the Hotlines, but seem to think they are valuable anyway...

Voting for the Hotline went; 8% EVERY MONTH; 34.93% OCCASIONALLY and 57.06% NEVER. Adventure chart was similar with 5.1% EVERY MONTH; 20.09% OCCASIONALLY; and 74.81% NEVER. Comparing the Hotline charts with other types of chart we got 43.84% said BETTER; 22.7% said MORE FAIR; 14.95% said RELEVANT. Some 17% thought they were less fair and worse than others.

We asked whether you like the Lunar Jetman comic strip and 55.63% said YES; 16.59% said NO; and 27.78% said they were not bothered. With the Terminal Man comic strip we got 42.24% saying YES; 25.65% saying NO; and 32.11% said they were not bothered.

In writing to the CRASH Forum, it again seems that less people write in than think it is valuable and enjoy it because only 4.3% have written MORE THAN TWICE; 3.41% have written TWICE; 11.48% have written ONCE and the vast majority, 80.8% have NEVER WRITTEN.

Onto Playing Tips, and the insufferable Candy now has a bigger head than ever! A staggering 90.11% said they are VALUABLE; a barely visible 0.3% said USELESS and 9.6% said INTERESTING BUT NEVER USE THEM. This was echoed by the Tips game maps with 90.11% again saying VALUABLE; 0.6% USELESS; and 9.3% saying INTERESTING but never use them. Candy thinks a lot of people out there have got taste...!

With the competitions we asked how you felt and 5.6% said there are too many; 35.35% said not enough; and a comfortable 58.76% thought they are fine as they are. Somewhat better figures for general articles, with 6.7% saying TOO LONG; 10.5% saying TOO SHORT; but most people think we get them right with 82.76% saying OKAY AS THEY ARE.

Signpost obviously hold a lesser interest for the majority with 45.57% saying VALUABLE; 12.22% saying USELESS; and 42.22% saying INTERESTING but never use the tips.

We asked you what areas of CRASH you would like to see expanded. Once again Robin Candy comes out tops, with a 24.15% vote for the Playing Tips, far and away the biggest slab — Reviews, for instance, the next most popular, received only 16%. Here is the order:

1. Playing Tips

2. Reviews

3. News

4. Software House profiles

5. Hardware/Utilities

6. Signpost

7. Adventure Trail

8. Programmer profiles

9. CRASH Forum

10. Hall of Slime

11. Frontline

12. CRASH Course

As we did in the previous questionnaire, we asked whether you wanted to see games program listings in CRASH. Last time we asked, 96% said NO. Slightly different this time: 16.85% said YES; 82.08% said NO and 1.06% said they didn’t know.

Finally we asked whether reading CRASH influenced you to actually buy games. 70.05% said YES; 1.72% said NO; and 28.23% said SOMETIMES. Again, a pretty overwhelming result.

In case anyone is wondering whether most returned questionnaire forms came from CRASH subscribers and would consider this a favourably biasing factor, the returned forms came 26.67% from subscribers and 73.5% from non-subscribers.

This concludes the results of the 1985 CRASHTIONNAIRE! Make what you will of the statistics, we’re giving them some hard thought as well.

DESIGN DESIGN, PART THE SECOND

In which the true authorship of the Design Design auto-profile becomes perfectly clear — and we learn that Graham Stafford is good at going for the milk .......

The time: 2:11 am, 26th August 1985; the place: Graham’s bedroom. The Design Design card sharps are gathered around the table when .......

Si: ‘Hey, what time is it guys?’
Simon: ‘A bit after two, why?’
Si: ‘It’s just struck me that Graham and I have an article to write for Crash, and only eight hours to do it!’
Graham (peering past a pair of queens): ‘Yeah, tell you what, make this the last hand, and if you make a start Si, I’ll run this lot into town and try and find some milk!’

So here I am, abandoned yet again, with only Graham’s word processor to keep me company, and a nasty feeling about what Graeme (CRASH) is going to say to me if I don’t write this article. So Ladies and Gentlemen, pin back your ears, roll up your trouser legs and prepare for the latest instalment in Crash’s new soap opera.

The past few weeks have seen much frantic activity, centred mainly in and around the board room (Junction Inn) as we all sat down and designed the next two games. This process involves everybody at Design Design sitting round a couple of tables pontificating at great length (or as Wook puts it, ‘Going on’), waving bits of paper covered in strange sketches in the air, and getting strange looks from the locals. We did however actually manage to get Forbidden Planet and something currently titled Graham’s Game, defined to the point where Graham and Simon can start writing with some idea of what they’re trying to do.

Mind you, it wasn’t all roses and smiling faces. After one of these meetings, Simon went off in a fit of depression, complaining gloomily that there was no way he could get Forbidden Planet’s graphics to match Dark Star’s 50 frames per second, if we all kept insisting on having animated clouds in the sky. He is not alone. Stuart, the guy who did the On The Run graphics, was last seen trudging off back to Cheltenham with a look of desperation on his face. He had just been subjected to the preliminary spec of Graham’s Game.

And thus was the grand Scheme Of Things For Christmas drawn up. Graham meanwhile finished the monumental task of putting On The Run on the Amstrad, and very pretty it is too. For once I think all you Spectrum owners out there have lost out, however a CBM 64 version is not planned. On The Run also makes some great noises in Amstrad guise. I helped Graham with these, but not enough to be blamed for it! Still, all in all Mr Stafford did a very credible job, and all in three weeks! We went over to Leeds to master said proggy last Friday, a lovely drive in the summer torrential rain!

Simon, on the other hand, has been putting the finishing touches to the filing system on his new computer hired to replace Basil. Basil, Simon’s mainstay in times of stress, has been thrown across the room once too often and has now been reduced to finding all the prime numbers up to a million out of sheer boredom. Basil, by the way, was retired from active service due to a few fits, dropped bits and random resets. Now the new system is approaching completion, Basil is working perfectly again, and is currently hunting for the eighth perfect number. The new system (currently unnamed and there’s a signed copy of Dark Star for anyone who can do this) is bigger, faster and has a BOX!!!!. It has provided Simon with such niceties as one megabyte source files, multi-tasking and a very nice display. All of which will probably be needed in the creation of Forbidden Planet.

On the subject of the forthcoming programs, I shall reveal as much as the security minded programmers will let me. Graham’s Game is to be set way way off in the future. The idea is an extrapolation of today’s technology. Consider a society where everyone sits at home and works at a computer terminal. Central government would become a large computer based in the Houses of Parliament linking all MPs and Whitehall bods together, enabling them to ‘work’ in comfort from their homes. We took this idea further, to the point where London is no longer a city but a vast computing complex and its supporting facilities. One day some Whitehallesque bright spark manages to set a program running to analyse the way the country is run, and see if it could be performed more efficiently by the computer alone.

Needless to say, the computer decides it can do a better job, and said bright spark sets the Mega-machine (probably one of Simon’s creations) in motion.

And so the country is taken over by a collection of jumped up pocket calculators. Your job will be to persuade the Mega-machine that humans know best and wrest control back from it. To assist you in overcoming this electronic ego, there will be a robotic K9-esque dog (provisionally named KY). This ‘creature’ will be able to perform various feats of electronic wizardry, and rescue you should you fall prey to one of the many traps scattered about the complex.

As to what the actual screen will show when you are playing the game, to quote Graham, ‘I want lots of trogging about and icons!’ so expect multiple screens, lateral thinking problems, more of Stuart’s graphics and the irrepressible KY. Graham has mentioned something about masking, though we don’t know if he’s on about attacking people in Birmingham, or something flash done with graphics!

Cocky as usual, DESIGN DESIGN dictate the terms for the return of Poddy, Jeremy’s dog. Rotten dognappers — don’t they know there’s a law against it?

And so on to the Forbidden Program. The Image by Suggestion fast graphics developed for Dark Star will return with a lot more game bolted on. The scenario is the post Dark Star galaxy: the revolution which you headed managed to free the galaxy from the Evil Lord’s repression, but the planet on which he developed all his military hardware remains undefeated. It remains a threat to the newly established Federation, and is ready to launch a second bid for galactic supremacy at any time. Your task is to find a way to destroy this planet given the resources of a galaxy still recovering from a war. There will be many ways of attaining this goal, strategy again playing a key part in this part of the game. There is also a time factor, the longer you spend refining your forces and developing a space fighter capable of taking on the Forbidden Planet’s defences the more likely is the launch of an attack from the Evil Lord’s planet.

Assuming you get to the Forbidden Planet before it gets to you, (It’s already got to Simon!) the forces of the Evil Lord will be found dispersed around the planet’s surface. Raids on these will delay the impending attack, but to prevent it, you must destroy the planet’s ability to develop its advanced weaponry. The development hangars are located deep within the planet and will not be easy to get at. Should you actually manage to complete the game there will be another program on the tape to keep you amused. Que? SPECTACLE 2! (Simon has just peered morosely over my shoulder and announced ‘I think you’re being very optimistic.’ This is the sort of encouraging comment one can expect from a programmer!).

For those of you who still haven’t seen SPECTACLE, and there’s a few of you out there judging from the number of phone calls we’ve been getting, the passwords are:

EVERYONE’S A NERVOUS WRECK

Type that in at your peril.

Well that’s it, another masterpiece completed. My thanks to Graham who has sat faithfully by my side, doing a very good impersonation of a spell-check program. I shall close now and go and argue about whose car we take down to CRASH (Here we go, the old debate about which Astra’s got the better gearbox for the Ludlow roads!) and who pays for the petrol. I wonder if I can con Graham into making some coffee at this point.

‘Hey, Graham .......’

GOING PLATINUM

PLATINUM PRODUCTIONS are a quintet of canny Scots who have made a specialisation out of converting existing games to run on the Spectrum. Hand them a game which is not available on the Spectrum, wait a couple of months, hand them a fee and you’ll have a Spectrum game. Software Projects, US Gold and the new Imagine have done just that and reaped the benefits.

Anyone who can get three consecutive CRASH Smashes with games they’ve converted to the Spectrum deserves to be checked out. Graeme Kidd ran up the CRASH phone bill doing just that...

NO DOUBT statisticians throw their calculators up in the air in horror every time they hear about someone taking an average of a list of percentages: so beware of falling calculators. Platinum Productions have an average Overall rating of 79.5% on the nine games they’ve had CRASH reviews for. Not a bad track record, and if you remove the low rating they won for Zaxxon (58%) from the averaging, they creep up a few percentage points more to achieve a programming average over 82%. (Perhaps we ought to start a Software Wisden’s Almanac!)

When we were offered the job of converting Zaxxon to the Spectrum we knew it wouldn’t look the same’, David Anderson of Platinum Productions admitted in defence, ‘we agreed to do it, despite the fact that we knew it wasn’t going to be as good. It got the reviews it deserved — rather unfortunate, but it wasn’t entirely our own fault.’

David Anderson and Ian Morrison are the main men behind Platinum productions, with ‘New Boys’ Robin Muir helping on the music, Alan Laird working as a programmer and Mark Craig taking on the role of Programming Assistant.

They have a pretty impressive track record: discounting Zaxxon all PP games have ranked well in CRASH reviews, For the record books, here goes — Exterminator 82%, Brain Damage 69%, Beach Head 79%, Lode Runner 81%, Raid Over Moscow 92% (SMASH), World Series Baseball 91% (SMASH), Tapper 87% (SMASH), Dambusters 75%.

Platinum Productions began with David Anderson and Ian Morrison on computer keyboards, aided and abetted by Robin Muir on synthesiser keyboards. Essentially, David and Ian write the code for conversions while Robin works out the music on his synths and presents the appropriate data to David and Ian for incorporation into the final work. The trio are all eighteen years old, all live in Ayrshire, all programmed the ZX81 and met up at school.

‘Four people at school all had ZX81s early on and there wasn’t much in the way of commercially produced software at the time’, David began, ‘we were learning machine code and started writing games on the 1K ZX81. One guy emigrated, another went out on his own ... so the original quartet wasn’t long lived.’

‘I started programming in BASIC on a Pet and then got involved in machine code on the ZX81’, Ian Morrison explained, ‘and pretty soon, with 1K of memory, I was forced into machine code. I started writing games, as we all did, for my own amusement — we were just normal computer hackers.’

Robin Muir’s entry route to computing was fairly traditional too: ‘I knew David and Ian from school and my Dad got a ZX81. He lost interest and I picked it up from him and did some programming — typing in listings and the like. Then the Spectrum came out and the programming fell off as I got into playing games.’

Gradually, the programming duo of David Anderson and Ian Morrison expanded its horizons, and moved onto the Spectrum. ‘We worked out that 16K rampacks were catching on and wrote a 16K game in the autumn of 1982 which we took to the ZX Microfair that Christmas. We came back with a Spectrum and converted our first game for the Spectrum — Galactic Trooper,’ David explained.

Games for Romik and Silversoft followed, and the team developed new routines for user friendliness, including a menu screen. In those days, skill levels and user definable keys were something of a rarity — Rabbit Software, for instance, produced games which allowed you to define keys at the start of a game, but to redefine the keys you had to reload the game.

But the money wasn’t exactly flooding in. They re-wrote Exterminator as a full blown version of the arcade game Robotron and decided to tout it round software houses. ‘We went to see people, rather than sending the game through the post and waiting for a response, which takes ages’, David said, ‘and when we went to Ocean they were impressed, but said they didn’t want an arcade copy. However, they showed us Beach-Head on the Commodore and asked us if we could convert it to the Spectrum’.

Off they went, and produced a demo of the planes phase of the game in a fortnight. Ocean gave them the job and an eight week deadline to finish the conversion. They made it with two days to spare, and thus began a long term liaison.

Software Projects were interested in releasing the Robotron game, but nothing came of it in the end, and the program never saw the light of day. Platinum Productions did the Lode Runner conversion for Software Projects instead.

Then came Zaxxon, about which the least said the better, followed by Raid Over Moscow, which became the first of a trio of CRASH Smashes. ‘We think we did a good job of it’, says David, ‘we feel that it is the best shoot em up for the Spectrum — generally such games either have good graphics or are fast. Raid has both.’

So how does the team work on a game? ‘We approach each game as a project’, David explained, ‘sometimes we work together and sometimes separately, depending on the deadline we have been given. First we examine the game and decide which is the most important bit — on Lode Runner for instance, we had to get the screen and the little man runing about.’

Generally David begins work on the graphics while Ian gets on with developing the program. If there’s not a lot of graphical work to be done, then the work is shared out. ‘One of us might say ‘that’s a bit I can do easily’ and take it on, or maybe one of us will have finished something and then take on the part of the other’s workload’ David explained. On Raid Ian did most of the graphics and a lot of the game. And there are no fancy development systems at Platinum Productions. Everything is written straight onto Spectrums, supported with microdrives, printers and lots of paper — and the ‘New Boys’, Robin Muir, Mark Craig and Alan Laird!

Robin Muir, unlike David and Ian, doesn’t program full time. He’s about to start the second year of an accountancy course at Glasgow University. He’s a musician, playing keyboards in a band — Locozip — and uses a Moog Prodigy and Sequential Circuits’ Pro One. ‘David and Ian aren’t very good at working out music on the Spectrum, so they asked me to get involved. They used me on a couple of programs, first of all on a piece of educational software.’

World Series Baseball was the next conversion undertaken by the team, this time for the new Imagine label. Robin explained his method of working: ‘I got a tape of the music from the Commodore version of Baseball and played around with the tunes on a synth, working out the notes. Then I worked out the duration and pitch of the notes and handed over data to David and Ian which they incorporate into their program.’

‘We felt World Series Baseball was our best game’, said David, with some justification. It was their second CRASH Smash. Tapper was their next project — ‘we didn’t think we were going to be doing Tapper,’ he continued, ‘we had another urgent job. With Tapper the problem was the constant tune, and the number and speed of the graphics. We used routines from Raid to run the graphics, and finished the conversion in five weeks.’ Another Smash in the bag.

Dambusters is their latest conversion, reviewed in this issue. The team is not so pleased with the end result — a couple of bugs crept in... ‘the conversion was done a bit quickly’, David commented, ‘we could have made it better with more time. It was just one of those things — we got to the point where it was dragging on and we had to finish the task.’ Nevertheless, they added a couple of features, like the optional digital display, and sorted out a couple of problems that can be found on the C64 version.

Currently, the team is working on a conversion of Beach-Head 2. They’ve got the first screen half developed, are about a quarter of the way on the second and have worked out the graphics for the third screen. With luck, there should be a demo version at the Personal Computer World Show, and the finished game should be quite slick with constant sound, border colour effects and sprite quality graphics according to David.

Have they ever thought of designing and writing a game from scratch themselves, rather than always working on contract conversions? ‘We have thought about publishing our own software’, Ian says, ‘but it would limit the amount of time we have available for actually programming. Besides, the market is dominated by big companies nowadays — a lot of programmers started off with their own companies and have ended up working for large firms.’

‘Getting the go-ahead for a project is quite difficult’, David adds, ‘we don’t want to take the financial risk of sitting down and doing three months work on our own project and then finding that distributors don’t want to buy it or it won’t sell. We don’t really feel confident enough about the industry to go out on our own.’

Whatever happens, the team have no plans to desert the Spectrum. ‘We don’t have time for Amstrad conversions, which might be seen as a logical step for us to take’, David stated, ‘if anything it is more difficult to write for the Amstrad, given its higher resolution graphics and sound capabilities.’ The Spectrum 128K is on its way, and PP will stick with Sir Clive. ‘The Spectrum is a machine that still sells,’ adds Ian, ‘there’s not much that holds it back really. A good programmer can get good graphics out of the machine, and while the sound is poor, in the end it’s up to your imagination as to what you can get out of the machine.’

Ian and David have both been offered places at Strathclyde University on a double-degree engineering course, which lasts for five years and is very intensive. They’ve both postponed starting the course — but this year Ian has decided to get an education. ‘I’ve enjoyed programming, it’s been fun and has made be a bit of money, but I think it is time I got an education and expanded my mind. I’m not sure whether I’ll have time to carry on with much programming — the course is going to require a lot of effort and I’ve got to get industrial experience during the vacations. I’ll just have to wait and see what I can fit in.’

David, on the other hand, may not be going to university after all. ‘I’d like to get involved in Super Zaxxon. Things have progressed to the point where I think I should be able to avoid the minor disaster of Zaxxon and it’s possible that I’ll be doing a lot of work for US Gold...’

Rambo, the game of the film is on the cards. They’ve already seen the film and work is underway on a lookalike of the Commando arcade game. ‘A good shoot em up, which is basically going back to the Robotron idea with eight directional firing on a scrolling landscape’, David explains, ‘A good shoot em up.’ And they will be doing this one from scratch for US Gold. It looks like they may have got the go-ahead for a project of their own at last.

SCOOBY DOOBY DOO!

So you thought you needed a laser disk system to run an interactive cartoon-based game? The Scooby Squad at Elite believe otherwise... we checked out progress on the Spectrum cartoon-action game which should be released this month: SCOOBY-DOO

Eighteen months ago, a game called Blue Thunder appeared on the market. Written by a lad called Richard Wilcox, it was neatly tied in to the film and TV series which featured the mega helicopter of the same name, and it was judged a Good Game. Indeed, it was awarded Game of the Month status in Issue 3 of CRASH (in the days before the Smash had been invented).

Work on Blue Thunder began when Richard took a look at some of the Spectrum software available at the time and decided that he could do better. He did. Roping in his father to help market the game, Richard Wilcox Software came into being and Richard began a career as a games programmer.

About this time last year Kokotoni Wilf hit the streets — by then Richard Wilcox Software had become Elite. Kokotoni was a pretty good game, too, and things were looking good for Richard, and his father Brian — they roped in another member of the family to assist with marketing and organisational overheads of running a software house, Richard’s brother, Steve.

The opening screen of the first action sequence. A bedroom in Auntie’s castle. Shaggy is snoring in his bed, while Scooby slumbers on a ledge. Note the picture — in haunted houses, the eyes tend to move. Suddenly a trapdoor opens beneath Scooby and the startled hound is sliding down a refuse chute...

For a while, Elite’s fortunes took a bit of a dip. They got involved with licencing deals and released a couple of titles which weren’t so hot. They had the licences, but the software let them down somewhat — Dukes of Hazzard and 911TS. All the same, Fall Guy got a respectable rating, and Grand National was better still. Their latest game puts them firmly back in the running — Frank Bruno’s Boxing narrowly missed being a CRASH Smash and is doing well in the charts.

A conversion of International Basketball is nearing completion at Elite’s Aldridge headquarters, but another game is due for release this month which could set Elite amongst the leading software houses. Yes, it’s another tie-in, but this time the game looks like it will do the licenced characters, and Elite, proud.

Rather than produce a straight arcade adventure, the team of programmers working on the game of the cartoon Scooby-Doo decided to try for a very different game — a game in which you direct the action rather than play in the more usual “up/down, left/right” modes.

From the very start of the project, the plan was to produce a form of computer generated cartoon film, which starred the quintet of characters made famous in their adventures on the TV screen. Scooby-Doo cartoons all follow a similar storyline — the quartet of humans, aided and abetted by the lovable, easily scared and permanently hungry hound, find themselves investigating ghostly goings-on in a spine-tingling location.

While the artists in Elite’s Scooby Squad began studying videos of the cartoons, working out accurate animations from freeze framed action, the programmers set about developing a system which allowed them to compress data and combine screens and animation sequences so that a cartoon film could be squeezed into the Spectrum.

