It’s all change at CRASH Towers, the Forum’s turned into Live Circuit and shoved to the back of the mag. Nice to see the powers that be giving you all a chance to revisit classic games on the Mega Game Power (what a mouthful) cassette. If they keep spending that much money on it all, they’ll soon have to reduce my already measly salary. Anyway, they told me to beef up my language, get hip, cool and street-cred like what Nick is, to fit the new image... I was already that when they were toddlers. But on with the biz: Some clever clog has compiled a chart based on subject matter of letters in my forum last year. For heeding my call in issue 63 I award him Letter of the Month rather than the free game promised (aargh, I could’ve done that! — Shut up, Mike. You didn’t)
NB Of the letters concerning
sex/violence, 4% believed them to
be unnecessary and rude, 8.5%
believed them harmless. Most
thought Crash was brill.
A Steele
So much for our readers’ concerns, make of them what you will. LM
A bunch of complainers, if you ask me. Nick
Dear Lloyd
I’m 12 years old. In my English lesson in school, my teacher asked us to
write a letter to a Pop-Star or well known personality, but I couldn’t
think of any so I decided to write to you.
I, like you, think the Spectrum is still a top class computer (I must do,
otherwise I wouldn’t spend almost two hours a night playing it), but
there are better ones now. In its time the Spectrum was the best, but
now 16-bit is flooding the market. I think the Spectrum days are numbered.
Christopher Pritchard
Nice to know I sort of rank with the stars, Chris. Next time make it sound a bit more convincing, as to your fears for the Spectrum, read on.
Dear Lloyd
I received an Atari 520 ST for Christmas this year. I am very happy with this
computer. As I also have a Spectrum, you may have expected me to sell it or
ignore it totally in favour of my new ST. However if you were to assume this
you would be sady mistaken. In my six years experience of playing computer
games I have come to the conclusion that it is not graphics, sound or gimmicks
that make a game. It is in fact playability above and beyond any other factors
whch determines whether a game is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. For
this single reason I believe Spectrums will continue to be sold for many years
to come.
And so I end with a word of warning to all Speccy owners looking to upgrade.
‘That all singing and dancing wonder machine may have software that swims
like a brick’.
Gary McCombie
For a minute we thought you were a traitor, but you came out good, kid. LM
Dear Lloyd,
This is my first and last letter to you. I am leaving the computer world after
five years, and I must say it has been a pleasure. I am using this opportunity
to say goodbye and thankyou.
I got my Spectrum about the same time as I started reading CRASH and since then both have changed.
I am amazed at how even now the Spectrum still brings out original and visually fantastic games. It seems that the Spectrum has no limit in what it can produce. Games have come a long way since the likes of Lunar Jetman and Atic Atac. My games have been sold, and my faithful Speccy passed on to my younger brother. He has as just as much fun on it as I did.
Anyway I shall now say thanks to you and all the staff at CRASH, both past and present. You will be pleased to know that I will buy CRASH now and again, just to see what kind of games the Spectrum will bring out. There is this feeling though, that my brother will probably carry on tradition and buy CRASH.
I would also like to thank all those programmers out there who have made all
the Spectrum games possible. Keep up the good work people.
Jason Stringfellow
Give us a mo to wipe our tears away, before pointing out that you obviously think computer games are for kids only, or are you 80? Shame on you, and welcome little brother. LM
Dear Mr Mangram,
I’m a Sinclair fan since the good days of ZX81. We never had original
Sinclair machines on sale here in Brazil because of a market reservation for
the national microcomputer industries. We haven’t yet a true
Brazilian-made computer, but a lot of clones of the most famous (and
old-fashioned) foreign machines.
Actually, I own a Spectrum +3 bought from a friend that had travelled to Europe. The MSX and the Speccy (TK90/95) are the most popular home computers, and there’s a large demand for 128K Spectrums but very few "travellers".
Personally, I disapprove of piracy, but in our case, it’s the only way
to get software for our machines. Multifaced, incomplete and unreliable
programs can be bought for 0.30 (in Brazilian currency). It’s a joke to
want to avoid piracy when even the computer manufacturers are hardware
pirates.
Ricardo Suzuki
Dear Lloyd,
I have finally decided to write to you. I have wanted to before, but waited to
see what would happen, but now I feel that the standards of Crash are going
from bad to worse.
The Full Price reviews all have full colour screen-shots, OK, but the Budget
reviews are terrible! The new budget page is awful. OK, some people get enough
money to get about two Full Price games a week, but what about younger people
like me? (12) We get pocket money. You know, from about 50p to 1.50 a week, so
Budget games are lots of money to us.
James Carrick
Point taken, but the sheer quantity of budget releases would fill a magazine with reviews, and as a lot of them are old, or often just mediocre you’d all be yawning off to a doze. As to your pocket money, well, rather than reading about cheap games, buy CRASH and get three to four of ’em included every month! LM
And if you’re street-wise, check out our subscription offer which knocks your monthly joy down in loot even more and throws in a free full-price game to boot. Gettit? Nick
Right, that’s it for this month. Space is squeezed and the sun’s out. So LM’s off for a barbecue, I tell you. Nick and Mike will hold the fort (aahhh), so get writing. Be controversial, funny, but never boring and send the stuff to CRASH Live Circuit. Letter of the Month gets you £30. Tara!
Amstrad, makers of your fave machine, have come up with a wheeze to ‘...dramatically increase the thrill and excitement that computer games already bring to your home’.
Their ‘extensive research’ claims that joystick waggling violence ain’t enough for you, so here comes the light gun! Point it at the screen and fire, then find out how good your aim is.
Thanks to Ocean, Domark and Mastertronic special versions of games like Operation Wolf and Bullseye (based on the TV show) promise to be a new experience. All we know so far is that so-called Action Packs will be available from June: Computer, light gun and six games — a +2 and a +3 version, £149 and £199 respectively.
Those of you who want to add the light gun alone will have to wait a couple of months, when we’re told Mastertronic will put it on the market at an undisclosed price. We’ll keep you informed and try and get our mits on one.