The plot soon developed. Set in a Scottish castle, Scooby-Doo, the game, features the ghost-hunting chums — Scooby, Shaggy, Fred, Daphne and Velma. Shaggy’s auntie owns the castle and has had spook trouble for sometime. She finally decides to leave her home forever when who should turn up, but her nephew Shaggy and his friends. Auntie is just leaving as they arrive and the gang persuade her to let them have a go at getting to the root of her hauntings.

Decision time as Scooby slithers down the refuse chute — time for you, the player to interfere... If you do nothing, Scooby will run into that central lump of stone and you will lose valuable time as the stunned dog recovers from his ordeal. Left or right — quick, make up your mind. You’re in the driving seat, after all!

Auntie agrees, and decides to go away but only for a couple of days while they try to sort things out for her — if they don’t work out what’s going on in 48 hours, however, she’s leaving and never coming back.

Essentially, the game will feature seven or eight action sequences which are separated by descriptive scenes in which characters in the game interact by meeting together and having a chat. The whole game is played against the clock, and to complete it you will need to go through all the levels and unmask the ‘spook’ who has been trying to scam Auntie off for so long.

In the action sequences you will follow Scooby and Shaggy as they search the castle and need to help them solve (or avoid) problems as they arise and generally guide them on their way. You drive the action in the game, acting rather like a film director, taking decisions which affect the outcome of events. After each action sequence has been played through, the scene will fade to a descriptive section where you eavesdrop on conversations and can pick up clues, tips and hints which will help you solve the mystery.

The cartoon quality of the game will be enhanced by the changing viewpoints from which you, the player/director, see the action. For instance, as Scooby is lolloping down a corridor you will see him full on, but when he nears a hidden trapdoor the screen might zoom in to show a close up of Scooby’s feet approaching the danger spot. Then it’s up to you to influence things.... Also, the sound effects will be synchronised to the action — helping to create the illusion that you are watching a cartoon and interfering with the outcome rather than just playing a computer game.

To complicate matters, different problems will crop up in the same action scene each time you load up and run the software — the game is not intended to have a single solution. It won’t be a single path; play it through once and that’s it, you know how to do the game.

When we visited the Scooby Squad they were confident that they had perfected the cartoon generating system that they would use to edit the screens into the finished game, and most of the design work on the individual screens — or ‘shots’ — from the storyboard had been committed to computer memory with the animation sequences. A few final details needed working out, and then the editing would begin. For with this game creating system, assembling the final program is rather like editing a film or videotape. The raw material is all there, as is the means to combine it into a sensible whole — it’s the skill of the editor that accounts for the polish of the finished product.

In the beginning, there was the text-only adventure game. Then came the adventure game with graphics, which developed into the arcade adventure. Elite could well take a significant step forward and become known as the creators of the Cartoon Adventure. Scooby’s a game to watch for...

ON THE COVER

Ian Craig is a slightly rare beast — he’s a cross between an illustrator and a fine artist. While he’s made a successful career out of producing cover illustrations for science fiction book covers and computer publications, he’s currently taking something of a break from illustration and is following his interest in Fine Art photography....

After a couple of years at Salisbury College of Art in the mid seventies, Ian Craig packed his bags and left for Leeds Polytechnic, where he followed a three year course in Communication Design — specialising in illustration in his final year.

With his formal academic training behind him, Ian gathered up his portfolio and left for London, in search of fame and fortune and a career as an illustrator. Soon he realised that the streets of London were not paved with gold: ‘I had rather a naive folder of work,’ Ian explained, ‘and I ended up spending a year on the dole painting, preparing another portfolio.’

A worthwhile investment of time, for then Ian found an agent — Young Artists of Camden. Young Artists specialise in science fiction illustrations, which fitted in well with Ian’s personal tastes. For three years he worked regularly, providing cover illustrations for sci-fi paperbacks.

‘I prefer the mystical side of science fiction rather than the hardware,’ Ian said, ‘I’m more interested in what could be called the ‘softer’ end — alchemy, strangeness, the dreamlike elements. Publishers tend to want hardware — detailed space ships, weapons and the like, so I usually have to try and combine the two elements when producing a science fiction illustration for a client.’

Ian first became involved with the software industry in a queue at the American Embassy in London! The tale began when he was wandering through WH Smiths one day, looking idly at the magazines. He noticed a copy of Practical Computing which caught his eye — in those days they had a full colour illustration on the front cover. Ian wrote off to The Man at PC who replied that he was interested in viewing a portfolio of work — could Ian meet him at the American Embassy where he was going to be queuing for a visa?

Having shown the very suspicious guards on the door the contents of his portfolio and explained his business, Ian gained admission, found The Man in the queue and was commissioned! Popular Computing covers soon led to other commissions within the software industry — Tim Langdell from Softek was one of Ian’s first software clients. He needed a cover for a book on the Dragon. In three days. Soon Ian was regularly doing work for Century Books and Sunshine Publications as well as science fiction covers.

To begin with Ian worked in gouache — then he moved to acrylics for the textures they can create and he explored the qualities of that paint. Other artists whose work was sold through Young Artists began using oils (tricky to use with an airbrush; you have to thin them very carefully). ‘I began to get a bit annoyed with the way acrylics could subtly change colour as they dried, but had always been reluctant to work in oils as so much careful planning is needed. Oil paint takes so long to dry that you have to organise a picture and plan it very carefully, but the quality of the paint leads to more exciting results. Nowadays oil is my first choice, followed by acrylics and I never use gouache.’

So where does the inspiration for science fiction paintings come from? ‘I’m not an avid reader of books — I find it much easier to assimilate pictures. I see all the latest science fiction films as they come out and take a lot of inspiration from the Science Museum; there are some fantastic devices on show there. Every now and again I take a stroll round Forbidden Planet (an ‘Underground’ bookshop in Denmark Street, London) just to see what’s going on — I can’t deny I am and have been influenced by other artists, particularly those working for Young Artists.

‘I take photographs of people which I then use as reference. Once I have got a good photo to use as reference for the central character I find that invention comes easily and I can build a whole world around the figure.’

At the moment, Ian is taking a break from full time illustration. Computer book publishers have been cutting back on their lists, and Ian left Young Artists, so he’s not got a great deal of illustration work on. ‘I wanted to move away from science fiction — I don’t want to become a specialist in that genre,’ he explained. And a small cash windfall came at just the right time to encourage him to make the break.

‘I found myself under quite a lot of pressure after a while — sometimes I had three book covers on the go at one time. I began to feel a bit frustrated and unfulfilled, concentrating on science fiction images all the time. Now I’m looking for jobs where I can spend a lot of time on one picture, rather than having to churn out illustrations, each in a couple of weeks. I’d like to get into advertising illustration, maybe...’

At the moment, Ian is working on a painting for the box of a Games Workshop boardgame, Cosmic Encounter. And is thoroughly enjoying it, working unhurriedly, in oils. While he obviously needs to continue producing illustrations to pay the rent, Ian is effectively treating himself to a sabbatical, allowing himself to follow his own interests in the Fine Art direction.

‘I’m interested in photography and have been investing in equipment. I’m interested in photography as an art — although I have been taking publicity photos of friends in bands and theatre groups as a service, I have been working on an exhibition. I hope to collect twelve images, involving texture and colour which have dreamlike, surreal qualities for a show, and so far I have six. They’re close ups of still lives and may be combined in an exhibition with sound and light so that visitors are presented with sight and sound together which invades their senses.’

Ian’s clearly enjoying his change of direction — no longer is he having to work at breakneck speed executing a painting in a couple of days. Maybe after his exhibition he’ll clear off for a year, possibly to Spain. ‘I like the Sabbatical approach to life,’ he said.

COPIER CONTROVERSY

WITH THE advent of a number of hardware gizmos, such as Interface 3, Microdriver and 007 Spy, the topic of software piracy has taken a new turn — especially now that the new Software Copyright Bill has become law.

A couple of software houses have a very strong opinion about copier programs and hardware. But it remains a fact that very few software houses supply programs on microdrive cartridges — and if you want to use your microdrive to load your latest purchase, you’re a bit stuck.

Two companies have been in touch with us concerning advertisements for transfer / copying utilities to date, one of which feels very strongly on the subject of copying utilities — to microdrive or tape. English Software got in touch to say that they thought it hypocritical of magazines (such as CRASH) who refuse to condone piracy and yet accept adverts from companies which offer such utilities for sale.

Indeed, English Software were of the opinion that we could suffer an investigation by the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) and, by implication, the full force of the new law if we continue to accept such advertisements. English Software told us that they would be encouraging software producers to refuse to place advertising in magazines which also carry plugs for software copying utilities.

We don’t believe that tape to tape copiers are exactly moral products, and won’t carry advertising for them. But microdrive transfer utilities are a completely different bucket of bytes as far as we are concerned. If you buy a program on cassette, and the software house will not supply that program on microdrive cartridge, we believe you have every right to use a microdrive transfer utility to get your purchase onto cartridge — or indeed onto disc, if you own a disc drive system. We feel we should be free to continue to allow such utilities to be advertised.....

We spoke to FAST and were told that they have not formulated a policy on copying utilities and hardware — the whole area of microdrive transfers is a rather murky one. Bob Hay from FAST alluded to the concept of buying a record, deciding you wanted it on tape, and then recording it yourself. But if the record company simply doesn’t sell that piece of music on audio cassette...? Given that FAST have not yet formulated policy, could it be that there is a vast silent majority of software houses which isn’t too bothered about these devices and utilities? Or is English Software just starting the ball rolling?

So, software houses, what do you think? Will you withdraw advertising if we continue to carry advertisements for transfer utilities? As buyers of tape software, what do you think, CRASH readers? Write and let us know, eh?

IT’S SHOWTIME, FOLKS!

It’s over. Five days of frenetic activity came to a close yesterday, and as we put the finishing touches to this issue of CRASH most of us are massaging aching feet and suffering from sore throats after all that talking... The Eighth Annual Personal Computer World Show has been and gone.

As shows go, it was slightly odd — while we were writing the last issue of the magazine, it seemed every software house in the land was saving its new releases for the PCW Show, and it was a bit difficult to get people to part with new software for review. Scampering down the motorway last week, we expected to see a whole horde of new releases for the Spectrum and it seemed likely that we would be returning to Ludlow laden with new programs to load, run and review.

This hasn’t been the case. Maybe it was because the PCW show was a couple of weeks earlier this year, and software houses tripped up over their schedules, or maybe it’s because games just take longer to finish nowadays, given the increasing sophistication of software. Either way, the stories we kept meeting up with from Spectrum software houses were ‘Due for release later this month’, ‘Set for October Launch’ and sometimes the mega-vague ‘Ready for Christmas’.

At least one company had spent thousands and thousands of pounds hiring a plush stand and hadn’t a single playable piece of software on show. Others, entered the video age with a vengeance, showing extracts from movies endlessly as a taster for their imminent releases.

There was very little new or innovative on the Spectrum front at PCW this year. The Amstrad, Commodore and Acorn stands all had something new (or newish) to reveal to visitors, but Sinclair concentrated on pushing the QL and the range of software that is now available for it. At £199, it’s a good deal, but the cry is that it’s going to be a 128K Christmas this year. No news from Sir Clive on that front.

In a way, showmanship took over, and the tone of the show looked mucky for a while. System 3 were upsetting some people with their daring dancers and attracted photographers from the tabloid press; and one day half a dozen topless females raided the show, touring the ground floor in little more than orange sashes proclaiming HAL 2000 until they were asked to leave by the organisers. HAL wasn’t exhibiting and denied knowledge of the girls when they were contacted by the show, according to the Press Officers, and the agency who supplied them didn’t name their client. Not quite entertainment for the whole family, somehow.

Bandersnatch, which first existed as a concept at the original Imagine, then became the property of a company called Fireiron and was backed for a while by Sinclair Research, apparently for the QL, may have made an appearance on the corner of the Atari stand occupied by a firm called Psygnosis ... a large game, complete with scene-setting book, on the Atari stand. Only time will tell whether we’ll ever get a megagame for the Spectrum.

Overall, the mood amongst the members of the trade was one of confidence during the PCW Show. This Christmas should be a good one, not only for the trade, but also for you, the customers. There’s a whole host of new games on the way, most of which should arrive in time for the festive season. Whether it will be a 128K one on the Spectrum remains to be seen...

NEWS INPUT

THAT WAS THE PCW SHOW, THAT WAS!

Wasn’t it just packed! As everyone expected, lots and lots of people came to the show, and at times it was impossible to move for the crowds. Thank heavens it’s all over for another year.

Ben Stone models a ZZAP! T Shirt and chats to a visitor, while Roger Kean stays in the background with Franco Frey. Sally Newman, the Dragon of Mail Order rests her weary feet (she’s not really that short!)

Before the dancing stopped: one of the poses struck on the SYSTEM 3 stand during the show which kicked off with the words ‘Naughty But Nice’. Not nice enough for the organisers, who wanted the mock violence and whips (!) taken out

Just three of the visitors we had on the Newsfield Stand. A trio of Platinum Producers who came to London to hand over the first parts of RAMBO and BEACH HEAD 2 to Ocean.

Messrs Kean, Kidd and Candy join in a discussion. Candy (in the dark shirt) refuses to be distracted by the presence of a camera, as does the short-haired Kidd. Kean, on the other hand, can’t resist the temptation to watch the birdie...

Two of the SYSTEM 3 Dancers without their makeup and costumes... No, not really. Our very own Denise Roberts (Subscription Queen) smiles whimsically for the camera while Mail Order Aggie (Carol Kinsey) hides behind a plastic cup of vino on the News field Stand

A long shot of the Newsfield stand. ‘Now on Commodore 64 and Amstrad’ said little round sticker someone put on the Stand Sign. How true, how true..

NEWSFIELD TRIO

This was the first time that Newsfield took a stand at the Personal Computer World Show — previously a mob-handed extended visit took place, with carrier bag laden minions tramping round the show and disappearing to Ludlow at the end of the day.

This year, everyone came, except David Western, Oli Frey and Gordon Druce, who stayed behind in Ludlow slaving away over this issue of CRASH aided and abetted by Lloyd Mangram who scampered back to help muttering darkly about hating crowds.

A successful show was had by the CRASH, ZZAP! and AMTIX team — and thousands and thousands of AMTIX Issue Zeros were given away to visitors to the stand. Watch out for Issue One of our new Amstrad magazine — it’ll be on the streets any day now!

SHOWMANSHIP?

The stand taken by System 3 at the show was rather unusual, in that about half of it was a stage. All the world came to see a trio of scantily clad females go through their dance routine — a promotional stunt to draw attention to the company’s forthcoming release, Twister subtitled for some reason The Mother of Harlots.

While the dancing certainly attracted crowds and crowds to the System 3 stand, as System 3 Supremo Mark Cale rather expected, it also attracted the attention of the show organisers who threatened to turn off the power to the stand if the naughty bits didn’t cease forthwith.

On the trade days the shows went ahead, but complaints were laid with the organisers who threatened to close down the stand. Despite calling upon Fleet Street photographers and claiming that all that was being offered was ‘entertainment for the kids’, Mr Cale conceded the point and withdrew his dancers.

Karate demonstrations continued on the stand, however, with a veritable wall of building blocks being destroyed during the show to remind people that International Karate is on its way, and a bemuscled hunk of a man was in permanent attendance to promote the third promised release from System 3 — American GI.

ACTIVISION ACTION

Activision promised that the stunning games Rescue on Fractalus and Ballblazer which owners of Atari and Commodore computers are getting so excited about, will soon be available for Spectrum owners. There were no details of price or similarities to the originals but they should (with any luck) be available by Christmas. Other goodies the Activision mob were frothing about included Hacker, a game where you accidentally break into some large mainframe whilst playing on your computer and are greeted with a simple ‘Logon Please’ leaving you entirely on your own as to what to do next! ‘After all,’ said Activision, ‘it would be like that if it happened in real life!’ Wonder how they know that?

Another promised release is their latest graphic adventure, Mindshadow which is dedicated to Amnesiacs Anonymous. Still, the game does have some very interesting ideas in it and the translation to the Spectrum shouldn’t do it any harm. One game Activision will not be bringing out for the Spectrum (at least in the forseeable future) is The Great American Cross Country Road Race. Well frankly, with a roll-off-the-tongue title like that, who can blame them?

SANTA SINCLAIR’S STOCKING FILLERS

To see the Sinclair stand at the show, you would be excused from thinking they didn’t make the trusty Spectrum. Apart from the blurb for the special Spectrum pack Dixons will be handling this Christmas, there was nothing particularly new, exciting or even hopeful about the stand. Sinclair wanted nothing to get in the way of his new half price QL offer. It looked as though he was trying to forget about the machine that really made it for him — but in return it looked as though the public wanted to forget about him. The Sinclair stand just wasn’t the centre of attraction that it had been at previous shows. It appears that no matter what he does about the QL, people still remember the damning press the machine first received. If this is Clive’s Christmas offering then the company are really walking on a tightrope!

Sir Clive arrived on the first day of the show with Bill Jeffrey, the new Chief Executive of Sinclair Research, but they both remained tight-lipped about the the new 128K Spectrum, pausing only to deny that it would be available this year.

Fifteen year old Matthew Woodley receives his £25,000 reward for the successful completion of Domark’s Eureka at the PCW Show. Presenting the cheque are Dominic Wheatley and Mark Strachan, directors. Apparently Matthew made several calls to the ansaphone which waited for the winner — it wasn’t until his third attempt that he plucked up the courage to actually tell the thing he’d completed the game!

WAY OF THE EXPLODING AUSSIES

In the wake of another success with Way of the Exploding Fist, Melbourne House revealed glimpses of their latest offerings at the PCW show. The main attraction was their rather unimaginatively titled Fighting Warrior, which uses ancient Egypt rather than the mysterious Far East as the setting for arcade aggro. Steve Cargill, the programmer responsible, apparently produced a specially easy version for demonstration on the Melbourne House stand — so anyone who managed to play the game through at the show is in for a surprise when the finished version hits the streets!

You are an Egyptian warrior on a quest to free a princess, and have to fight your way across a horizontally scrolling landscape, defeating hordes of devils and demons who are intent on preventing you from ever achieving marital bliss. Looks promising!

Melbourne House were also running the animated film version of Lord of the Rings as promotion for their upcoming sequel to The Hobbit. There was plenty of excited sales pitch offered on this game and it does sound very interesting, but we’ve yet to see anything... One new program we did manage to have a quick preview of was Asterix, based on the phenomenally successful cartoon series of the same name. With cartoon characters wandering around on a 3D screen, it looks as though once again, the good old Spectrum has been pushed to the limits — but as to what it’s about? Well, nobody would say, actually...

Steve Cargill relaxes with a drink on the Newsfield stand after providing us with a copy of his latest program FIGHTING WARRIOR. This fellow has the same taste in shirts as Our Man in the Psychedelic Chemise, John Minson. Are we missing some fashion hints up here in Ludlow?

STATISTICS TIME

Mintel Publications, the market research people have come up with some interesting figures for the future of home computer and video console games.

Video consoles and games made about £25 million last year, about half their 1982 sales peak, and this year the figure will only be about £16 million according to the Mintel forecasters. However, it’s a different story for the home computer games market, valued at around £100 million. In 1980 about a million units were sold and by the end of this year, Mintel estimates another seventeen million units will sell. Even so, they expect the phenomenal market growth witnessed to date will reach a peak before long. The outlook suggests fewer software companies which implies market stability.

On the hardware front, the prediction is that more people will buy disk drives and bigger machines to cope with new software. Apparently, wide audiences are expected for the games and entertainment programs, due to the rise in unemployment.

So there you are, it’s all in black and white. And if you want the full report, Leisure Intelligence, Video and Computer Games is available from Mintel Publications for £125 a single issue, or you could subscribe for £420 per annum...

Yep, it’s back again, the feature that simply and fearlessly tears the lid off the past and re-examines the CRASH reviews of yesteryear in the light of modern post-industrial development and the onset of Graeme Kidd. Ageing arcade spendthrifts and sworn died-in-the-ink lifelong enemies, ROBIN CANDY and LLOYD MANGRAM sign a tissue-paper thin truce to bring you another...

GAMES REVIEWED

Monty Mole

Hyperaction

Braxx Bluff

Kokotoni Wilf

Strange Loop

Frank N Stein

WANTED: MONTY MOLE

Gremlin Graphics

Monty Mole was released at the height of the miner’s strike and caused quite a stir with games experts, the press and television. This was mainly due to the caricature of Union leader, Arthur Scargill that appeared in the game.

The story goes that it is a long chilling winter’s day and Monty makes a daring bid to snatch coal from a South Yorkshire pit. Monty must find his way through the pit collecting bits of coal and other assorted items in his bid to escape with the goodies. He finally emerges in Arthur’s castle where he must collect the ballot papers to topple the great man but first you must get past Arthur’s personal body guard of flying pickets and nasties.

The game looks very similar to Jet Set Willy but in Jet Set Willy you could easily visit other rooms without collecting items from them. This is not so in Monty Mole. By collecting particular items you are able to proceed through some of the nasties or a wall opens up to allow access to another room. This means that it not a straightforward platform game and some thought is needed to play it. Some of the problems include how to get past the wall on the seventh sheet and how to get past the railway sheets. This all adds up to a highly enjoyable game.

I remember reviewing Monty Mole when it was first released and thinking that it was an excellent game. If it happened to come into the offices to be reviewed now I think I would like it just as much. The graphics are superb with few attribute problems considering that it is a very colourful game. Monty Mole is just as playable as the third game in the Monty trilogy, Monty On The Run, and is certainly addictive. If you still haven’t got it then pop out and buy it now!
RC

This game, of course, was voted Best Platform Game of 84 by CRASH readers, and looking at it again now, I can see why. Although it only has 21 main screens, most of them are deadly tough and you have to go through one or two of them twice. On top of that, the physical layout and the way the screens link up, make it an exciting looking game that really hasn’t dated at all.
LM

(Rob) I wouldn’t alter the ratings at all; Monty Mole is still an excellent platform game.

(Lloyd) And neither would I!

BRAXX BLUFF

Micromega

Man has progressed far beyond the limits of the solar system and has begun to explore the unimaginably distant worlds in the search for resources and knowledge. In every new system an intergalactic rescue cruiser stands at the ready in case of an emergency. It is manned by volunteers of the Life Corps. You are such a volunteer and the emergency at Braxx Bluff will either make you a hero or a memory.

The lifeship Vega has stabilised its orbit around the planet Prolon in response to a distress from below. Three members of an exploratory team left their base in a rover and have fallen prey to the energy hungry creatures who inhabit the world. The creatures fed on the energy banks in the rover which now lies stranded without power, the occupants slowly dying as the life support systems fail. Your mission is simple — land, find the rover and return to base in time to save the lives of the crew.

There are 5 stages to the game. If you should land safely then you will proceed on foot towards a sound emanating from the rover, but you must avoid the birds which are out to get you. When you complete this stage you find the rover and it is your task to drive this as fast as you can down the road. Next comes the the sea skimming. Here the rover stays at full speed to avoid sinking, but the sea is full of rocks which must be avoided at all costs. A direction finder guides your way — the higher the pitch the more directly you are heading towards base. If you complete that stage then you will arrive at the base and start a new mission.

Braxx Bluff has very simplistic graphics that generate a reasonable representation of 3D. Micromega went for the simple but effective look instead of using lots of colourful detailed graphics that would make the screen look a mess. The sound isn’t up to much but it plays a critical part in the game. This game is very playable although it takes quite a bit of practice to get anywhere but it has the addictive qualities to bring you back to play it again. Overall Braxx Bluff is still a reasonable game by today’s standards but it can’t really contend with the likes of Frankie and Dun Darach.
RC

I always thought Braxx Bluff was a strange looking game, but its 3D effects worked quite well. On the other hand, this is probably the least thrilling of Micromega’s 3D efforts and in retrospect it has aged a bit graphically, but still offers quite a challenge in its various stages.
LM

(Rob) I would probably lower all the ratings except Playability by about 10-15%.

(Lloyd) Given that I thought its ‘strangeness’ made up a lot of its value at the time, I would have to agree with Robin, strange as that may seem!

KOKOTONI WILF

Elite

It was about this time last year that we were first subjected to the merciless hype approach of Elite with their first release, Kokotoni Wilf, boasting that it would knock JSW off its perch.

Legend has it that several hundred years ago in a province of Northern Europe there lived a magician by the name of Ulrich, who discovered that the famous Dragon Amulet had been fragmented and the pieces scattered through time. Being too old and infirm, Ulrich could not go on a mission to recover the pieces himself. So he summoned his young protege, Kokotoni Wilf, to his presence and bade him to go and fetch all the parts of the amulet. The only help Ulrich could give was to create a time gate that would take Kokotoni Wilf to another time zone and more fragments but only when all the fragments in his present time zone were collected.

Your task is to guide Wilf around the maze of rooms and collect all the fragments of the Dragon Amulet for Ulrich.

Kokotoni Wilf is essentially a platform game with a couple of differences — instead of jumping from platform to platform you can fly. This may seem very easy but it does take a while before you can actually ‘pilot’ Wilf competently. The graphics are quite good but they weren’t really that much better than those found in JSW just a bit more varied. Sound was a bit limited but that didn’t detract from the overall feel of the game. Kokotoni Wilf was and still is very playable but it isn’t that addictive, once you have visited all the time zones you rapidly lose interest. As platform games go it is a very good one which is still worth getting if you’re a lover of this type of game.
RC

I must admit that while I liked the look of Kokotoni Wilf, I never found the game itself that thrilling to play. Although the different graphics of each Time Zone added something to its overall flavour, that alone wasn’t enough for me to get very excited. It did pretty well in CRASH at the time (my not having a hand in the review of it!), but I don’t think it would get much above the mid-seventies now.
LM

(Rob) I wouldn’t fiddle with the ratings too much just take down the addictive qualities and the overall percentage down by about 5%.

(Lloyd) Whereas I would want to knock both those down by at least 15%.

HYPERACTION

Silversoft

Hyperaction followed hot on the heels of Silversoft’s previous release Worse Things Happen At Sea, but instead of a totally original game they turned back to using a more traditional arcade type of game.

Hyperaction is best described as a ‘Pengo’ meets ‘Pacman’ type game. You move around a randomly generated screen collecting objects (usually four) but you have some nasties chasing along after you. What makes Hyperaction is that you can’t actually kill the baddies only trap them by pushing the blocks that form the maze in their path. Each screen is a game in its own right and subsequently has its own problems — sometimes collecting the objects will be enough to finish that screen or it might require you to eat all the blue out of the Artic Jelly fish.

Pushing the blocks is easy enough, just press fire and push the block in the direction you wish it to go; should the block meet the edge of the screen or another block then a further push will burn the block away. The blocks are an important of the game but on the last screen there are none and you have to survive on skill and speed alone.

Hyperaction is certainly the name of the game for this horrendously fast ‘Pengo’ variant. The graphics are very colourful and move smoothly, which makes this game a treat to watch. Sound is used well and the whole game has a very polished look to it. Hyperaction is highly playable and quite addictive though it is probably a bit too hard. Overall it is still a good game by today’s standards and will doubtlessly appeal more to the younger players.
RC

Silversoft took a bit of risk with this one, using older ideas and simple looking graphics, but they certainly aimed to make a tough, fast and highly addictive game and they succeeded. Because of those rather ‘timeless’ qualities, it has hardly aged at all and still represents excellent fun for anyone with fingers sufficiently nimble and eyes adequately bright.
LM

(Rob) I would keep the playability the same and lower all the other ratings by 10%.

(Lloyd) On the whole I think I would leave well alone, except on the graphics, which in all fairness are not worth the rating they got, but that was probably due to the system then in use in CRASH.

FRANK N. STEIN

PSS

As Frank it is your task to put together parts of a monster. These parts happen to be scattered around your mansion but this is no ordinary luxury pad, for instance you can only go down the stairs and firepoles, and how many houses have ice in them or coiled springs to get you up a floor?

There are seven bits of the monster to collect namely the head, shoulders, arms and legs which all have to be assembled in the right order, from the head downwards. When you have completed your monster you have to activate him if you have built him well with in the time limit, then the monster won’t have too much of an electric shock but if you only just make in time then he will be very, very angry. In the first set of rooms there are some light bulbs that, if picked up, will make the clock turn back slightly. The next screen is a sort of ‘Kong’ variant. The monster stands at the top of the screen throwing things down at you, how many objects he throws depends on how quickly you completed the previous screen. You must now guide little Frank to the top of the screen safely, and on completion you move back to the ‘mansion’ screen to start building another monster. This time the layout of the mansion has changed and there is less time allowed. The game goes on like this, alternating between the construction screen and the Kong game while getting progressively harder.

Platform games have never been my favourites so it takes a really good one with some original features in it to capture my attention. A year ago Frank N. Stein did this but has now lost some of its appeal. The graphics are really only above average and the same goes for the sound which is limited to spot effects. Frank N. Stein is instantly playable but I very much doubt people will play over long periods of time, and it is probably more suited to ardent fans of platform games. Overall it’s lost some appeal over the last year but I’m sure quite a few people would gain some of enjoyment from it.
RC

At the time this came out, platform games were all the rage on the ‘let’s out-willy JSW’ level. Frank N. Stein did offer some nice new twists to the straightforward platformer, but these were really just refinements. It was quite playable and amusing, but nothing really major.
LM

(Rob) I would definitely lower the graphics rating by about 15% and the addictive qualities by about 7%. If Frank N. Stein was a new game then I would give it somewhere around the 71% mark.

(Lloyd) Yes, I think that’s a fair estimate.

STRANGELOOP

Virgin Games

In Strangeloop it is your task to regain control of a robot controlled space factory that has been invaded by aliens who have reprogrammed the robots to destroy Earth.

No man has stepped into the factory for over 100 years and no maps exist. All you now is that the place lacks oxygen, has no gravity and is infested with razor-sharp industrial waste (swarf). The object is to reach the room with the central computer in it but this isn’t a case of exploring the maze until you find the room because you must overcome many puzzles before you can complete Strangeloop.

To help you on your mission you have an oxygen suit and a laser gun. If you get hit by flying swarf then a hole is ripped in the suit and your oxygen leaks out faster than it should, so a continual search for suit patches is another part of the game. The laser has a maximum of 99 charges and fires either horizontally or diagonally so as well as looking for suit patches you must also look for gun charges. Somewhere in the complex of rooms is a jet cycle which can be used to speed up your movement throughout the rooms but this cycle is rather old and drinks up a lot of power so look out for extra power packs. As Strangeloop is such a large game the LOAD and SAVE facilities are required quite a bit.

Strangeloop was and still is one of the most difficult arcade adventures around and it shouldn’t be missed by fans of this type of game. The graphics are still good by today’s standards and the sound is reasonable. It is still very playable and the various puzzles should keep you addicted for a long time, the only problem being that the game might prove a bit too difficult. It is definitely still worth getting a year after its first release.
RC

In my opinion, Strangeloop is the best game Virgin ever produced, and actually one of the best arcade adventures of its kind. The problems it set and the methods required for solving them are as appealing today as they were a year ago. Certainly a game that has aged very little indeed.

(Rob) I would probably lower all the ratings by a couple of percent but no more because it is still a very good arcade adventure.

(Lloyd) This one has stood the test of time and I think our original ratings were pretty well spot on.

COMPUTERS AS COMMUNICATORS

How do you feel about a computer program for babies? I must admit that when the tape Turntaking arrived on my desk, with its claim to be ‘simple enough for babies’, my initial reaction was one of horror!

The picture came into my mind of helpless babies propped up in front of a TV Screen to amuse themselves with the game while harassed parents got on with the chores, or snatched the opportunity to put their feet up for ten minutes. But this, of course, is not what it’s all about. No matter what sort of educational programs we’re talking about — whether it’s ones like this for the very young child, or an exam revision program for older teenagers — working with the computer should not be seen as a solitary activity.

Yet many people still look at micros as being useful only in a one-child-one computer situation, where the child is assumed to be taught by the computer which is taking the place of an adult instructor. I know there are some educational programs (which have been reviewed in Crash Course), which are marketed on the fact that they can be used by children without any adult supervision whatsoever. No parent, though, who wishes to do the best for his or her child, should be happy to delegate the responsibility for home education to the computer.

When the television became a common piece of furniture in the home, it was criticised for destroying family life. ‘Families don’t talk any more’, became the cry. ‘Everyone just sits impassively in front of the screen. The only discussion that takes place is when there is a disagreement over which programme to watch.’ Now that a vast number of homes possess micros, modern technology has been blamed for being the ultimate destroyer of any interaction between parents and their children.

I believe, however, that used correctly the computer can increase communication between children and adults. The best home computer education programs are those which encourage the parent to work alongside the child, helping and directing progress. This is not to say that the child must never be left alone with the computer: as the notes for the Turntaking program say, ‘If you are busy you will be able to leave children to play with the program themselves and they can tell you about it when you come to see how they are getting on...’

It’s this ‘telling about it’ process which is so important. Let’s start thinking about computers as an aid to communication for a change!

CAESAR’S TRAVELS

Producer: Mirrorsoft Ltd
Author: Chalksoft Ltd
Price: £7.95

Caesar’s Travels is, according to Mirrorsoft’s publicity handout, ‘a unique combination of animated story program and complete 64 page illustrated storybook. It’s the first of a new generation of story corner/bedtime story resources that is equally useful in the classroom or at home’.

The format of the book might best be described as being a cross between a traditional story and an adventure program. After each section of narrative, the child is faced with various options, for instance after Caesar the cat is thrown out into the yard by his owner, an unfriendly-looking dog appears. The question is posed: ‘What will you do now Caesar? Jump over the wall.... go to page 2. Climb the fence.. go to page 3.’ The child can, therefore, follow many of the story routes leading to one of 18 endings, and each of these 38 different routes is a complete story in itself.

The computer game is a condensed version of the book, and features quite excellent animation of the chosen route, together with some very realistic sound effects. Many teachers and parents today fear that the growing fascination for computer games will drive children away from the pleasures of reading, but this package is an excellent example of how the two activities can be related. Indeed, if used correctly, the computer may do much to positively encourage reading.

The game itself is very simple for a young child to play. A key card is supplied which, when placed above keys 1 to 6 at the top of the Spectrum keyboard, shows the choices available — if the player wants Caesar to RUN, he presses the number key below the word on the key card. The pre-reading children who tried out the game for me had no trouble at all in learning to recognise the words on the card, and thoroughly enjoyed the program.

The book and the game are extremely useful for encouraging young children to make decisions, either on their own, or after discussion with others, and are great fun to use.

COMMENTS

Control keys: key card supplied so that the input of commands such as RUN, WALK, JUMP etc is executed by the use of a number key. ENTER to go back or answer key for puzzles. SPACE to continue, move arrows or start a new game.
Keyboard play: fast
Use of colour: very good
Graphics: young children will love the animated cat
General Rating: Highly recommended. A value-for-money package which is both enjoyable and educational.

KIDDISOFT

Producer: Kiddisoft
Price: £3.99

This tape magazine was briefly mentioned in the article on Magnetic Magazines in the July issue of CRASH. Anne Menneer, the person behind Kiddisoft, aims to build up an interactive magazine using letters and pictures from children as well as offering a range of programs designed to have a learning content at the same time as being fun to play. Edition number One of the magazine contains six games covering a variety of skills from adding up to ten in Adder to word matching in Pip. There is also a Nature Corner where, in this edition, the child can learn about the Great Tit. A simple adventure game, The Adventures of Pisky Green, is to be a regular feature.

All the activities incorporated in the magazine are the sort of things you’d find going on in a primary classroom — letter and number work, reading, finding out, etc — so the cassette would be useful for reinforcing these basic skills. Most of the games are relatively simple and easy to play, though in Pip the word matching game where a series of words of a similar pattern — dip, hud, dab, dub — are flashed onto the screen, the letters are so small that a child would have difficulty in deciphering the word. The scansion of the short doggerel verse in Humpty is rather unsuccessful:

If Humpty’s sum is wrong you see

Then you must press any key

If Humpty’s sum is right

Then do nothing and sit tight.

The adventure game about Pisky Green is quite an interesting attempt to make a computer adventure more accessible to the young child. In the game, you are Pisky Green and the bad Raven has taken seven of your treasures — including a tin of fudge, and a bottle of mead which you have to go out and recover. Instead of having to type in a command in the usual way, a question is displayed on the screen eg: Will you go north? The other options available are only displayed if the player indicates that north is not the desired direction by pressing N for No. Daniel and Nicholas enjoyed this game, and if will be interesting to see how the adventures develop in the forthcoming editions of the magazine.

All in all, I like the idea behind this tape magazine, particularly the Interactive aim. This, though, depends on the response from children, so I hope that parents and teachers will encourage their children to send off their pictures and letters to the Kiddisoft Club With a little bit of polishing, this magazine could be a successful venture — I certainly hope it is.

COMMENTS

Control keys: kept simple for a young child to operate
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: simple but reasonably effective
Graphics: not particularly inspiring
General Rating: Quite good value for money if there are several children between 4 and 8 in the family, as there is something to suit everyone in the magazine.

NURSERY RHYMES

Producer: Softlee Systems
Price: £2.50

This latest offering from Softlee Systems is another of the SEE HEAR programs which I have been very impressed with. The tape is loaded using stereo equipment and the idea is that the child listens to a nursery rhyme being read out aloud while watching the text on the screen, with each word being highlighted as it is read.

And that’s all it is. No graphics. No gimmicks. Just a variety of rhymes, including Jack and Jill, There Was a Crooked Man, Three Blind Mice, and Wee Willie Winkie. Despite its deceptive simplicity, the program can be extremely useful both in the home and in primary schools. I tried it out with Nicholas, loading the tape on a stereo cassette player, and letting him listen through headphones. He loved it, and automatically joined in with the recitation.

The tape can also be used with a group or whole class of children — you just use a speaker lead which plugs into the right hand channel socket at the rear of your amplifier. The teacher would find the program of particular use in assisting class recitation or singing, and also as a stimulus to be used with early reading books. As Tony Lee of Softlee Systems told me: ‘These storybooks are somewhat confusing for early readers, because the accompanying tapes merely indicate with a tone when to turn over a page, and the child may be sitting uncomprehending with a jumble of words.’

With Softlee’s method of highlighting each word as the child hears it, attention is focussed quite easily onto the relevant word. Certainly, the infant teachers who tried out the program for me felt that it would be a very useful teaching aid — the only problem might be that not all schools possess the necessary stereo equipment to play it on. For individual use, though, the tape can be played on personal stereos.

COMMENTS

Control keys: once the program is loaded (it automatically adjusts itself to the speed of the player used) no further commands are needed. All the child has to do is listen and watch
Graphics: none. The text is clearly displayed in reasonably large print
General Rating: A very useful teaching aid which makes no attempt to use gimmicks to capture the childs attention.

THE SUNFLOWER NUMBER SHOW

Producer: Macmillan Software Ltd
Author: Blackboard Software (Eve Gorton, Paul Gorton)
Price: £5.95

This electronics sums game is, I suppose, an attempt to make arithmetic more enjoyable, but it really is not too far removed from the drill and practice routines which no longer assume such an important role in the school curriculum. This package makes the mistake of trying to be all things to all people — we are told that it is ‘a superb mental arithmetic challenge for all ages’, that there is ‘a vast amount of game settings’, and that there are ‘over 2,000 possible options’. Admittedly, the program is extremely flexible, but all it is doing is giving practice in using two numbers to create a third for no obvious reason.

In the first game, Sunflower the player has to answer the sums correctly so that the sunflower will grow. If the correct answer is input, a bird flies off and the player is rewarded with a ‘Well done’. If the player answers incorrectly the deadly weevil moves closer to the sunflower. The next game uses a similar format, except this time the right answer causes a shower cloud to move across the sky to a point where it waters the roses. In spite of the number of options available, this is really a very limited kind of program since it can only be used with one child at a time in order to reinforce work which has already been taught. Neither is the aim of the game sufficiently exciting or interesting to motivate children to produce the correct answers, or strong enough to hold their attention for very long. As an attempt to make sums more enjoyable, I’m afraid the program is a dismal failure.

COMMENTS

Control keys: number keys only, followed by ENTER
Keyboard play: keys must he pressed fairly slowly and deliberately
Use of colour: quite effective
Graphics: dull and uninspired
General Rating: This program fails to make use of the potential of the micro as a teaching aid, and does not help the player towards a concept of number.

TURNTAKING

Producer: The Learning Process
Price: £5.95

Turntaking is the first program I have come across specifically aimed at babies and toddlers. But how old is a baby? The notes which accompany the tape tell us about the reaction of an eighteen-month old child, who realised the connection between pressing the keys and the image which appeared on the screen. I was interested to see If the program would appeal to even younger babies, and so I tried it out with thirteen-month old twins, Andrew and Gavin.

When the tape is loaded, the player can select the game required from a pictorial menu — obviously, for such young players, the printed word would be inappropriate. The easiest of the six options is Building Bricks, where the next brick is displayed each time a key is pressed — or if the child just watches, the next brick will appear after a short period of time without a keypress. The twins enjoyed seeing the colourful bricks appearing on the screen, though initially they did not grasp that they could use the keyboard to control the action. After a while, however, young as they are, they got the idea, but only when one key was selected for them to depress.

The attention span of very young children is obviously extremely limited, but the variety of games on the tape kept the twins interested for quite a time. The Grow a Flower game seemed to appeal to them, especially when the head of the flower began to appear on the stem, and the Engine game was also popular as the engine is seen to move across the screen when a key is depressed.

The twins’ parents certainly felt that the program would he very useful to support the children’s learning, and that it would help older children learn to make choices, to take turns in playing a game and to control events. The only real criticism they had was that sound could have been used to even greater effect in the games.

The ideal situation for using the program would be to have it set up so the child could leave it and return to it at will, with, of course, an adult present to support the learning activities.

COMMENTS

Control keys: any key can be pressed
Keyboard play: very responsive
Use of colour: bright and attractive
Graphics: simple but eye-catching
General Rating: A well-designed program, with enough variety to hold a child’s attention. Parents should enjoy watching their babies reactions!

PAINT PLUS and the SCREEN MACHINE

Way back in February 84 we reviewed a graphics utility by the name of PAINTBOX. Print'n'Plotter (P&P) have extended the program since then and repackaged it under the new name PAINT PLUS. To round off the graphical facilities they have produced a companion program called SCREEN MACHINE. PAINT PLUS deals with the screen and UDG creation, while SCREEN MACHINE handles multiple screens, provides screen modifications, compiles text and compresses memory saving screens. FRANCO FREY takes a look at the new package.

PAINT PLUS

PAINT PLUS is unmistakably a descendant of PAINTBOX. On side two of the cassette there is a very stylish DEMO program with five individual screens. Rather than let you wonder whether or not the screens have actually been created with PAINT PLUS, the 88 page Deluxe manual covers these samples in detail explaining all the little tricks and problems. ‘Cover girl’ is beautifully animated (she winks). Side One contains the utility which is loaded in two parts as PAINT PLUS and ORGANISER. PAINT PLUS can be run under three different cursor controls, Kempston, cursor keys and alternative which is configured by default for the BRITISH MICRO GRAFPAD. The Main Menu displays the main three work areas: UDG Creator, Precision Plotter and Screen Planner, which combines UDG’s and screen creations.

UDG EDITOR

The submenu provides six choices. VIEW BANKS displays the four available UDG banks and any of these may be called into the ‘current’ UDG area for editing. DRAWING BOARD is the creative work area. Either a normal Sinclair character, a custom UDG character or a blank can be called up as a starting point for the new creation. On the screen two large 8x8 grids will be displayed, one being the inverse, in the centre two actual size characters, one inverse, the other normal and a readout of the decimal value for each line of the UDG. As usual the cursor is moved around on the normal oversize grid and squares fired or filled with the joystick button (Or 0 button).

Once created, the UDG may be modified with one of the several UDG functions INVERSE, ROTATE and MIRROR. Saving into one of the 21 current UDG character positions is done through FILE WORK. The UDG editor menu provides a save and load from tape option. SKETCH PAD provides a sketch area, where related UDG characters may be printed (for multi character sprites). These characters however can only be from the current UDG set. The manual provides all the information on how to access the four banks from within Basic programs. An alternative character set is provided on tape (side 2) after ORGANISER and the two microdrive adaption programs.

PRECISION PLOTTER

This is the High-res drawing board for screen creation. After selecting the current INK, PAPER and BRIGHT colours, the blank screen will be displayed with a crosshair cursor, the LINE MODE indicator, a sample of the current ink colour and the digital readout of the x, y position. The cursor movement is fast, but can be slowed down by pressing CAPS SHIFT. The design work can begin. The following options are available:

Q. PLOT

W. DRAW

V. CLS

B. BOX draws a rectangle between the original and the new cursor position diagonals.

H. CIRCLE with radius prompt.

R. RADIAL MODE draws lines always from the original cursor position without updating to the new cursor point.

3. LINE MODE

A. ARC with a CURVE or ARC prompt, which requires inputting a positive or negative real number. 1 gives a semicircle.

E. ERASE erases the last drawing operation, by recalling the screen from the ERASE memory, which is updated before each command.

N. OVER provides the Spectrum Over mode.

X. INK allows the change of the current ink colour.

M. SINGLE PIXEL CURSOR

K. CROSSHAIR CURSOR

A FILL routine is provided and depending on keys F, D, G, L or I the drawn object will be painted solid, with a dot pattern, a grid pattern, a horizontal or vertical line pattern.

EDIT MODE changes the cursor to a rectangular frame and this can be moved around the screen similar to the crosshair cursor. Pressing key 2 will capture a detail of the screen and enlarge it x8 for detail work. Enter returns the full screen. In magnification mode the attributes are not affected and colour must be added later with the full screen.

PAPER WASH MODE offers the choice of Paper colours. The Border colour changes to indicate the paper colour in use and the new colour can be ‘washed’ on the screen. A pixel or character brush width are available depending on the cursor selected. No attribute grid is available in the LINE MODE, so it will be difficult not to make the colour attributes clash.

SYMBOL SHIFT. HELP MENU provides an overview of all the functions and their access.

P. PERMANENT MEMORY stores the current screen in memory for later recall.

9. GRAPHICS recalls the screen from memory.

Z. COPY copies the current screen to the printer.

S. SAVE saves the current screen to tape.

J. LOAD loads a screen from tape.

BREAK exits PRECISION PLOTTER after saving the current screen to PERMANENT MEMORY.

SCREEN PLANNER

SCREEN PLANNER combines the work created in the UDG editor and PRECISION PLOTTER and text may be added to it. Selecting SCREEN PLANNER displays the drawing on the screen and the current UDG bank along the bottom of the screen. Any of the four UDG banks may be called up simply by pressing keys 1-4.

SCREEN PLANNER is used in a similar way to UDG SKETCH, but with the extended facility of calling UDG from any of the four UDG banks and of changing the INK/PAPER/BRIGHT/FLASH colours of any character. The x, y readout relates to the Sinclair PRINT AT grid. Key X (Ink) is selected for changing Ink and Paper colours before printing a character. Key Z (Flash) changes any character under the cursor into its Flash state. SYMBOL SHIFT provides the TEXT ENTRY MODE. The Text is entered in the edit area and on pressing Enter is printed at the cursor position.

SCREEN PLANNER has the facility of ‘grabbing’ UDGs from the screen by positioning the cursor over the selected screen area and pressing Enter. A UDG position A-U must be entered. The new UDG will appear in the current UDG bank at the bottom of the screen, but must be saved permanently via UDG EDITOR. The grab technique can be used as an alternative to the SCREEN EDITOR for designing multiple character UDG’s. Together with the enlarged edit mode this provides a 4x3 character cell to work on. An interesting feature is provided with key 0, which flips the four UDG banks in rapid succession to test out UDG animation sequences.

ORGANISER

ORGANISER is a separate program to PAINT PLUS and chains the UDG and screen files into one single MULTI-FILE, providing also the information to manipulate them from within Basic or machine code. Up to 35867 bytes of memory are available for the MULTI-FILE.

SCREEN MACHINE

SCREEN MACHINE contains three separate programs and an Index/Loader. SCREEN MACHINE ONE is a Screen Graphics Compressor, SCREEN MACHINE TWO a Screen Graphics Processor and STRING MACHINE a Text Compiler.

SCREEN MACHINE ONE

Most screen graphics contain areas of empty space. Rather than store these as individual blank spaces, SCREEN MACHINE ONE counts them and replaces them with a flag and a number. The effectiveness of the compression depends on the complexity of the picture, but up to 4K can be saved for a single screen. Compressed screens print slightly slower to screen due to the conversion time requirement. The Main Menu provides four options, CATALOGUE, STORE, LOAD and SAVE. A normal screen is first loaded via STORE. The present compression mode may be changed or retained. If retained, the screen can either be checked for the amount of bytes it will require in compressed mode or directly stored at the next available memory location.

Once stored, the CATALOGUE page will be displayed, which keeps a record of the stored pictures together with their starting locations, length, mode and two numbers which have to be poked to direct the recall process. The total memory space for the pictures is 35235 bytes.

The screen compression options are related to the screen size. FULL stores the whole screen area, TOP the top third, MID the middle third and BOT the bottom third of the screen. Further to this the screen can be saved with or without attributes and in normal or compressed mode.

When all the screens have been entered and compressed, the MULTIPLE-FILE may be saved to tape or microdrive. Similarly, an already existing MULTIPLE-FILE may be reloaded for further processing. The manual provides all the required information for handling the MULTIPLE-FILE from Basic or machine code. With the ability to create a long and instantly recallable sequence of images, FLIP SCREEN ANIMATION can be performed quite easily. Good use of this is made in the DEMO program for SCREEN MACHINE, where the animation of three horses should impress anybody. Again, the manual explains in detail how this was constructed.

SCREEN MACHINE TWO

SCREEN MACHINE TWO enables processing of previously drawn screens. Five options are available from the Main Menu. The first two allow screens to be loaded from tape or microdrive into permanent memories A and B. Similarly options 4 and 5 dump the screen to tape. Option 3 is the DRAWING BOARD and it is here where the creative work is done. A series of keys will be presented along the bottom edge of the screen to invoke various functions.

C. CALL transfers screens A or B to the display/work area.

S. STORE stores the current screen into permanent memory A or B.

B. BLEND superimposes a screen from A or B onto the already existing display screen.

E. ENLARGE enlarges a portion of the screen indicated by W (WINDOW) by a factor of two for each press of the key. It also enlarges the attributes proportionally. The SCROLL functions can be used to align the required section in the window.

R. REDUCE reduces the whole screen by a factor of two with the loss of some detail, as it discards alternate lines horizontally and vertically. Attributes cannot be reduced, so colours will have to be added at a later stage.

F. FLIP provides a mirror image of the screen.

I. INK gives the option of changing the whole screen to a new INK/PAPER/BRIGHT combination or can SELECT particular colour combinations and change only occurrences of these.

W. WINDOW creates an inverse window whilst the key is pressed, which can be enlarged if the key E is pressed and is used for centering or positioning scrolled screens.

T. THIRDS inverses alternate screen thirds whilst the key is pressed.

M. MENU returns to main menu. CURSOR KEYS are used for scrolling the screen by character cells with attributes, or with Caps Shift pixel-wise without attributes and provides an easy means of relocating screen images. There is no wraparound at the edges, so screen information is lost at the leading edge, while the trailing edge is left blank. This provides a facility for masking off or blanking screen sections. REDUCE and SCROLL can be combined to provide Step and Repeat Patterns.

STRING MACHINE

STRING MACHINE compiles text into machine code. Apart from saving memory space it provides a very rapid display of text on the screen with its inbuilt machine code driver. The menu provides access to a CATALOGUE section, where all the strings that have been created are listed together with their locations in memory and their lengths. Individual strings or all of them may be viewed. Up to 48 individual strings may be catalogued. A BASIC program is provided for the creation of the string, which also contains all the text/screen positions and attribute commands required. When the program is run, the text is printed on screen and can then be re-edited or compiled. Options are available for selecting the print area (screen lines 0 to 21) or edit area (screen lines 22 and 23) and start address of the compiled code. The SAVE TO TAPE facility dumps the compiled code to tape.

VERDICT

PAINT PLUS and SCREEN MACHINE offer a formidable weapon for the creation of interesting and artistic screen designs. The programs are linked logically for the unexperienced in the superb 88 page manual, which not only gives excellent tips for the actual design work, but includes such information as conversion to microdrive operation, photography of screens and even the use of Spectrum graphics on video. The DEMO programs with the sample screens are not only window dressing, but are a help in understanding the potential of the programs. This is helped by the extensive explanations provided in the manual. Highly recommended for Spectrum users with artistic fingers...

Program: PAINT PLUS & SCREEN MACHINE
Producer: PRINT’N’PLOTTER
Price: £9.95 & £8.25 PLUS P&P

MIDI — MORE TECHNO-MUSIC WITH YOUR MICRO

In previous Niches, we have devoted a fair bit of space to reviewing software and hardware that help you and your Spectrum create sound and music. Now it’s time we took a look at how your trusty computer can control dedicated music synthesisers. We’ve prevailed upon JON BATES to plug in his musical intellect, and prepare an intro to the world of MIDI. Next issue, Mr Bates willing, we should bring you details of specific devices and name a few synthesiser names for you to try them on...

If you’ve been casting your eyes or ears over music shops or magazines during the past few years, you cannot have failed to notice that more and more instruments and effects are boasting a MIDI INTERFACE capability. Sales pitches aside, a lot of folks aren’t really sure what all this new-tangled MIDI capability is all about. If you fancy yourself as a budding composer of electronic music, and want some help from your Spectrum, read on.

MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, and came into being in 1982 after a high-level meeting between most of the major synth manufacturers in the world. Prior to this meeting of Musical Big Cheeses, manufacturers were plodding on with their own specific ways and means of getting synths connected up and talking to one another. As a result of the variety of ways of going about this, sales were not too healthy and mutual strangulation was imminent.

Most synthesisers were (and are) using digital methods to create and store sounds; it seemed reasonable to come up with a standard which permits synths from different manufacturers to be connected together, thereby doubling the sound. Seems simple, but the story doesn’t end there.

Drum machines have always been capable of sending clock pulses to whatever synth will accept them. This means that the drum machine can effectively control the speed, and synchronise with a pattern of notes put into its companion synth’s memory. Presto. Instant electro-pop with no mistakes (in theory!). Take this one step further, with MIDI, and you can link together a host of synthesisers, all merrily playing one another and presenting a united musical front — all in time with each other. MIDI is much more than a straightforward connecting cable, however.

If one synth can play another — then why not harness the power of a computer, get it to store all the information, and train it to act as Master Conductor. Enter the Spectrum. With a suitable MIDI interface and software, it is possible to fill your Spectrum with a fair number of notes. The really cunning part is that you can give the Spectrum every tiny detail about each note — whether it should be loud, soft, short or long. Furthermore, MIDI is capable of passing on more than these details about individual notes — and can also change from one sound in the synths voice memory to another, thus governing what sound a note should be.

Most electronic synthesisers have the ability to memorise at least 20 ‘voices’, and many can remember considerably more The variety of sounds available is almost limitless. However, you can usually only play one voice at a time on a synthesiser. Link your Spectrum up to one synthesiser via MIDI, and you have something quite clever. MIDI can, however, talk to and arrange to control up to sixteen synthesisers in one go (glad you can afford that many — ED). MIDI can control this many instruments by allotting each synthesiser a channel number — probably labelled on the synth as ‘MIDI channel select’, and it then becomes possible to address each synthesiser directly and tell it which notes to play in which voice.

If you’ve written your multi-synthesiser masterpiece correctly, then all the synths hooked into the system will play along and perform your composition under the careful and precise control of your Spectrum. Not all that many people can run to the luxury of sixteen synthesisers but if you’ve got one, and a chum down the road has another and than there’s that one....

Needless to say, the Spectrum is perfectly capable of acting as a master clock so that drum machines can function in perfect synchronisation with the rest of the amassed technological gadgetry at your disposal.

In order to understand further what MIDI is all about, a little musical erudition is required. Those of you well attuned to the mysteries of music should be fairly familiar with the next few bits of information but hang on in there!

Notes may be entered into a Spectrum either by Real Time or Step Time. Real Time means that the computer tucks away into its memory details about each note as you play it on the musical keyboard — the Spectrum acts rather like a tape recorder. It can then play your notes back to you from its memory, bum notes and all. Cunning software may, however, allow you to edit the bad ones out. Step time, on the other hand, is a bit more laborious. The exact details of each note are entered manually, either by combination of synthesiser and Spectrum keyboard, or directly from the computer’s keys. Step has one major advantage: it leads to music which sounds clean and very together — ideal for all electro-type stuff. It also has a great appeal for those of us with a little less than wonderful dexterity at the keyboard. Results are usually displayed on-screen in musical notation, although some software needs some fairly hectic maths to determine the required amount of steps per note. Also sequences can be created and instigated using step time. (A sequence is a set pattern of notes that is usually repeated over and over to form a basic part of the composition — a musical subroutine if you like.) And it is possible, using complex systems, to arrange a song so that certain sections can be repeated as required.

MIDI controlled synthesisers usually perform in polyphonic (Poly) mode. That is, they will play more than one note at a time. (A piano is polyphonic, a kazoo is not.) MIDI allows such synthesisers to be addressed in three ways: Omni — all the synths play exactly the same notes, all together; Poly — the master controller can tell each synth to receive only information on the particular channel it has been set to (1 to 16) and Mono — any voice in the synthesiser’s memory can be called up to play at any given point within the composition. Spectacular sound changes may be achieved in this way.

One extra facility offered with MIDI in combination with your Spectrum is particularly useful if you can only play by ear, and want to produce a score of your real time composition. Print outs of the music written into memory can generally be made using a graphic quality printer.

Synths are fitted with at least two MIDI ports, IN and OUT, so that they can transmit and receive MIDI information. Many of them also have a THRU port, which enables instruments to be chained together so you can achieve those spectacular orchestral effects alluded to previously.

MIDI actually functions on a modified 8-bit system wherein the first bit of information, the flag, simply defines the nature of the information following — either Status or Data. Status tells the synth which part of it is required to work, while Data tells it what to do. For example, the Status could be ‘Sustain’ — the synth would then access its internal sustain department. The data then following tells it how long to hold, or sustain, the note.

At either end of each byte is a start and stop bit, which marks its beginning and end. Provision is also made for individual manufacturers to allow their instruments to communicate only to each other. This is because some synths have features not found on others.

All in all, MIDI is an immensely powerful musical tool, which is, as yet, only in its infancy. Next month, we should be taking a look at specific interfaces, and some synths which you can mate up with your Spectrum. Watch out Depeche Mode, the Synthesiser Sound of Sid Spectrum’s going to be big soon!

THE EXPRESS GANG

IF YOU DON’T enjoy your tea while waiting for your program to load from the audio cassette recorder, or you’re just generally of a nervous disposition, you will have considered acquiring an improved storage medium for the Spectrum. Most people reckon that they can transfer their games collection on this new acquisition and will be able to call off any desired game at the bat of an eyelid! Whoops, not quite so...

Most storage devices require some sort of operating system, which enables the user to access the various functions. With the Spectrum this usually means that the operating system provides an extension of the BASIC instructions, without interfering with the normal cassette commands. These functions can thus be called up within BASIC and executed either directly from the keyboard or from within the BASIC programme. The commands are usually reminiscent of the BASIC Microdrive commands, but do vary quite a bit from disc system to disc system. The only other alternative access to the drive functions is via machine code, but unless the manufacturers provide the necessary information regarding the entry points to the various machine code routines, this approach may be impossible or of little interest to the average user.

It may be noted that until recently none of the drives had a hardware triggered interrupt facility, which would allow the games program execution to be interrupted and the complete contents of the Spectrum memory to be dumped, a perfect way of copying cassette games onto disc/cartridge. The Microdrive in combination with the excellent Mirage interface manages to do this and the latest addition is the improved version of Technology Research's Beta Disk Interface with TR-DOS V4.

For the other interfaces, if the user knows what he is doing, there is the possibility of breaking into the program and manipulating it onto disc in various sections, but only if the operating system memory requirement does not interfere with the program execution area. The drives vary considerably in the memory requirements and some drives make it their business not to use a single byte of the standard 48K available to the Spectrum, an obvious advantage.

In this issue of CRASH Franco Frey begins a survey of the Spectrum fast storage market which will include such mundane things as the Sinclair Microdrive right up to systems which make the Spectrum appear to be an add-on.

Not all these storage devices belong to the desirable group of floppy disc drives. We review Microdrive/Interface 1 lookalikes such as the Wafadrive with its stringy floppy cartridges; the latest entry, the Triton, with its peculiar spiral track motion disc system and the horde of standard Shugart compatible floppy disc drives such as the Beta Disc, Kempston, Timex, and Opus. Many of these products include added benefits such as serial and parallel interfacing and some even provide joystick interfaces.

The units will be individually reviewed and scrutinised right down to the last bolt or screw. We shall be specifically looking at the cost and performance of the individual storage media, the mechanical and electronic performance of the devices and, most important of all, how the operating systems involved interface with the good old Spectrum.

So here comes the crazy Express gang...

TRITON QD

HARDWARE:

Large cream coloured disk drive unit with integrated power supply and mains lead connected via permanent lead to black coloured interface box which connects to the Spectrum system edge connection. Interface provides an expansion port for printer or other add-on. A slide switch is provided for drive selection. Interface 1 may not be connected to the system, as it uses the same ROM configuration.

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION:

Although the TRITON QUICKDISK uses hardjacketed floppy disk media, it falls under the category of the stringy floppy systems, as the access is not random but sequential. Unlike the standard disk drives, where individual tracks may be accessed by positioning the read/write head with a stepper motor, the TRITON QD combines the floppy disk rotation with a continuous linear tracking of the head and thus creates a single spiral track along the disk similar to a record groove.

The spiral is completed within eight seconds whereupon the linear motion disengages and returns to the start position. This means that consecutive access time is restricted to eight seconds. In general this works out faster than the Microdrive and similar to the Wafadrive. Formatting requires only one go and this means an extremely fast formatting time. The interface caters only for one drive and should a second drive be required, a second interface will have to be installed.

OPERATING SYSTEM:

Extended Basic residing in shadow ROM.

SYSTEM COMMANDS:

FORMAT < drive number> formats and initialises a diskette.

CAT * <drive number> examines and displays file contents on screen: Bytes free, Filename, Type (Basic-b, Data-d. Machine code-m), Size (bytes) and Execution address.

SAVE * <drive number>; b; "filename" stores BASIC program to diskette on selected drive number.

SAVE * <drive number>; d; "filename"; <variable name> stores a data file to a diskette on selected disk drive.

SAVE * <drive number>; m; "filename"; <starting address>, < ending address> stores a machine code program to a diskette on selected disk drive.

LOAD * <drive number>; "filename" loads a file from diskette in selected disk drive.

ERASE * <drive number>; "filename" deletes a program from diskette in selected disk drive.

COPY * <drive number> TO drive number>; "filename" copies a file from one drive to the other.

COPY # formats a diskette on drive 2 and block transfers files from drive 1 to drive 2. Neither copy command can be used in BASIC program mode.

ERROR REPORTS:

13 error messages

EXTRA FACILITIES:

Second drive requires extra interface.

MANUAL:

Preliminary manual sufficient, contains most necessary information.

APPLICATION PROGRAMS:

None, but listing of utility included for transferring unprotected programs from tape to disk.

CRITICISM:

Slow access due to loop time. Fairly expensive for stringy floppy type drive without serial or parallel ports.

COMMENTS:

Longer life media compared to cartridge tapes.

MEDIA:

2.8 inch hard jacketed floppy disk with write protect tab. Price £2.99

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION:

Number of drives per system: 2
Storage capacity (formatted): 100Kbytes (2 sides)
Number of sectors: 20 per side
Sector size: 2.5Kbytes
Data transmission rate: 101.6 Kbits per sec
Recording density: 4410 BPI

TIMING:

Formatting: 8 sec
Cataloguing: 2.5 ― 8 sec
Loading a screen: 2.5 ― 8 sec

PRICE: £119

MICRODRIVE AND INTERFACE 1

HARDWARE:

ZX INTERFACE 1 stacks under the Spectrum and uses the Spectrum system edge connection. It includes a 9-pin D serial port connector and the LAN input and output sockets and provides also an extension port for further add-ons. The MICRODRIVE connects via a pluggable flat cable to the INTERFACE 1. Further MICRODRIVES can be stacked side by side.

SYSTEM DESCRIPTION:

The Interface 1 incorporates the Microdrive controller, a local area network (LAN) and a serial RS232 interface. Up to eight Microdrives may be accessed, with each having a formatted capacity of more than 85K. The system commands are incorporated as a BASIC extension in a shadow ROM. Two new concepts have had to be established, the CHANNELS and STREAMS. The various functional parts of the computer system are defined as channels to which data can be sent. There are seven types of channels, the keyboard (k), the screen (s), the ZX printer (p), the text RS232 interface (t), the binary RS232 interface (b), the network (n) and the Microdrive (m). A network channel requires a station number "n"; x where x is in the range of 0―64. A Microdrive channel requires a Microdrive number and a file name "m"; y; "name" where y is the Microdrive number (1―8) and the name is a string between 1 and 10 characters long. The routes along which data flows to and from the channels are known as STREAMS. There is a maximum of 16 streams #0 ― #15. Apart from the four streams #0 to #3 the streams may be between any input and output channels. Streams #0 and #1 output data to the lower part of the television screen and input from the keyboard. Stream #2 outputs to the upper part of the screen but cannot input. Stream #3 outputs via the ZX printer, but cannot input. Stream channels have to be opened and closed for use.

OPERATING SYSTEM:

Extended Basic residing in 8K shadow ROM

SYSTEM COMMANDS:

RUN automatically loads and runs after a NEW or after switching on any program stored under the name "RUN" in Microdrive 1.

CAT (#x) displays an alphabetically ordered list of all files in the cartridge of Microdrive n. With the optional stream statement the catalog can be sent to the specified stream.

LOAD * "m"; n; "filename" loads a program from Microdrive n with the name "filename"

SAVE * "m" ; n; "filename" [ LINE x ] saves a program to the Microdrive n under the filename. If the line statement is included, the program will automatically run starting from line x.

VERIFY * "m"; n; "filename" verifies, ie compares the data of the just saved file on Microdrive n with the file still residing in RAM.

MERGE * "m"; n; "filename" merges the program from Mocrodrive n with the existing BASIC program in RAM.

ERASE * "m"; n; "filename" erases the program from the Microdrive cartridge in the specified Microdrive.

FORMAT "m": n; "name" formats the Microdrive cartridge on Microdrive n and gives it the specified cartridge name.

OPEN #x; "m"; n; "filename" sets up a new channel "m"; n; "filename" and attaches it to stream #x. If a filename is not to appear on the catalogue, it can be protected by giving it a name beginning with the character whose code is a 0. The file will not appear on the catalogue.

PRINT # , data outputs the print sequence data to the specified stream. The print statement can use three forms of separators: semicolon prints nothing; comma takes the cursor to the next half line and apostrophe gives a new line.

CLOSE #x unlinks any channel from the specified stream after emptying the respective buffer.

INPUT #x, data inputs the variable from the specified stream.

INKEY #x returns a single character as a string from the stream if a character is available, and returns a null string if not.

MOVE #x TO #y moves data from the source (x) to the destination channel or stream (y). This allows you, amongst other things, to make backup copies of data to another Microdrive and can also send complete files to the printer.

ERROR REPORTS:

Extensive with over 21 error reports

EXTRA FACILITIES:

Local area network connects up to 64 Spectrum workstations Serial RS232 Interface with software selectable Baud Rates from 50 to 19200 text and binary files.

MANUAL:

Comprehensive

APPLICATION PROGRAMS:

Demo program including printer server and network game

CRITICISM:

Slow access time due to long search periods. Short cartridge life, occasional tape jamming by pinch roller Non-standard RS232 connector (9-pin D)

COMMENTS:

Still the cheapest fast storage system.

MEDIA:

Microdrive cartridge using continuous loop tape (5m x 1.5mm) with write protect tab. Price £1.95

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:

Number of drives per system: 8
Storage capacity (formatted) bigger than 85K
Sector size: 512 bytes
Recording density: approximately 500 bytes per inch

TIMING:

Formatting: approx 34 sec
Cataloguing: approx 10 sec
Loading a screen: approx 7.5 sec

PRICE:

Interface 1: £49.95
Microdrive: £49.95
(But look for special deals!)

BORNE BY DESIGN!

uilled games began to surface in 1984. The Quill utility from Gilsoft was a mixed blessing. On the one hand it allowed programmers to develop complex programs without the need to worry about how these programs might be implemented. This improved access allowed people with imagination and flair to produce original software. On the other hand The Quill gave access to many dabblers who, quite frankly, should never have produced software. Their heads full of nonsense put about by the frivolous press about easy money, they thought writing software was much easier than it actually is.

Writing a computer game is no different to writing any other game, whether for a board or a television studio. It must possess enough fine qualities to make the player actually want to get involved and to spend some time getting to know the rules. Once the player has finished playing he/she should wonder at how clever the whole game’s design was and how well it played.

Although The Quill imposes severe restrictions upon the design of a game it is clear from analysing the charts that this is not such a fundamental factor in determining the success or failure of a Quilled adventure. Hampstead was a Quilled game and a chart success. The reasons for this seemingly anomalous situation lie in that game’s refreshing originality and cutting humour (notice cutting humour, not slapstick which was surpassed soon after Laurel and Hardy and only lives on in BBC comedies). Tower of Despair did not make the charts but it had an imaginative story and was well laid out with a fine redesigned character set.

The factors which link good adventures are borne of the thought, design and discussion which precedes their implementation. Even in the case of an all machine-coded adventure, the design stage takes more time than the coding.

LONDON ADVENTURE

Producer: Fridaysoft
Price: £4.95

Fridaysoft was formed by six Spectrum adventure enthusiasts who felt it was time that adventures moved away from the usual fantasy settings with their demonic bunch of hobgoblins, dragons and other things which have adventurers for supper. This adventure has been designed to pertain somewhat to the real world as it tries to keep reasonably geographically consistent with its chosen theme — London (you know, that place south of Milton Keynes.)

They say that a man who is tired of London is tired of life but who ever said this obviously never got out of the taxi. What better than to put your feet up and visit the sights via a computer. This game has over one hundred locations most of which will be familiar even to those who thought Middlesex was a mid-life crisis. The aim of the adventure is to find the combination of a safe deposit box. The numbers that make up this combination are hidden within locations and objects you find. Unless you complete the game within a certain number of turns, a shadowy figure will prevent you claiming the inheritance. What a meanie!

See if you can guess whereabouts in London this description relates to: ‘I am on board the Cutty Sark. The well scrubbed deck reflects the sunlight. The smell of pitch fills my nostrils. I can hear the sighing of the wind in the lofty rigging. I can see a naval tableau with figures clad in a costume of a bygone era. I can see a sword in a scabbard.’

London Adventure is a very long text only Quilled game. The fact that it is based on a real geography makes the game very interesting. The plot is commendably lucid and would keep any adventurer well absorbed.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: fairly easy
Graphics: none
Presentation: poor
Input facility: v/n
Response: instant
General Rating: London on a plate.

Atmosphere

6/10

Vocabulary

5/10

Logic

6/10

Addictive Quality

5/10

Overall

6/10

THE RATS

Producer: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Author: Five Ways Software Ltd
Price: £7.95

There is one thing which troubles me about writing this column. I have to weigh up how much I should go over the same old points I’ve made in the past and balance this with my rather low boredom threshold. However, to say ‘for my views on this subject see CRASH blah blah issue pages x to z’, seems too reminiscent of those pompous, stuffy academic reports so I think I’ll settle for a little rehashing of old thoughts.

The point I’d like to make here is that publishing companies should be careful when producing computer software. This little industry has quickly come of age and the matching of what the public wants to see on a computer to what the public gets has come a long way — some outstanding software has been produced. Programming skills on the Spectrum have improved to the point where there’s little room for programming innovation; just about everything the Spectrum can possibly do, it now does.

If programming expertise is near its zenith then program design and implementation aren’t far behind. It is in these fields that software producers must be very careful. When designing a board game, the questions at the end of the day are: can someone actually play it, given the instructions; and if they can play it, is it any good? The same must go for computer software. Can the games player play the computer game and if the player can, what does he/she think about it? With this game The Rats, I can barely answer the question ‘what did I think about it’ because I could hardly play the darn thing and, after an (unfortunately) long while, I didn’t much care one way or the other. No doubt many of you will buy it because of its interesting theme and slick presentation. It looks great. As a programmer, though, reviewing the game was disappointing as it drops too many own goals.

The way the game loads is clumsy and downright unfriendly. The instructions are all over the place and have that far from endearing quality that has even the most clear-headed reading paragraphs time and again. It interleaves garbled loading instructions with details on game play which don’t fully explain exactly what you have to do. Playing the game does not make light of these instructions. For example, the system for deploying troops is clumsy and once they are deployed it’s difficult to keep track of them. I’ll admit you could direct many of these comments at other prominent pieces of software — it’s just that The Rats seems to embody all the worst aspects of clumsy design and implementation.

The problem of sensible input has been successfully tackled in the game by reducing the number of options available to the player at any one point to, at most, two or three. The result of this system is sensible input sure enough — the program always understands what you want to do as it itself offers the options — but sometimes the actions you are channelled into do not make much sense. It is a game for much to-ing and fro-ing and exploration as new avenues can appear almost unnoticed.

The Rats is based on the chilling bestseller by James Herbert. Although it is not necessary to read the book to enjoy the software I would guess reading it would greatly enhance the player’s understanding and sense of purpose. The game details your struggles with oversized rodents, which you attack through the eyes of minor characters such as Paula Blakely, and major characters like Harris, Howard and Foskins; a resourceful and courageous hero, a young rat scientist, and an Under-Secretary of State respectively. These characters are introduced in a similar way to films eg Close Encounters. The game might cut away from Paula Blakely struggling with the rats on a very personal scale to Foskins whose job is to coordinate London’s Emergency Forces from General Headquarters.

Rat-Kill, Police, Fire and Military forces can be deployed against the rodents along with equipment such as protective suits, chemical gas, flamethrowers, electric stun pods and Anti-Rattus gas. Marked on the screen map of London (which, unlike the rest of the presentation, is scruffy) is GHQ, Harris’ flat, and the Research and Development Centre where the important work on the origin, nature and vulnerability of the super-rats takes place at the greatest possible speed as the security forces seem ill-equipped to quash the rodents’ surge across London.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: may take some time to halt the rats
Graphics: average
Presentation: good
Input facility: option-driven
Response: good
General Rating: Looks nice (apart from scruffy London map).

Overall

7/10

Vocabulary

7/10

Logic

7/10

Addictive Quality

7/10

Overall

7/10

THE SECRET OF ST. BRIDE’S

Producer: St. Bride’s School
Author: Priscilla Langridge
Price: £6.95

If you cast your mind back some time to when a curious little item ended the news about some school in Donegal where grown women could return to their idyllic school days then you might quickly get the idea of what this game is all about. Well, the erudite mistresses of that noble establishment, St. Bride’s School for Young Ladies, have begun a foray into the world of adventuring starting with this game, which gives some feel of what a stay at the school might entail. The feel of the game is reminiscent of those faintly Victorian Boy’s Own stories I read when young. Presumably, when I was reading all about Jennings and Derbyshire all them giggly girls were absorbed in their own feminine versions, a taste of which can be sampled here.

On the front of the Prospectus is the Latin inscription Semper Ad Lucem which is very apt as I haven’t the foggiest as to what it might mean. Perhaps playing this game might sharpen my intellect and rekindle that desire to learn and retain irrelevant facts. Anyway, the gist of the thing is that St. Bride’s is a small private boarding school for girls between the ages of 13 and 18, set in two acres of grounds on the edge of the little fishing village of Burtonport in the heart of the Rosses on the west coast of Ireland. The area is one of outstanding natural beauty containing over a hundred lakes. The house commands views of the Atlantic to the west, while to the east the rugged countryside sweeps away to the distant Derryveagh Mountains. If you still don’t know the area I’m on about then clearly you must have been educated in a crummy comprehensive and could do with a bit of the character, poise, health, and happiness from which the girls benefit at this school. There again, opening something called an atlas wouldn’t do much harm either.

In an editorial a few months back I commented on how it might be a good idea to centre an adventure on somewhere that really exists and it looks like this is what we have here. This game explores the imposing Victorian building which now houses St. Bride’s. Studying the curriculum I see that not much has changed since Victorian times as we are told that while Elementary Latin and Grammar are high on the curriculum, science, apart from Botany is not so well served. There again, maybe schools have got it right — when did studying science ever earn anyone any money in the headlong dash for the material goodies? You’ll be relieved to note that although the school day officially begins at 7.30 with the rising bell, rising is not obligatory until breakfast at 8.15. Nice of those mistresses, eh?

So what part do you play in this adventure? Well you play Trixie Trinian, a girl just out of school who’s come to St. Bride’s for a school holiday (!?). You soon learn that this school is how it would be were it fifty years ago. All the staff are convinced it’s the late twenties (although there is some confusion over the exact date), as are your fellow pupils. Much of your early explorations are simple enough but there comes a stage, after about 12 locations when a bit of thought is required. The authors give some clues to the complexity of this game when they concede that many will no doubt find the word which finishes the game but few will uncover the remaining 50% which leads to the coveted amulet. A St. Bride’s certificate of merit awaits the player who can uncover the word but the discovery of the amulet entitles the owner to an A Level in Adventuring and a free copy of every game St. Bride’s produces.

The nuts and bolts of the adventure are assembled around Gilsoft’s Illustrator and Quill and entail rather slow full screen graphics which, rather disappointingly, are redrawn with every R for redescribe. This, not unexpectedly, tends to slow things down. (If you are not into adventures and you’re wondering what the heck I’m on about REDESCRIBE sticks up on the screen the location description ie, where you are at, and is necessary because often it scrolls up and off screen as you input your commands). Another niggle is the almost totally inactive EXAMINE.

Niggles apart, this isn’t such a bad adventure and creates a lot of atmosphere. I just wish I’d gone to public school, learning Latin for a few years is a small price to pay if it buys a cushy job in the Civil Service. That reminds me — I haven’t had a cup of tea for quite awhile — it’s not Darjeeling, it must be Victorian Tea.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: easy to begin with, then more difficult
Graphics: average
Presentation: highlights etc
Input Facility: v/n
Response: instant
General Rating: Interesting.

Atmosphere

7/10

Vocabulary

6/10

Logic

7/10

Addictive Quality

6/10

Overall

6/10

A TANGLED TALE

Producer: Pocket Money Software
Author: D. Watson
Price: £0.99

One of the strangest manifestations in software in the last year or so is the vast range of prices available to the consumer. The packaging and quality of tape may be the same both for an £8 game and a £2 game, it being the programming which is thought to determine just how much the public are willing to cough up. There is no parallel in either books or records as you can guarantee that, say, an LP in the shops at £2 was once sold at the usual price when it first appeared and the artist all the rage. So what on earth can you make of software on offer at the measly sum of 99p when the quality of programming is not bad and even the printing on the inlay is neat and attractive? Just as I was working on the sums as to whether such a venture could possibly make any money I was astounded to see that an offer on the inside of the inlay card explains how to obtain a free blank cassette from PMS. The mind boggles.

Two aspects of this game impressed me when I considered the price. One is the programming which is not bad and compares favourably to games three times the price, and two is the design of the game which is sufficiently different to hold the player’s attention for some time. I think clever implementation of a novel idea is pretty amazing in a game which retails at 99p.

The all pervasive flavour of this adventure is that of Lewis Carroll, an Oxford mathematics don who wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865, Through the Looking-Glass (1872) and the nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark. The superb loading screen will be strangely reminiscent to those who have read the Alice books. The title of this adventure must refer to the piece of string you are carrying in the first frame. Examining it you find it has ten knots. To untie these you must solve ten puzzles which lie beyond the five characters you meet: Humpty, Caterpilla, White Knight, White Rabbit and Mad Hatter. Your task then is to find and help Alice to the Eighth Square to be queened. Movement is very simply Left, Right, Up, or Down but what isn’t so simple is the puzzles set by the characters. Humpty comes up with ‘I don’t admit women are faint’ which will only make perfect sense to you if you are ready for the loony bin. Needless to say I could only make partial sense out of it but I’ve met one or two people in the software business who could wax lyrically with this one.

And what might you make of this one: He thought he saw a garden-door that opened with a key, he looked again and found it was a double rule of three. ‘And all its mystery,’ he said, ‘is clear as day to me!’.

Tangled Tale is an exceptionally good buy for only 99p. It will be especially enjoyed by those who know something of Lewis Carroll’s works and the magical world they create. The program’s simple structure and imaginative graphics will appeal to the young and yet the width of response to anything you type in will keep the not-so-young happy as well. Tangled Tale is a cheap tonic for a crazy world.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: the puzzles are difficult but this does not stop play
Graphics: good colourful, imaginative graphics
Presentation: super
Input facility: v/n
Response: instant
General Rating: Very good value.

Atmosphere

7/10

Vocabulary

7/10

Logic

none

Addictive Quality

6/10

Overall

8/10

THE TOUCHSTONES OF RHIANNON

Adventure International, £9.95

If you’ve ever wondered how long it takes to write this column the answer is very simple — a long time. Between writing programs of my own, playing these here adventures enough to form some opinion on them and writing something which appears coherent, there’s barely enough time to laugh at Top of The Pops. But all’s well this late Thursday evening as it’s time to say one or two nice words about an awfully good program. Touchstones of Rhiannon is an adventure of Robin of Sherwood and is based upon the TV series by Richard Carpenter, yes, that’s right, the one with the haunting Clanad song. Even if, like myself, you more monitor TV rather than watch it I’m sure you’ll recognise heart-throb Michael Praed who played Robin in the HTV series on the cassette cover and may well be interested in the full colour poster offer from Adventure International inside.

If you buy this game, and, judging by the success of Gremlins from the same people, many of you will, let me forewarn you of an unnecessary irritation on loading. After about two minutes of loading the screen puts up some information. Unfortunately no loud buzz or other warning draws your attention to this fact and it is so easy to let the tape run on without you stopping it that many of you will be caught by it even after reading this. This tip is for those who’d rather read a free newspaper than sit and watch a game load.

When the game loads you are confronted with a dire situation with you, Robin, your accomplices Will Scarlet and Much the miller’s son locked within Nottingham castle. The layout of the screen is pure Brian Howarth with the lower scrolling input part separated from the picture, short location description and things you can see above. When picking up an object it disappears from the list of items you can see and the screen gives a flash as it has done ever since the days of Digital Fantasia. Anyway, enough of the rudiments of adventuring and on to the story, one which I liked as I think the story of Robin of Sherwood is very much suited to the medium of adventuring.

The Prophecies of Gildas have it that a Hooded Man shall come to the forest of Sherwood and meet Herne the Hunter, Lord of the Trees, and do his bidding. The power to wield great good or evil shall be his and the guilty shall tremble. Over one hundred years after the Normans conquered England rebellion still flared like embers from a dying fire. One such rebellion was led by Ailric of Loxley who believed in the ancient legend of Herne the Horned God of the forest and his son Robin who would lead the English against the Norman tyranny. At the time of this adventure Ailric is dead, Robert de Rainault is High Sheriff of Nottingham, King Richard is busy with the crusades leaving the evil Barons to run the country and it would seem all rebellion is over. However, none had bargained for the appearance of the Hooded Man. We join the Hooded Man in a cell as he has been caught breaking the law of venison by Sir Guy of Gisburne and now awaits a terrible punishment. You need to escape from there and from Nottingham Castle as quickly as you can (in Robin Hood style, in fact) whereupon Herne will appear and give instructions.

Due to the vast amount of memory used to serve up the superlative graphics the range of vocabulary the program can accept is limited. Having said this an imaginative person may soon be out of the castle and free to roam Sherwood forest within a few moves. I’d say that over all the difficulty of this adventure is about right as it is no pushover but not so difficult as to make you want to forget the whole thing. This game has you thinking hard about its problems long after you’ve switched off the power to the computer. One curious aspect of the program’s input analysis is its tendency to ignore most of the input it does not understand to the extent that you soon realise that nothing has happened unless something in the top half of the screen has changed. This rather minor shortcoming is easily offset by a very good EXAMINE command which proves both useful and essential if Robin is to make any headway. The characters, are wooden, but, once again, what can you expect in a program which displays graphics that make you proud to be a Spectrum owner?

Well, leaving the best till last, what about the graphics? In short they are astonishingly good. Imaginative and highly artistic pictures greet just about every frame and even the ones depicting Sherwood forest, which may have become dull, really give the feeling of wandering through a vast expanse of trees. Intelligent design is the order of the day.

Robin of Sherwood and the Touchstones of Rhiannon, unlike many other TV tie-ins, is a superb implementation of the original. The graphics are nothing short of stunning and the plot maintains your interest throughout. I liked Gremlins a lot but rather wished I had seen the film. However Robin of Sherwood is a story familiar to everyone and this game is a magnificent interpretation of the theme. If you liked Gremlins, or if you don’t normally play adventures, take a look at this one.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: testing
Graphics: the best!
Presentation: good (but white glares on a colour TV)
Input facility: sentences
Response: quick
General rating: an enjoyable challenge

Atmosphere

9

Vocabulary

6

Logic

7

Addictive quality

10

Overall

9

As regular readers of CRASH will be aware, Angus Ryall of Games Workshop has been our strategy reviewer for a goodly chunk of time. However, Angus is now interested in developing other areas of his life and is relinquishing his regular column. This doesn’t mean that Angus is never going to write for us again... expect to see the occasional vituperative contribution from Angus between the CRASH covers from time to time.

Sean Masterson will be occupying the Frontline from now on — two days after he started work in CRASH Towers, we found he was a keen strategist, and so we gave him a desk, and told him he was editor of the Frontline column... over to you, Sean.

... OF STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF STRATEGY...

THE PURPOSE of this column, as I see it, is not just to review wargames, although they are almost bound to take up the largest proportion of space, but to have a look at strategy software in general.

There is something in the subtlety of a good strategy game which appeals to many people more than arcade or adventure games. Arcade games require great manual dexterity. Adventures require a good deal of lateral thought, but the player can still have trouble deciphering a game’s input format long after the clues have been solved, because of the restrictions of computer memory. With a strategy game, there is no guaranteed method of success. Only a guideline — a strategy — which may bring you closer to your goal. Strategy games have more potential for variety than any other type of game.

Every time you load a game like D-Day into your trusty machine, you know that no matter how many times you’ve played it, you’re going to have to put a great deal of thought and intricate analysis of case problems into the gameplay if you are to stop the enemy from hammering you into the ground! There isn’t the smug certainty of success that comes with experience on your average arcade game.

Of course, many people are not directly attracted to wargames anyway, feeling that they are somehow morbid. Whilst I cannot agree with that assumption, I fully appreciate the sentiment. Still, software houses have responded to this in quite an exciting way — more fantasy and science-fiction games are appearing. One only has to consider the success of something like Lords of Midnight to see that the market does exist. Strategy games seem to have an interesting future ahead of them.

Before moving on to this month’s reviews, it’s appropriate to give a rundown on the new rating system that will be used in these pages. Herewith a quick rundown of what they are and what they mean:

Presentation:

from packaging to loading and options screen. A friendliness factor

Rules:

How well written and logical they are. Also takes into account complexity and clarity

Playability:

How easily and smooth flowing the game’s structure is, once you have digested the rules

Graphics:

Rated relative to other games of the genre, not a comparison with arcade game graphics

Authenticity:

Degree of realism achieved

Value:

Is it worth the money?

Overall:

Our impressions

In conclusion, I would be keen to hear from any keen strategists or wargamers who have views or opinions they’d like to put across. Drop me a note and who knows, we might be able to start a Strategy Forum. If I get enough response, they might even decide to keep me on (please guys...)! Hang on, Graeme sounds in a good mood; things are getting better. On with the reviews....

CONVOY

Producer: Budgie Software
Author: Rino Software (F. David Thorpe)
Price: £2.50

First impressions of Convoy were very good indeed. The packaging was superb, especially for a budget game. So, interest already aroused, it was hastily loaded — and that was where disillusionment set in.

The game displays a very impressive loading screen — somewhat reminiscent of Beach Head, which has clearly been designed by professional graphic artists: unusual for budget software and certainly for wargames of this type. Unfortunately, the good impressions end once the game has loaded. The two players required must choose their respective flagships and it’s time to read the instructions.

One problem with many strategy games, and in particular wargames, is that it’s usually necessary to digest masses of highly detailed rules before play may commence. Sometimes this proves to be worthwhile, sometimes not. This was one game where reading rules hardly made any difference at all — they were simply appallingly vague. The so-called instructions are, in fact, just an information sheet about the various ships and submarines with additional information regarding navigational techniques. The only other item covered is how one actually wins (or indeed loses) the game. Actually how to play is not even mentioned once. It is precisely this sort of oversight which can render games of this type totally useless. Before contemplating victory in Convoy, you need to spend a long time working out how to make your moves.

Playing the game is a tiresome and laborious task. First you have to opt to signal, then type in which unit you wish to signal to, and then go through the process of actually telling the unit what to do, which is yet another series of entries, each needing a fair amount of consideration. One interesting touch is that requesting a report on a particular unit causes a picture of the ship to appear on the screen. However, once the same picture has appeared several times but referred to under different names, the effect soon wears off. The graphics for these little symbols are quite nicely done, like the title screen — but don’t expect anything like the quality of graphics involved in an arcade or adventure game.

The object of the game is to get supplies to your own country, while simultaneously trying to prevent supplies reaching your opponent’s country. Surprisingly, there is no option to play against the computer. Convoy is a strictly two-player game, with Germany and Britain to choose from, and secrecy of plans and routes is so vital to interesting play that one person cannot play both sides successfully — you need a friend as an enemy! Furthermore, it is essential that each player looks away from the screen at various points in the game, which might prove difficult under some circumstances.

You try to achieve your aim by setting courses for your ships, pointing them in the direction of your country. This task is made very tricky by periodic weather changes, and allowances must be made accordingly (this is easier said than done). You can also try to set courses to block off enemy ports or shipping routes, though during play, absolutely no success was gained attempting this. An action sequence is mentioned in the ‘instructions’, but again, we couldn’t find it!

What you do have to watch out for, is encounters with aircraft. Any damage to merchant vessels from planes sinks them, meaning you land less cargo when you reach port. One annoyance was dealing with petty details such as calculating exactly the speed of ships as they entered port so that they didn’t crash straight into the harbour — that is probably going further than actual ships do in practice! It also means you waste a good deal of time for very little reason.

The game inevitably takes a long time to play to its conclusion and it becomes immensely boring long before then. There is a save game option for masochists, though. Convoy is a very strange mixture — some very good graphics (spoiled by vast overuse) combined with the potential of a reasonable wargame are ruined by poor game play. There is a redefined character set but as only three of the characters are redefined, there seems to be little logic to this self defeating feature. In fact, the game is riddled with so many petty annoyances that the game probably takes more time to play than the average gamer will be prepared to devote to it. All in all, this is the sort of game which will quite likely put you off wargames for life and gives strategy games a bad name.

Even at £2.50 Convoy is not value for money, despite its professional packaging. It’s quite simply a disappointment from start to finish — leave well alone.

Martin Lester

Presentation

30%
Unimaginative and simple.

Rules

10%
What rules? Practically non-existent.

Playability

40%
Not difficult, but annoying and unremarkable.

Graphics

50%
Not bad for this kind of game, but spoiled by repetition.

Authenticity

50%
Hard to say as it isn’t strictly a simulation.

Value

12%
Minimal — only for masochists.

Overall

25%
Even the low price doesn’t justify its shortcomings.

THE RATS

Producer: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Author: Five Ways Software Ltd
Price: £7.95

A plague of rats is swarming through London at an incredible pace. The government refuses to face the seriousness of the problem and won’t give you the resources you need. Stopping the rats is proving tremendously difficult — you’re racing against time and losing. The pace is electric but you wonder... are you likely to succeed in your task before you get sick to death of reloading the game...

There are several examples of computer games based on famous books on the market. The Electronic Pencil Company’s The Fourth Protocol is perhaps one of the best examples of current success in this field, and now Hodder and Stoughton have released The Rats based on James Herbert’s chilling novel. It is a fascinating mixture of semi-graphics adventuring and real time strategy. Unfortunately it is also a mixture of innovative successes and miserable shortcomings.

The title sequence is one of the most original and atmospheric ever designed for a computer game. A prologue is written out in bold white letters across a black screen to set the scene. A brilliant animation sequence follows, in which a pool of torchlight wanders around in the blackness before red eyes appear in the dark. Just as the light moves onto them, a superbly drawn rat pounces into view! Then you are presented with the main, blood-spattered loading screen. The pathetic little tune accompanying this is more amusing than annoying in the context.

The Rats is, to all intents and purposes, two games in one. The Strategy game involves stopping the spread of the rats from the city of London and eradicating them as soon as possible. The opening screen is a simplified map of London with an option window at the bottom. The main options are ‘Report’, ‘Forces’, and ‘Research’. A flashing cursor on the map indicates rat activity, and you can call information on areas of activity, deploy forces, or ignore the cursor and work on research instead.

If you ask for a report, you will be prompted to define which area you wish to access information about. Moving your own cursor over the chosen area on the map and pressing enter, opens a smaller window on the screen which provides basic information such as ‘Old lady attacked by monster rat’. You may then eliminate the window and move on.

You can also ask for reports from various groups you may have deployed in the field. Three icons on the screen indicate the R&D centre, GHQ and Harris’ flat (Harris is one of the major characters from the adventure section) and reports can also be sought from these places. It is fairly important to follow the reports so that you become aware of the nature of the attacks, but to concentrate too much time on them will leave you no time to allocate forces.

The deployment of the fire service, police and professional rat-killers is vital to your success — if you fail to contain the rats and they leave London you lose the game. The three types of forces have varying ability and choices of weaponry. Initially, weapons are fairly conventional, with dogs, gas and high pressure water hoses. You must equip a unit and then move it to the area where you require action (fortunately you don’t have to figure out how many of what to give to whom; the limitations of each force are worked out for you). Later you may ask for that unit’s progress report.

Your forces are very limited and trying to stop the rats with them is in fact impossible. What you need to do is delay the rodents for as long as you can and eventually, the army will be brought in by the hopelessly reluctant government, thus giving you a second lease of life. This does not happen for some time however, and there’s plenty to keep you busy beforehand.

It’s also vital to devote resources to research, but you have finite resources and must decide how to use them to best advantage. The areas for research are origin, nature, offence and defence. Spending points on offence and defence will help develop more potent weaponry to use against the rats but making discoveries about their origin is fundamentally important to the adventure game.

The adventure game, like the strategy, is real time. You are shifted to the adventure section at random intervals throughout play. Each entry into the adventure section, which is really a series of mini-adventures involving various minor characters’ encounters with the rats, is precluded by an alarm sound from the computer. Don’t worry if you lose minor characters — as you often will to start with. Allow a major character (such as Harris) to bite the dust, however, then you’ve had it!

The format of the adventure is excellent. A large window on the right of the screen contains all the text output in slow-scrolling format, which helps emphasise the real time aspect of the game. At the bottom of the screen is a small window with three major command options which give access to further sub-options presented in the left hand window.

A heartbeat sound (at least it’s supposed to be heartbeat) accompanies the text. As the situation becomes more tense, the heartbeat speeds up, adding greatly to the atmosphere. Because the game uses options instead of text input, conversations with the computer can’t be ambiguous, which results in very fast and efficient play. Occasionally a new option will appear in the window, implying an impending application — sometimes using it will not help, but generally the appearance of new options works like an inbuilt hint sheet!

If you lose an encounter with the rats, the page seems to tear open and a rat pounces out at you. The use of a simple scream sound is quite effective here too. This is definitely one of the highlights of the game. The narrative quality of the text is superlative and gory, in true Herbert style. Definitely not for the squeamish, this.

The two games integrate perfectly, with good strategy needed to keep going and good adventuring necessary to finally subdue the oversized vermin. With automatic returns to the strategy game after completion of the ‘mini-adventures’, this smooth play must be credited for the faultless piece of design it is.

The ‘miserable shortcomings’ of the game already mentioned don’t really exist in the game, but rather around it. The loading sequence is very unfriendly: the tape has to be stopped during the animation sequence. Although the instructions mention a way to skip the animation, it didn’t want to work, and very little leeway is left between loading sections. When the animation ends you do not receive a prompt to restart the tape, but have to wait for the tune to finish and press play. Problems arise which could easily have been avoided.

While the game is loading it is easy to believe that an error has occurred — the tape error warning used in the sequence is totally useless and it’s difficult to tell whether the program is being received. This problem is aggravated by the disablement of the speaker, and for some totally inexplicable reason, some of the blocks are not actually received at all, to judge by the border during loading. It is natural to assume that the system has crashed but if you leave well alone, the game loads perfectly in the end. This weird pretence of failing to load is very annoying particularly since it isn’t referred to in the instructions. Very unfriendly.

Once loaded, it’s wise to save the game as soon as possible as as there is no restart facility because the program possesses massive data files and the game itself continues on the second side of the tape. If you haven’t saved a game, you will have to load the entire thing from scratch! There is no menu of options to help clear up matters, and the instruction booklet is misleading and practically unintelligible.

These are major faults, considering the size of the game. On any other game they would be totally crippling, but because of the input format, even badly explained sections can be picked up fairly easily.

The game’s percentage based scoring system is silly. We scored 35% for playing what was apparently a good game, full of successes. Yet on a new game where the computer was left to win without any player input, the final score was 21%! Also, when in the adventure section and the pace gets fast, minor system crashes seem to occur in the form of text character decay and randomly appearing multi-coloured blocks, though these do not seem to affect play.

If Hodder & Stoughton had ironed out these faults, the game would have been declared perfect. However, its shoddily finished format may detract from the success the game deserves.

Presentation

66%
Some prompts in the game would have raised this rating. And the instructions were ambiguous...

Rules

90%
...Having said that, once you pick them up, they’re very clever!

Playability

90%
Very fast and smooth — especially with a joystick

Graphics

90%
Almost as good as they could possibly be in this kind of game.

Authenticity

90%
Fair play and very close to the book. Impressive.

Value

80%
You do get a lot of game for your money.

Overall

70%
The game is let down by the loading problems and a lack of a restart facility.

BOULDER DASH 2: ROCKFORD’S RIOT

Producer: Monolith
Author: Peter Liepa, Chris Gray
Price: £9.95

In issue 12 CRASH carried a review of Boulder Dash marketed by a K-Tel company, Front Runner. The rights to the game are owned by an American software house, First Star, which designed the game for the Atari. Now that K-Tel and Front Runner are no longer part of the software scene, Monolith (owned by Beyond) were able to get the UK Spectrum and Commodore licences. Monolith’s package includes the original game, Boulder Dash, and features a sequel — Rockford’s Riot.

In both games, you control Rockford, a cute little character, who is trapped in a collection of sixteen caverns which he must work his way through sequentially. To progress from one cave to another you have to collect a number of diamonds; how many varies from cave to cave, but on some you could find yourself looking for up to 75 diamonds. There’s also a different time limit for each cave. Run out of time and you lose a life.

The caves are about three screens large and are presented in a scrolling format. Rockford can move left, right, up, and down. Whenever he nears the edge of the screen another section of the cave scrolls into view. The caves are made up from three basic building blocks; earth, boulders and diamonds. Earth is eaten away as Rockford moves through it, leaving empty space in his wake. When earth-supporting boulders or diamonds are removed, they fall down, making things potentially dangerous for Rockford.

Once you’ve collected the set amount of diamonds from a cave you need to search for an exit. This can be quite tricky as it’s relatively easy to get cut off from your escape route after moving the boulders about. If you escape, you will get a bonus, which depends on the time you have remaining. As you progress through the caves things get harder as new factors are introduced.

In some of the later screens you have to transform diamonds into butterflies. One cave contains no diamonds at all: just one expanding amoeba which you must encapsulate in rock, whereupon it turns into a pile of diamonds which also need to be encased in rock. If you leave the amoeba for too long it changes into hundreds of boulders which are likely to squash you.

The game doesn’t have to be started at screen A — you can begin from every fourth cave: A, E, I and M. If you manage to complete four consecutive caves a bonus screen is awarded along with a chance to solve a little puzzle and gain an extra life. Lives are also awarded for every five hundred points. Five skill levels are included which affect the cave structures and the time allowed.

Rockford’s Riot is very much a sequel to Boulder Dash. All of the old features are here but arranged in a different way to present a new challenge. Riot has sixteen new screens and two new features that are not in Boulder Dash. An expanding wall gives you a very nasty time in one of the caves when you clear the earth away from around it. Water is found in two caves — while it isn’t dangerous you can take advantage of its supportive qualities.

CRITICISM

‘I expected Rockford’s Riot to be a step forward from Boulder Dash, but it’s really just a step sideways. Admittedly, there a few new features, but for all intents and purposes Rockfords Riot is a souped-up Boulder Dash. The program still has its good points. Boulder Dash fanatics will love Rockfords Riot and it’s extremely good value for those who never bought the original, thanks to the B side. But I must admit that I would be disappointed and feel slightly cheated if I’d bought Boulder Dash in the past and had just purchased Rockfords Riot expecting an exciting follow up. The B side would only make things worse.’

‘Spectrum Boulder Dash was a very good conversion from the Commodore, retaining all the playability of the original, despite the poor scrolling. Rockford’s Riot is as good a translation as its predecessor in that it follows the 64 version closely. The thing is, the new screens aren’t particularly innovative and I was somewhat disappointed to see little in the way of new adversaries. This is still a very enjoyable game to play but I would have appreciated something more than a simple reworking of the theme.’

‘Having played and enjoyed Boulder Dash immensely I looked forward to getting hold of Rockford’s Riot. After loading the latest offering from Monolith I found that while being a good game, Riot offers little more than some extra caverns for Boulder Dash without any graphical improvements. It is a fun game to play which can keep you addicted for hours and hours, but once all the good routes have been learnt it becomes very boring and repetitive. £9.95 seems a bit steep, but you do get Boulder Dash with it. Overall it’s a good game but if you have already got Boulder Dash then it isn’t very good value for money.’

COMMENTS

Control Keys: left M, X, 5; right Symbol Shift, C, 8; up E, 0, 7; down F, K, 6; fire N, V, B, 0; Q to quit; S to reset
Joystick: all joysticks
Keyboard play: very responsive
Use of Colour: very simple
Graphics: not over detailed, but still good
Sound: very good
Skill levels: five
Screens: 16
General Rating: Very addictive but the game is getting a little long in the tooth. Above average nonetheless.

Use of Computer

75%

Graphics

85%

Playability

92%

Getting Started

89%

Addictive Qualities

87%

Value for Money

90%

Overall

84%

BOUNTY BOB STRIKES BACK

Producer: US Gold Ltd
Author: Bill Hogue, Tim Miller, F. David Thorpe
Price: £7.95

Bounty Bob originally appeared on the Commodore 64 and Atari and is a follow up to another 64/Atari game, Miner 2049’er, the first ever platform game. In case you haven’t seen Miner 2049’er (that’s where Manic Miner came from) here’s a quick history.

Miner 2049ser is set in the mines of Yukon Yohan, an evil swine who has dumped radioactive waste in the caverns and turned all the little furry creatures who stored their food there into horrible, marauding mutants. The idea is to enter the caves, steal all the radioactive stuff (whilst dodging the mutants) and escape. Bounty Bob is set in the same mines and the plot is pretty similar, although this time Yukon Yohan has left some odd bits of machinery lying around the mines, which occupy a total of twenty five screens.

Control, although being for a standard left/right up/down ladders and jump game, has a novel touch — a variable jumping distance. To make a short jump, leap straight up in the air and wait until Bob’s almost at the peak of his travel before pressing the left or right key. To make a long jump, press the direction key as soon as you press jump. This, although it takes a while to get used to, is an excellent control method, allowing you to do some pixel perfect jumps.

As you walk along a platform it changes colour. To complete a screen, you have to change the colour of all the platform floors before the time limit runs out. The difficulty level you choose at the start of the game determines how much time you are allowed for each screen, and as you move round a digital counter at the top of the screen remorselessly reduces your remaining moments. Progress is impeded by loads of deadly mutants trundling about the platforms. One touch from a mutant kills you, and you have to either dodge or kill them.

To murder mutants you need to collect one of the items littered about the screen and this adds points to your score. All the mutants turn green when you pick an object up, and a green mutant dies when you run into it. After a while they’ll flash a couple of times and return to their normal, deadly selves. There are usually quite a few of these objects littered about the screen, all of them everyday things like radios, coffee pots and candelabras, but they have to be used quite sparingly since getting from one mutant to another usually takes a while.

If you lose a life on a screen you are reincarnated, as are the objects — but the mutants you managed to kill stay dead. And you don’t have to re-walk the parts of the platform you covered before meeting your end, which makes life that bit easier.

On some screens there are devices to help you travel to the more inaccessible platforms. These vary from conventional lifts to the more exotic matter transference beams that tele-transport you from point to another. Look out for the ‘super energy food bars’ — if you eat one you speed up and your jumping power increases by a factor of three, allowing you to jump huge gaps between platforms. Very handy indeed!

Slides connect some platforms, and when you step onto the top of a slide you go tumbling down the chute. Before you descend to a lower platform, take a good look at what’s below you — sometimes there’s a rampaging mutant at the bottom and it doesn’t do you much good landing on it if it’s not flashing!

Within the game there are special codes and warps which allow you to start from different levels. These are revealed as part of ‘secret messages’ which pop up when you solve certain screens, starting with screen four.

When you get a top ten high score you can enter your name by bulldozing your initials onto a moving conveyor belt. Once you do so a load of birds fly on screen, pick them up and deposit them on the high score board. If the tenth score is beaten then it’ll be dropped on the floor, bulldozed into a square and booted off the screen by Yukon Yohan himself.

The menu screen allows you to choose different skill levels and the number of lives and you can control a number of other variables, giving the game far more variation than you’d expect from a run-of-the-mill platform game.

CRITICISM

‘This is a really fabulous platform game. I first saw it on the Atari in April, and then on the Commodore and was subsequently hooked. It’s survived the transition to the Spectrum very well, and apart from the usual drop in graphical and sonical qualities has the same brilliant playability. The game has some highly original touches, making it fun to play and a real toughie to solve. The game is a classic and shows that you can’t beat a good ol’ platform game.’

‘Bounty Bob Strikes Back was, and indeed is, one of my all time favourite Commodore games. It isn’t one that I thought would translate to the Spectrum too well, but I’m glad to say I’ve been proved wrong. The graphics have been reproduced as near perfect as is possible on the Spectrum and the game is as playable as ever. This is a refreshingly original variation on the platform theme and one that shouldn’t be ignored by anyone seeking a complete collection of classic games.’

‘There seem to be many platform-type games on the market; quite a number are copies of arcade games, others are original. In both sectors there are good and bad games. This one is a huge improvement on its predecessor — MINER 2049er. The screen is well laid out, and uncluttered, although there is plenty going on. It is ages since I have seen a platform game with such complexity and with so many screens, each demanding a different skill factor. Each screen is also a definite progression through the game. Sound is well used, with some nice tunes now and again. Graphics are well drawn, but there is some flicker, such as on the lifts. I don’t think that this spoils the playability. One of the more complex platform games around, this one could go down well with platform game freaks.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: O/6 left, P/7 right, Z/0 jump, Q/9 to enter transporters etc
Joystick: Kempston, cursor and Interface 2
Keyboard play: good, pity you can’t define the keys
Use of colour: above average
Graphics: pretty neat, but there is some flicker
Sound: nice tunes and sound effects
Skill levels: 4
Screens: 25
General Rating: A good platform game which combines a lot of extra facilities.

Use of Computer

82%

Graphics

74%

Playability

83%

Getting Started

80%

Addictive Qualities

82%

Value for Money

75%

Overall

85%

THE DAMBUSTERS

Producer: US Gold Ltd
Author: Platinum Productions
Price: £7.95

You may have read the book, seen the film or made the Airfix model kit but have you actually re-enacted the mission on your Spectrum? No? Well now you can, courtesy of Sydney Development (design), US Gold (distribution) and Platinum Productions (conversion).

Dambusters puts you in full command of one of the Lancaster bombers used in the historic flights across Europe and into Germany, to stem the output of the German Steel Industry (and to kill a few people in the process). Not only do you have to play the part of the pilot in flying the plane, but the roles of gunner, bomb aimer, navigator and even engineer — all at once!

There are eight screens, one for every role, and each can be ‘called up’ at any time by pressing the corresponding key.

You can also check your current score and status in the same manner. If any of the ‘crew’ are experiencing problems of any sort then their respective ‘letter’ flashes at the bottom of the screen to inform you of the fact. For example, a gunner under attack from an enemy aircraft would result in a flashing ‘W’, implying that you should change to Front Gunner immediately.

PILOT

As Pilot you are given an ‘out of the cockpit’ view and simply have to steer the plane and keep an eye on airspeed, altitude and heading with the instruments provided. All instrumentation can be displayed as either analogue (dials) or digital (numbers), depending on your bent.

FRONT/TAIL GUNNER

Both screens put you in control of twin 303 FN machine guns (sound pretty smart, eh?) and give you the task of shooting down any enemy planes and barrage balloons that prove a hindrance, or taking out any spotlights that would give away your position. The Front Gunner also doubles up as the Bomb Aimer. When you are approaching the dam a set of distancing sights appear on screen. These sights must be lined up with the two towers of the dam so that the correct distance between plane and dam can be determined so the bomb can be released accurately.

BOMB AIMER

Before the bomb can actually be dropped it must be ‘readied’ and the plane must be brought to the correct height and speed. Two spotlights underneath the plane need to be aligned to ensure that you are flying low enough, and this screen is for just that purpose.

NAVIGATOR

Although the Pilot steers the plane, the Navigator does have to point him in the right direction first. A six screen map of Europe is used to follow progress and to set the course for a dam (there are three to bomb). All military installations, airports, inhabited areas and industrial complexes are represented on the map by different coloured symbols and the size of the symbol determines the concentration and/or size of an installation.

FIRST/SECOND ENGINEER

There are two engineer screens, giving access to all main engine controls, landing gear and other relevant gauges etc. The first screen has a throttle, booster and fire extinguisher control for each of the four engines, with gauges to indicate their status. The second shows the fuel situation for the four engines and allows you to adjust the rudder trim and flaps and raise or lower the landing gear.

STATUS AND DAMAGE REPORT

This screen gives details on any flak hits you have incurred and the number of ME 110 fighters, searchlights and barrage balloons you have encountered and have actually ‘taken out’. A summary of any damage to the plane is also given along with your current score.

Should you successfully get across Europe, conduct an approach and release the bomb you will be treated to a picture of the dam with comments on where you went wrong, if indeed you did.

CRITICISM

‘The main problem with Dambusters is its playability. The designers seem to have tried to produce a flight simulation with a game, but neither aspect is particularly brilliant. The simulation side of things is good, with enough controls but not much in the way of ‘realism’ — the feeling of flight is generated only by the detail inside the plane rather than from the external view, as the effect of the dots as a horizon is poor. This is unfortunate, as the gameplay is in fact the weaker element. There is little variety in things to shoot and avoid, and the appeal of the ‘one crack’ mission soon palls due to the fact that it takes time to fly across Europe to the dam, ‘avoiding’ flak, barrage balloons and fighters in the process, only to become very frustrated and despondent when you miss. Still, Dambusters is a good try at something new but fails to work effectively because it tries to cram too much into too little.’

‘US Gold’s attempt to recreate Guy Gibson’s famous dam bombing run has resulted in a cross between a simulator and an arcade game. It is difficult to react quickly to any enemy attack because of the need to switch screens to retaliate. When you start, controlling the plane can be a bit of a problem. The game kept telling me that ‘turning and flying at low altitude are incompatible’. This meant my wing had been ripped off! The bombing run was the most difficult of all — you need to control several factors at once, all of them very easy to bodge up. Dambusters is quite enjoyable, though sometimes a little dull. Some more action would have improved it no end.’

‘Dambusters is a brave attempt at a flight simulator/arcade game, the only trouble being that neither aspect of the game is particularly good. There are several really good options, like the facility to practice a bomb run, start in the air over the English Channel or take off from the ground, but the game itself is rather boring. I thought there would be a lot more enemy resistance to a raid which, if completed successfully, would be a major threat to German domination in Europe. The Lancaster is fairly easy to fly and apart from crashing into the ground there are no real problems in staying aloft. The only real tricky bit is actually passing over the dam and dropping the bomb on target. During this part of the game, aligning the Lancaster with the dam is very difficult and fiddly. This results in the whole thing becoming very tedious — reaching the dam is so easy but failing to drop the bomb successfully time after time becomes a bore.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q — Pilot, W — Front Gunner, E — Tail Gunner, R — Bomb Aimer, Y — First Engineer, U — Second Engineer, I — Status, Damage Report and Score, H — Pause, 1 — Down, O — Up, 8 — Left, 0 — Right, Bottom Row — Fire
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Protek
Keyboard Play: responsive
Use of colour: poor
Graphics: detailed instruments, little else
Sound: average
Skill levels: three
Lives: one
Screens: eight
General Rating: A playable flight simulation and game.

Use of Computer

78%

Graphics

80%

Playability

73%

Getting Started

79%

Addictive Qualities

68%

Value for Money

70%

Overall

75%

HALLEY’S COMET

Producer: Eclipse Software
Author: Maurice Gavin FRAS
Price: £6.95

Graeme (Grey Boots) Kidd tells me that there has been some sort of major disaster every time Halley’s major has poked its nose into our corner of the solar system. I have every confidence that Grey Boots is wrong but, not being the sort to leave anything to chance, I thought that I should refer to Maurice Gavin’s latest work, Halley’s Comet.

Halley’s Comet is designed to provide non-astronomer types with a comprehensive and easy to follow guide through this forthcoming celestial visitation. The opening menu lists eight options. Option one plots the path of the comet from 1948 to 2024 giving two perspectives. The plot takes about four minutes but it can be speeded up. The second option does much the same thing except this time the scale of the map is much larger, the plot is from September 1984 to January 1987. The next three options give information on the comet’s visibility. First, a graph of apparent magnitude which shows when the comet will be visible and by what means it can be viewed. For example, between now and November the comet can only be seen through a telescope but from January to May you can observe it with the naked eye alone. If you live in the Northern hemisphere and want to know for how long the comet will be visible each night, then option four will tell you. Eclipse haven’t forgotten the other CRASH readers either, because option five does the same as four, except this time for viewers in the Southern Hemisphere (and a big hello to all CRASH readers who live there).

The next options produce some very useful but often complicated looking results. The computer does not calculate the data relating to the comet’s position — instead it looks up a table which results in a much faster response. A complete list of the data can be called up by option six. The data table looks a little complicated because it uses unfamiliar units. RA stands for right ascension; in simple terms you can think of that as longitude on Earth. Declanation is analogous with Earth’s latitude. These units are important for those of you with observatories in the garden; all that you need to do is to enter the co-ordinates and it will be set ready to let you observe the comet.

For most of us — all we need to do is to be able to locate the comet by referring to the patterns made by the stars — a star map can be called up via option seven. The star map produces a detailed map of the heavens marking the position of the comet according to the latitude, date and time that you enter. Underneath the map itself is a table giving the comet’s position in numeric terms and giving its apparent magnitude. In a little box on the far right of the screen is a diagram depicting the view of the comet in relation to the horizon. This display is enlarged if you select option 3 which causes the skymap to be produced on a full screen.

I am not really that much of a star fan but I will be trying very hard to catch a glimpse of this comet. What appeals to me about Halley’s Comet is that I can ask for a map that will help me find the thing, as well as work out the best time to watch. The print out option is very helpful: all of the screens can produce a hard copy so you can rush out into the garden and work out just where to look. My only serious gripe is that not enough printed information came with the program. I mentioned this to Mr Gavin and he assured me that more information would be available on request. If you do intend to make the most of this visit then buying this package could be money well spent; after all you have always got it for the next time unless — of course — Grey Boots is right.

LETASET

Producer: Eclipse Software
Price: £4.95

Letaset Is a rather unimpressively packed, alternative character set library, usable on either the 16 or 48K Spectrum. What you get for your hard earned pennies is a standard cassette box adorned with a well below standard cover slip. (I realise manufacturers adore unusual presentations for their software but really, this cover is awful). It may be that Eclipse software are keeping the price low by cutting their overheads, but I find it hard to imagine a more miserable cover.

Unfortunately, this mega-cheap approach is also used on the instruction booklet. It is poorly presented and not particularly easy to read (although admittedly, I’ve seen worse). The actual explanations for use of the utility offer little help to the uninitiated, but patience should reward those who struggle on. ‘So when will he stop griping and tell us what it’s all about?’ Good point, that. Okay then.

The idea is that you can load up the Letaset program (with or without a demonstration mode) and all the different founts (ie text styles) stay hidden high up in memory, ready to be used as and when you want them. You call up the relevant fount by use of a poke, so there’s no problem using them to brighten the presentation of a BASIC program. In fact, that’s likely to be the main use of Letaset, however I shall discuss such things shortly.

The tape loaded without too many problems (I was using a slightly unfamiliar setup and the corruption errors encountered could have been because of errors on my part). When the program had loaded it went straight into a demo routine which displayed each of the eighteen character sets in upper and lower case, two at a time.

These are the founts you get: boldxz; italic; compact; knight; pump; ghost; logo script (1 and 2); futura; shadow; odysey (I can’t tell whether or not that is a deliberate error); roman (1 and 2); stencil; dragon; rocket and cursor.

It was on seeing not just the number of founts, but also their high quality that the program did begin to seem more impressive than its poor packaging had suggested. Apart from being very clear on the screen, dumps to both an Alphacom and Sinclair printer yielded excellent results. The character sets, as some of their names suggests are very varied and anybody using the utility should be able to find a style to suit any context.

As I mentioned earlier, the main use of Letaset would be to brighten up self written software, perhaps a database or even a home made word processor. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the program, its authors cannot guarantee that it will work with commercially produced software, so one of Letaset’s best hypothetical uses, say in Tasword, is unlikely to be successful in practice. It is possible to do screen saves and dumps, however, so some very quaint ‘one offs’ could be created with only the barest essentials of programming knowledge. Having criticised the manual for its presentation, its author must have certainly had some imagination. There are various ‘useful’ suggestions made as to how to get the best out of your Letaset. The most ambitious of these is the idea that by using a random pattern generator listed in the manual and overprinting it with various legible characters, you can create tickets or vouchers which are ‘virtually impossible to counterfeit.’

Hmmmm. Maybe...

All this talk of pretty patterns is very imaginative and good for the soul, but if used for little else, the program would soon be boring. Anyway, more variety could be gained by writing such a program from scratch, without any appreciable increase in difficulty. Perhaps Eclipse were being a little optimistic with some of their hopes for Letaset.

Just when I thought it was safe to come to some conclusions about the program, I discovered there was more to Letaset than I had anticipated. Side two of the cassette contains a modification program which allows character sets to be squashed, stretched, enlarged or any mixture of contortions you can imagine. The largest you are allowed to have a character is one full screen (3222) or alternatively 22 by 64 displays are possible when the character sets are at maximum reduction. These modifications to the size of the text, do increase the possibilities for ‘domestic’ use.

There are a few miscellaneous points which work to Letaset’s advantage. First of all, no matter what fount or display type you choose, there is no restriction on the use of colour. Again this will make screen displays more attractive although, of course, the effect will be irrelevant if you are only dumping to one of the thermal printers. Secondly, the programmers have redefined some of the previously ‘redundant’ characters from the Spectrum’s keyboard to create the symbol of a dragon and a damsel’s facial profile! Okay it’s totally useless but quite amusing nonetheless.

Despite the poor production and presentation, this was a simple utility which I found easy to use once I got going. I’m not too certain of its practical uses outside that of providing interesting title screens for programs but nevertheless, some of the possibilities did intrigue me. The real saving grace of Letaset is that it really is a time saver. This is all a utility can ever ultimately attempt to be. Incidentally, the authors have allowed the use of Letaset in commercially produced work, so long as the correct credits are visible on the finished product. That will always encourage the adventurous.

Sean Masterson

MACADAM BUMPER

Producer: ERE Informatique
Author: Remi Herbulot
Price: £7.95

Macadam Bumper comes back to back with the Amstrad version, which is an increasing trend nowadays, but the striking thing about this game is that it was written by a French software house. PSS are clearly waking up to this fact and not being a company to wait for the tunnel, they grabbed the UK rights. However, Macadam Bumper is more than just a pinball simulation....

Immediately after loading the game you are presented with a menu screen containing six options. If you’ve got itchy flipper fingers, you can get straight to playing pinball on the built-in table. Alternatively you can modify a table layout, design a new one, save a design to tape or load a previously created table into the program. If the mood takes you, you can redefine the playing keys before you start playing.

In PLAY mode, the table itself occupies just under two thirds of the screen; the rest is taken up with a rather saucy scoreboard the design of which rather inspires the alternative title of ‘Madam Bumper’ (well, it is French software, after all). To begin play you must insert some money, or rather press the appropriate key a few times. The next pre-game task is to input the number of players — any number up to four can join in a game.

Now you are set to begin. The ball is fired by holding down the left and right flipper keys together — the longer you hold them down the greater the force applied to the ball. Once the ball is out into the table it’s pretty well at the mercy of the bouncers, springs, bumpers and of course you, and your flippers. There is a ‘jolt table’ facility in the game, which is rare on pinball simulations and allows very realistic play. The simulation is accurate: jolt the table too much and the ‘TILT’ light comes on and you lose the game.

All the bonus features are on the standard table, you know the sort of thing, knock down the whole series of targets and you get a bonus million points or get a ball zipping between two bumpers and you can sit back and watch your score increase by a factor of ten. But when you grow tired of the standard table you are only a key press away from designing one of your own.

From the main menu you can enter the DESIGN mode where you can either modify the table layout currently stored in the program or design a table from scratch. In the design mode, the screen displays the table you are working on with a panel of parts in place of the saucy picture. All told there are some seventeen different components including slopes, flippers, bumpers, targets, rollovers and guiding channels. A selection of point values can be allocated to components which affect the score during play.

Each component and score value is labelled with a letter next to an arrow. The arrow points to the spot on the component which is placed over the cursor used to select where parts are to be placed on the table. To place a component, all that you need to do is to move the cursor to the required position and press its identifying letter.

A draw option allows you to change the shape of any part of the table. Y, G, H and B drive a cursor which draws a line in your specified colour in its wake. Pressing caps shift and symbol shift provides a brush which can paint any object that you choose to move it over, except for the bed of the table which must be of one uniform colour.

Once you have settled on a layout you can move onto the page which allows you to alter the characteristics of the table. For example you can change slope and tilt sensitivity, elasticity and the speed of the bumpers. From this page you can also alter the sound output and the rules governing the allocation of bonus points, extra balls and games.

When you have finished designing your masterpiece you can save it to tape and start on the next one, and you can always load a previous design back in and try to improve it.

When you come up with the perfect pinball layout you might be tempted to send a copy off to PSS to try and win the pinball table they are giving away as part of the inlay promotion.

CRITICISM

‘Unlike some members of the CRASH review team I was not able to misspend my youth bent double over a pinball machine. That’s one of the reasons why I had difficulty understanding the Elton John song from the film Tommy. I certainly made up for lost time playing Macadam Bumper! The game plays very well indeed but the ball does become a bit flickery when you alter some of the table specifications and speed things up a bit. Designing your own table is quite good fun, but practice is needed to avoid producing unplayable tables. This is a very good implementation of pinball, and the powerful design facility adds greatly to its lastability — especially if you are gifted with a warped imagination.’

‘It is very hard to represent Pinball accurately on a home computer. Previous versions have suffered from being slow and unrealistic, but PSS have put together a reasonable representation of the game. The graphics, though not mind blowingly brilliant, are adequate and serve their purpose well. The option to define your own tables makes it a good package and allows plenty of scope for tough games. Not being a pinball addict I found that Macadam Bumper was instantly playable and quite addictive. Overall, it’s a good game and certainly one of the better pinball spin offs.’

‘Pinball wizards will love Macadam Bumper. Playing the basic table provided within the game should provide hours of fun itself, but once you get tired of pounding flippers, it’s time to experiment. It’s up to you how many skill levels the game has — design yourself harder pinball tables as and when you need them. All in all, a good package, well executed, which you will probably go back to again and again. The instructions, however, are rather poor.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: playing keys are definable
Joystick: not applicable to the game
Keyboard play: very good
Use of colour: choose your own
Graphics: very good
Sound: average
Skill levels: depends on your design ability
Screens: one playing, two for design
General Rating: Overall this is an excellent package.

Use of Computer

85%

Graphics

87%

Playability

78%

Getting Started

65%

Addictive Qualities

78%

Value for Money

78%

Overall

87%

NIGHTSHADE

Producer: Ultimate
Memory required: 48K
Price: £9.99
Language: machine code
Author: Rare Ltd

Many moons ago in a hidden valley between the purple mountains and the seas of the Seven Islands there was a great calamity: darkness descended upon that land, evil overran all that was good and death and hunger spread. Those who remained became twisted and striken with evil and the village in that valley became possessed with powers so black that nobody dared enter.

Years later the story became legend and only the songs and tales remained of those who had tried to enter the valley never to return... for those who trespass into the village become enslaved by the immense power of the evil Overlord.

After listening to the story of the battle with the forces of evil in the Nightshade village one night, you decide to set off down the valley... and thus the scene is set for the latest Ultimate game.

Nightshade is yet another arcade adventure utilising similar ‘Filmation’ programming techniques to those in Knight Lore and Alien 8. This gives a realistic 3D panoramic view of what’s going on around you.

The program differs from the last two games in that the scenery scrolls rather than ‘flicks’ as you move from one location to another and there are no objects which you can shunt about and use whilst playing.

The game itself is set in a typical mediaeval village, complete with ancient looking houses, streets, barns, churches and the like. As you walk down the streets you can see the facias of the buildings in detail, with walls, gables and windows. If you like the look of a building then you can enter it through its door. When you do so the front of the building will disappear showing what is behind — useful as it lets you see what you’re doing.

Most of the buildings are connected so you can travel from one to the other by moving through the series of doors and rooms inside. Many of the buildings also have back doors allowing you to go through to the street behind.

Throughout the village there are loads of marauding thingies which rush after you and try to take one of your five men. Each man can be hit three times by a nasty, the fourth touch will result in him being lost. When you start with a new life he is white, when hit again he turns yellow, then green; the next touch after that turns him into a puff of smoke and he disappears.

The marauding thingies are all excellently animated and vary from small jelly like bacteria which slide along the ground to huge gremlin types which give chase waving their arms and generally disport themselves in a loathesome and revolting manner.

Your man looks a little like the knight from Atic Atac and he’s extremely well animated as he wanders about. There are some nice touches too: for instance when he bangs into a wall he puts his hands up to protect himself. He’s not defenceless either and can throw things at the nasties to protect himself as he travels around. These ‘antibodies’ (varying from sticks to what looks like the end of a mace) can be picked up from the rooms of just about any building. Running over them will automatically put them into a tube at the side of the screen. The tube only holds a limited number of objects so it has to be replenished very regularly to increase your (very slim) chances of survival. There are extra lives which can be picked up and there are also boots which, when collected, allow you to run at high speeds for a short while.

When you throw an antibody at a nasty it doesn’t always kill it straight off. Some of the bigger ones need to be shot several times with an antibody. The gremlin, for example, splits into two smaller creatures which again have to be shot. The smaller creatures then turn into a bubbling mess which still gives chase until shot for the final time. Thankfully you don’t have to go through this rigmarole every time you shoot something — most, like the flames, smaller sliding things and squat, toad-like creatures die immediately after being shot once.

The object of the game is to find and pick up the four super antibodies (bible, hammer, cross and egg timer). Once found you have to track down the four evil characters which run the show (the monk, the skeleton, the ghost and Mr Grimreaper) and throw the correct super antibody at it. If you can do that then the village will be freed from the evil which has ruled there for so long and everybody will live happily ever after... until the next Ultimate game, anyway!

CRITICISM

‘An Ultimate game is always something to look forward to — just wondering what it will be like is fun in itself. While loading I read the usual obscure Ultimate instructions which gave absolutely no hints; as with all the other Ultimate games the idea behind it is to find out what on earth you have to do! Nightshade is well up to their usual standards but unlike Knight Lore and Alien 8 it does not set new standards in programming. The idea of using the walls which flick out when you enter a building is a very good one but it tends to leave the screen rather blank. The graphics of the nasties and the village are very good with only a few attribute problems. Colour has been used effectively along with sound but don’t expect anything too outstanding. Nightshade is likely to appeal to the younger games player or to people who are fed up with the latest state of arcade/adventure/strategies and want to play a simple game where you don’t have to worry about how to crack certain codes etc. Overall it is a very good game with excellent graphics which makes a welcome change from all the complicated stuff which is being forced on us.’

‘After Knight Lore and Alien 8 I wondered how far Ultimate could stretch the limitations of the Spectrum. It’s now obvious that they’ve just about reached its peak — Nightshade doesn’t differ much from the last two, and in fact I must say that I’m pretty disappointed with it. There aren’t any objects you can jump round or shunt about, making the whole game seem rather flat and uninspiring. The game itself isn’t too difficult — once you’ve got used to playing huge scores are easily reached. I can’t really see it posing as many problems as Alien 8. Still, the game’s bound to be a smash and even if it does sometimes rely on cheating (materialising a nasty on top of you so you can’t do anything) it’s good fun to play.’

‘Nightshade is as I’d expect it to be. Yet another technically brilliant game from Ultimate. The graphics are stunning, cleverly using high resolution detail to good effect. Making the characters large enough to kill any attribute problems but still cramming them with detail is a good idea. The smoothness of the scrolling window was amazing for the amount of detail packed into it; there’s been nothing like it yet on the Spectrum. Controlling the main sprite was a lot easier than controlling Sabreman in Knight Lore because of the new option for directional control. A great little touch was the cautious look over the shoulder our hero gives himself after moving off. The thing that confused me was the actual object of the game: ‘oh, we can’t tell you that’ said a helpful voice at Fortress Ultimate in answer to our enquiry. I was also told, when asking how large the playing area was, ‘It’s pretty large’. All in all I can’t say that I was as impressed as I have been in the past. I think compared to earlier releases it’s lacking in playability. Nightshade is still very good though, and technically a lot better than anything else for the Spectrum.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: X/V/N left, C/B/M right, A/S/D/F/G forward, Q/W/E/R/T fire, CAPS SHIFT/BREAK SPACE pause
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Sinclair
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: excellent
Graphics: excellent
Sound: good
Skill levels: one
Lives: five
Screens: a closely guarded secret, it seems
General rating: Not quite up to Ultimate’s usual standards but still a truly excellent and absorbing game

Use of computer

82%

Graphics

94%

Playability

92%

Getting started

74%

Addictive qualities

86%

Value for money

90%

Overall

91%

ONE ON ONE

Producer: Ariolasoft UK Ltd
Author: Eric Hammond
Price: £8.95

The last game that we reviewed from Ariolasoft was Archon, a sort of chess/wargame. Their new offering is a basketball simulation. The only common factor between the two games is their American parentage. Both games are hits in America on the Apple, and have now been converted for the Spectrum.

One on One is not a full simulation of Basketball — instead it simulates the traditional two man American game where one all American boy takes on another all American boy in a mini competition. Clearly Dr (of Basketball?) Julius Erving and Larry Bird play this type of game a lot. They are the chaps who advised on its technical content and they also feature as the two players in the game. The idea of the two personality players allows you to add a little variety to the game, since the computer can be asked to adopt one of the two programmed personalities while your chap takes on the other persona. Erving (in white strip) is quicker at getting to the basket and has a much longer reach while Bird (in the blue) is bigger and stronger and tends to play a more intimidating game.

You can make your player move left/right, forwards/backwards and, when the time is right, jump and release the ball. The opening menu allows you to select which controls you want, keyboard or joystick. But before you begin there are a number of other options that also need to be set up. First, you can choose the type of rules under which you want to play. The easiest option — park and recreation — means that the referee is blind. The fourth and hardest level is Pro, and in this mode sneezing out of turn could lead to a penalty. Another option lets you decide who is to have possession of the ball after a point has been scored, either the winner or the loser of the point. The game can be played either until a set time has been reached or until a set score has been achieved. The timed game gives further options allowing you to decide how long a quarter will be: 2, 4, 6 or 8 minutes. The time remaining in a game is displayed on the master score board during a match.

A list of possible fouls comes with the documentation, but how strictly the rules are enforced depends on the referee — not only on his eyesight but also on how reliable he is. Another factor that will affect your player’s performance is his level of fatigue. The more running and jumping that you make him do the more tired he will become, and he will begin to slow down. The fatigue level for each player is shown by two thin blue bars at the bottom of the screen. If your player is getting very tired and slow you can reduce his fatigue level by a bit of gentle dribbling (!) or by calling a time out.

CRITICISM

‘After seeing the picture on the back of the package I was expecting a good game. However, when I loaded the game I checked the picture again and discovered that it was a CBM 64 screen shot, of course! One on One suffers from rather yucky graphics, and monochrome players that don’t move at all well. The game was neither addictive or playable. On the whole the graphics are a let down for a game which offers so many options.’

‘When I saw this game in the In Tray I was pretty excited, after all I was growing a little bored with Matchday. However after loading it I quickly changed my mind. The graphics are appalling — this game gets the prize for attribute clash. One of the men is supposed to be wearing a white shirt but he looks like he has got a hole through his chest — you can see the court markings right through him! To make matters worse the characters look as if they are walking on the moon. When I actually got down to playing the game I was horrified to find that the other player could nick the ball without being anywhere near me. All in all this is a very difficult game to play and I just don’t think that it’s worth the effort trying.’

‘This is my first attempt at a basketball game and I must say if this is anything to go by it will be my last. The game is slow, boring and silly. Shooting and stealing seems entirely down to luck and the sound is terrible. I also found that the opening menu, where you are expected to set up the game options, was very complicated to use. The only good thing about the game was the package it came in, but it would have been a good idea to have included some basic basketball rules.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: Dr J’s: left/right Z/X forward/backward Q/A to jump and release C. Larry’s: left/right N/M forward/backward P/L to jump and release B
Joystick: Kempston and interface 1
Keyboard play: fair
Use of colour: poor
Graphics: very poor
Sound: poor
Skill levels: four
Screens: one
General Rating: Buying this wouldn’t be a good way to spend your money.

Use of Computer

49%

Graphics

30%

Playability

37%

Getting Started

38%

Addictive Qualities

40%

Value for Money

30%

Overall

39%

STAR FIREBIRDS

Producer: Insight Software
Author: Mike Follin, Mark Wilson, Peter Gough, Tim Follin
Price: £7.95

In days long gone by there used to be an arcade game called ‘Star Firebirds’. It was a very ‘hip’ game to be good at and came to be one of the cheaper ways of becoming a super hero because you didn’t have to spend a fortune learning how to play it. Star Firebirds is a one or two player game based on that once popular arcade game.

If you think back you will probably remember the format; you are in control of a little space craft weaving your way through space when you are persistently pestered by wave after wave of weird and aggressive bird-like space ships. The basic idea is that you move your craft left or right dodging the onslaught of missiles while at the same time firing like crazy in order to reduce the enemy’s ranks a little. If at any time you find yourself in rather a tight spot there is a ‘chicken switch’ which allows you to warp out to the top of the screen to appear again at the bottom. Very useful, but you only get one opportunity to do that on each wave.

The speed at which the game starts depends on which of the five levels you select, and you can choose a one or two player game. The number of enemy ships in each attack wave is set at 50. During a battle the number of ships that remain to be destroyed is shown at the top of the screen, underneath the number of lives remaining to you. The current score for each player is given at the top left and right of the screen respectively. Each successive wave will be harder and, as the screen scrolls faster and the speed of the enemy ships increases, staying alive becomes just that little bit more difficult. It’s at the higher levels that the large bombs become a real problem — they descend from the top of the screen and make their way towards you. If you can, it’s best to hit them before they explode and spray the bottom line with shrapnel — which they will do even if you score a hit, but at least you will get some points for your trouble. The points depend on how far away the bomb is when you hit it: 50 if it’s right at the top, 200 if it’s nearly down your throat.

After the first wave you get a chance to re-shape the Firebird itself. It appears at the top of the screen and makes a bee line for you. If you let it get close enough it will start spraying you with missiles. Destroying it is a little difficult because you really do have to hit it quite a few times before it does the honours and turns into a ball of flame; never fear though, true to legend it will return to pester you for the next wave. The rate at which the space craft move is governed by the level you are on, but the rate at which a bomb comes at you can and does switch between three speeds. Also, the number of missiles fired by the Firebird is likewise variable.

Finally, if you manage to end up with a reasonable score you could have a little fun cracking the secret messages hidden in the high score table...

CRITICISM

‘I know it’s an old game but I enjoyed it anyway. I think it’s fair to say that it is rather easy and by the time you have cracked the higher levels you could start to lose interest. The graphics are quite good, the movement of the space craft is smooth and quite fun to watch. My only gripe is the price. £7.95 is an above average price for a game of this sort. However, if you liked the arcade game and fancy a very straight-forward arcade shoot em up then you could certainly do worse than buy this.’

‘I am afraid that this is another variant out of the left/right and fire mould. There isn’t a great deal of variation in the game — it just gets faster as you move from one level to another. It’s clearly a copy of an old arcade game that was making the rounds years ago, so in that respect this is not an original game. At first I did find the game challenging at the higher levels, but once I had sussed the patterns of the enemy attacks I began to lose interest. I liked the loading screen which has a pretty neat counter telling you how many K of code remain to be loaded.’

‘Space Firebirds is a conversion of the arcade game of the same name. It is a very good copy of the arcade original but it looks very dated now. The graphics are adequate but they are not likely to make you jump up and down with glee. As shoot em ups go, this is quite a good one though it is not on par with Moon Cresta. Space Firebirds is extremely playable but you are unlikely to return to it often. What really lets it down is the £7.95 price tag. If it was a budget game I would recommend it but it is just too dear at the moment. If you like shoot em ups then consider this game otherwise it is a bit boring.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable, excluding space, symbol shift and caps shift keys
Joystick: Kempston, cursor type and Sinclair
Keyboard play: very responsive
Use of colour: well used but a few attribute problems
Graphics: very good and quite smooth
Sound: very little during the war but it plays a very good tune
Skill levels: 5
Screens: one scrolling, 64 attack waves
General Rating: Dated, but a good game.

Use of Computer

78%

Graphics

67%

Playability

84%

Getting Started

75%

Addictive Qualities

65%

Value for Money

43%

Overall

73%

SUPER SAM

Producer: Budgie
Author: R Stevenson and P Durbidge

Alligata have decided to add to the proliferation of budget priced software by setting up a new software house, to be known henceforth as Budgie. The first two titles to be released fall into two categories: Super Sam is an arcade adventure while the second title, Convoy is a strategy game.

Super Sam is set in the midst of a dark and forbidding castle. Confined within this fortress is a chap called Boris. Now Boris is a rather slippery character, and his capture is the object of the game. The only way Boris can be restrained is by trapping him in a cage, and you have a problem. The case needs to be assembled from eighteen component parts which are hidden within the castle waiting to be recovered.

Most of the rooms within the castle are pretty straightforward having a backdrop, possibly with a door which may or may not be an exit. Nearly all of the rooms have manholes through which your man can fall to his death, unless it happens to be an entrance to a secret passage. Some of the other rooms look more like mazes, and in such rooms you may have to find a hidden path through a wall in order to get to an exit or an object.

No matter where you are in the castle you will find yourself continuously being hampered by a wide range of little bods, some of which look very much like our flat hatted hero Sam would if he rode around in a pedal car. Others resemble police persons waving tickets or even top hatted gentlemen. Looks aside, all of these little chaps are a real pain: as you wander around trying to pick up bits of the cage, they will home in on you and if they succeed your energy will be drained. The energy bar at the top of the screen will decrease rapidly with collisions and each time it falls to zero you lose a life. When you have lost all three lives you have lost the game.

There are some quicker ways of being killed — falling down a manhole or walking into a booby-trapped room, for example. Don’t worry though, it isn’t all bad news. If you live long enough you may come across an object that will afford you some protection against the castle’s inhabitants.

You don’t win or lose points in this game. Complete your task and you won’t be rewarded with a score; instead the game keeps track of how long you take, so if you find that you have gone through a door that takes you outside the castle walls then you will have to get back in as quickly as you can. Unless of course having had a taste of life inside you would rather remain outside.

CRITICISM

‘Super Sam is a very disappointing start to what promises to be an interesting range of budget software. There really isn’t anything about it that I like. The controls respond poorly — especially when one is using a joystick — and the graphics are very poor. This game is simply not up to the standard being set by other budget price software houses. While this is a difficult game to play, I’m sure that it won’t be long before you become frustrated and simply decide to chuck your stick in.’

‘This is what could be described as an incredibly flat 3D arcade adventure: the playing area doesn’t go very deep into the screen. Consequently, the game is very difficult to play since you have to run round the various nastier to delve further into the game. It hasn’t been particularly well programmed, either. In certain situations your movements are thwarted by the presence of overhanging walls, while in real life you would be able to walk under them. The game isn’t much fun to play either — it’s just a simple collect-the-bits-and-escape of the sort which would have been new two years ago. It might be cheap, but there are other games cheaper which are a lot more fun to play.’

‘Once again we’re presented with the worn out flip screen arcade adventure scenario. The advantages of arcade adventures is that the programmers have had the chance to learn from everyone else’s mistakes. No such luck this time. The whole game is slow and the sprites flicker terribly. The background graphics are average which makes them the best feature in the game. The sprites are small and indistinct with what looks like two frame animation. The effect I liked best was when Sam drops down a manhole and falls into the sewers. These were the only smooth graphics in the game. I’m afraid that after looking at the quality of recent budget software that Sam doesn’t make the grade.’

COMMENTS

Control keys: all definable
Joystick: Kempston and any key dependent
Keyboard play: poor response
Use of colour: poor, all of the characters are in white, they still clash
Graphics: very simple, below average, even at this price
Sound: limited
Skill levels: one
Screens: 34
General Rating: Because of the low price — fair(ish).

Use of Computer

67%

Graphics

55%

Playability

47%

Getting Started

60%

Addictive Qualities

43%

Value for Money

40%

Overall

42%

THE WAY OF THE EXPLODING FIST

Producer: Melbourne House
Memory required: 48K
Price: £8.95
Language: machine code
Author: Greg Barnett, Greg Holland, Stephan Taylor, Damian Watharow and William Teng

Melbourne House used to be well regarded just for their adventure games but the release of Starion changed that. Now we have come to expect good arcade games as well. Those good old ‘Cobbers’ from down under have caused quite a stir with their Karate simulation.

In The Way of the Exploding Fist you control a single character competing in a Karate match against either the computer or against anybody or anything else that can use a keyboard or joystick. Since Karate offers such a wide variety of moves the control system is necessarily complicated. The one player mode allows either the keyboard or the joystick to be used, but in the two player mode at least one player must use the keyboard.

The keys are definable but they are best set up as a square, three keys by three keys — that way, each key represents one of the eight directions obtainable on a joystick. A ninth key provides the joystick fire option, so shifting the eight keys allows a further eight functions, giving the sixteen options needed. With the keyboard set up in a similar way to the joystick it is best to regard each of the eight functions as directions on a compass, eg pushing the joystick diagonally right is the same as using the key on the top right hand of your key square in which case both the key and joystick direction can be referred to as north west or NW.

Whether you use the keyboard or a joystick, as you can imagine learning the controls will take a little time, but they have been laid out in a helpful way. For example all of the kicks are produced when the fire is held down: N gives a flying kick; NE a high kick; E a mid kick; SW short jab kick and S forward sweep which is a more of a flailing action performed with one leg from the crouch position. The backward kicks also rely on the fire button being pressed, but this time in conjunction with the north east and north west controls. Without fire, pushing N makes your character jump, thus avoiding sweeps or low jab kicks. NE produces a high punch, E moves the character forward, SW gives a punch to the belly, S is a crouch and low punch, SW a back somersault, W backwards walk and defensive block and NW makes your man perform an elegant forward somersault.

Learning how to produce the various moves is only part of the story: appreciating when each of the available moves is best used is just as vital. The literature enclosed with the game goes some way to pointing out the pros and cons of each of the moves but a great deal can only be learnt by experience. It’s best to start by mastering some of the easier moves which will be quite effective against the low order opponents. For example the short jab kick is quick and effective at close range, as only the higher level Dans will be able to defend against it with ease. One of the better moves is the forward sweep, which can be both offensive and defensive — if the enemy is within range it is very difficult to avoid. The misnamed roundhouse kick allows you to turn about and deliver a vicious mid level kick, but it takes some time to perform so you could be exposed to attack before your blow is delivered.

The somersaults are useful for escaping from the reach of your opponent but, when using the backwards somersault, make sure you know how to turn around otherwise you are going to have your back to your enemy while you are fiddling with the controls. The other defensive moves also require some appreciation. There are two types of defensive blocks: a high and a low block. It would be as well to remember that while you may be able to fend off one aggressive move with one type of block your opponent could change to a move which circumnavigates the block you are holding. Clearly the solution is to change blocks, but that requires absolute knowledge of the controls and the effect of various moves so that you can pre-empt your opponent’s attacks. Because there is no block against low sweeps it’s worth mastering those two moves at an early stage.

Your sole aim when battling against the computer is to reach the exalted rank of 10th Dan. In all, there are eleven levels. Your first fight will be against the Novice — a much battered individual — and you should be able to deal with him with just a little mastery of the basic moves. If you impress the judge (he’s the little bald headed bloke with the Mexican moustache) you will be awarded half a point in the form of a yin or yang symbol. A full point (a yin-yang) is only awarded for moves which the judge considers to have been executed very well, so a poorly executed but punishing body blow may only be awarded half a point.

The symbolic points relate to our performance in any one bout; to defeat an opponent you must win both bouts, even if only by half a point. In order to progress through the levels you must defeat each Dan in two bouts, and if the computer gets the better of you in a bout then it’s back to bashing the Novice. If a bout ends with a draw then you will get the chance to fight that bout again.

Points for the match as a whole are displayed at the top of the screen. These match points are awarded according to the type of move you use. For instance, a straight punch is worth less than the more difficult ‘roundhouse kick’. If a move is performed well and is rewarded with a full point, then the match point value of that move is doubled. Fighting against the computer is very good practice for combat against another person because, as you move up from one level to another, you can take comfort in the knowledge that your next opponent is going to be meaner and cleverer than the last. As an added stimulation to training, remember your opponent has only to win one bout and you go back to the start again.

Competition against a fellow human can be more challenging but this time the match is decided in favour of the contestant with the highest score after four bouts. If, during a bout, the time limit is reached and the yin-yang points are even then the judge will order that bout to be fought again until there is a clear winner.

CRITICISM

“It’s here at last! It has certainly been worth the wait. This is by far and away the best sports combat simulation available yet. Complete with oriental scenic backdrops, the game flows into Karate mania. With its fab, even dynamic graphics, the kicks and punches seem to have a strength and purpose. I enjoyed The Way of the Exploding Fist — having mastered the simple straight kick and punch I quickly began to delight in the more complicated moves, back and spinning kicks integrated with the odd somersault. The wide variety of moves means that you are never limited in your means of attack and counter attack. Addictive is the word.”

“On the Spectrum there have been few good representations of the noble martial arts. Kung Fu by Bug Byte was probably the best, but .it had so few moves and was painfully slow. Melbourne House’s Way of the Exploding Fist puts that to rights. It has a stunning 18 moves that can be performed with astonishing speed and accuracy, just like the real thing. It can take quite some time to get used to all the available moves, and I found the two player mode best for practice before tackling the computer. Once the moves have been mastered the game starts to really open up and become fun. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the Spectrum version; the two central characters are perfectly animated against scenic backdrops which provide pleasant surroundings to have a good fight in! The sound is very limited but it does enhance the game — not quite the screams of the CBM64 original but politer squeals of pain. Exploding Fist is immense fun to play and it really comes into its own on a two player game especially when you are evenly matched. I’m not sure how long it will keep you addicted for, but it certainly kept me up late. Though the weather hasn’t been very sporty the recent releases of sports simulations have more than made up for it!”

“Exploding Fist, now that it has finally appeared on the Spectrum, is the best game in the genre to appear yet. Though not as colourful as its Commodore and Amstrad cousins, the speed and gameplay is nearly identical. In fact the monochromatic figures are just as effective in their own way as the Commodore’s blocky sprites. Differences that I noticed included the computer opponent’s increased viciousness, which makes the game lot more challenging and playable. Getting the fight actions you need can be a fumble at first, but after a bit of practice things get a lot clearer. The sound effects, though sparse, are effective: there’s nice thud when a fighter hits the floor and a nasty crack noise when someone gets hit. I particularly enjoyed the two player option which has to make, Way of the Exploding Fist one of the best two player games around. It’s definitely the best beat ’em up yet on the Spectrum and is good value for money.”

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Joystick: Sinclair and Kempston
Keyboard play: very good
Use of colour: excellent backdrops
Graphics: very smooth animation
Sound: good bashing sounds
Skill levels: 11
Screens: 4 backdrops
General rating: excellent

Use of computer

87%

Graphics

92%

Playability

87%

Getting started

80%

Addictive qualities

96%

Value for money

85%

Overall

92%