Happenings

It’s the Bonanza Bros

(and, look!, they’ve gone on holiday!)

Mobo and Robo (ain’t they cute?), the stars of US Gold’s Bonanza Bros relaxing on their hols

Last month, if you’d cast your minds back, we introduced you to US Gold’s latest heroic double-act — The Bonanza Bros. That scallywag pair of robots who like nothing more than pilfering other people’s houses. The game’s a one or two-player affair, in the arcade adventure mould, starring the Bros (called Mobo and Robo). The game’s release date has now been set for November (128K only), so, in the meantime, Mobo and Robo have packed their swag bags and taken a short break. Yes! Here they are on holiday enjoying a relaxing game of golf and they can’t be bad players ’cos they’ve already reached the 18th hole! Maybe there’s a Bonanza Bros play Leader-board game on its way? And, then again, there’s probably not.

New joysticks on the loose

Oh! The pain, the agony of bashing away at keys and wearing out your delicate digits. Well, all that can end if you turn over to the joys of a joystick.

From Spectravideo the Logic 3 joysticks — Sting-ray and Manta-ray — have dropped in price (Hurrah!) from £15.99 to £13.99. The company reckon the Sting-ray is the joystick answer to a blonde bombshell (a bit daft really, since it’s blue), while the Manta-ray is built for comfort (and yes, they both do all the usual stuff like fire, go up and down and round and round).

But (according to Spectravideo) for super-dooper, go-fast mega-brilliance there’s the three fire button, eight position centring tension control Gravis at a pocket stinging price of £39.99.

For a really red hot joystick (well, it’s red anyway) there’s the Jet range from Product 2000 featuring high quality (or so it says here) microswitches on the three models — Microjet, Megajet and Superjet. In your shops now!

World Federation Wrestling

It’s all the rage!

They’re big, they’re bad and they’re very very nasty. These are some hyper-horrid Yanks you really wouldn’t want to cross. Quite simply, they’d break your face as soon as look at you.

Bang! Biff! Blammo! No, it’s not Batman: they’re the biggest names in WF Wrestling, and guess what, you lucky people, you’re going to face them in the ring (Stop quaking at the knees this instant!).

WrestleMania has spread like wildfire both here and abroad, with fighting machines like Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant and Brutus ‘The Barber’ Beefcake becoming household names (Hulk Hogan starred in the A-Team the other week so he must be famous).

Now these muscle-bound monsters have grappled their way onto a new Ocean release, based on the Nintendo WWF game WF WrestleMania Challenge, and it’s up to you to survive and conquer.

In the game you fend off Atomic Elbows, Warrior Wallops, Headbutts, Chokeholds, Double Axes or Leg Bombs and many other forms of agony to pin your opponent to the floor for the count of three.

In the Eight-Man Tournament you take on all the WWF superstars one after another. In the Tag Team Action you control two wrestlers and take on a side selected by the computer while in the Survivor Series your fighters have to eliminate the opposition in a gruelling six-man contest.

Good Luck Amigos (’cos you’re really going to need it).

Feel the Forces!

As long as you’ve got a Sega or Nintendo!

Consoles, they’re not bad are they? Fun, fun, fun with the stack of groovy games happening on them! The two hottest families of consoles around at the moment are Sega and Nintendo. If you’ve got either, or are interested in them, you’ll be dead chuffed to know there are a couple of ace new magazines on the way, specially for Sega and Nintendo players, and they’re from the makers of CRASH!

SEGA FORCE and NINTENDO FORCE both arrive in newsies across the country in October and bring the thrill-packed console scene to life! SEGA FORCE will cover Master System, Mega Drive and Game Gear action and NINTENDO FORCE will have all the gen on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy and Super Famicom. With reviews of the latest games, news from all over the world and bubbling features these two new magazines can’t be missed! Check ’em out in October (a snip at £1.75 each!).

Is this the end of the Speccy as we know it?

Rumours have been flying around the computer industry this summer that Amstrad are expected to halt production of the Spectrum +2. The hardware giant currently has a stock of 35,000 Spectrums which it expects to fill the Christmas demand with. But after that, the rumours say, no more are to be made. If you’ve heard that, don’t panic — it’s a load of chunter. One quick phone call to Amstrad soon sorted all the gossip out...

CRASH: Hello! It’s CRASH! So, what about this ‘Amstrad axing the Speccy’, then?

AMSTRAD: Oh, that story...

CRASH (in a bit of a strop): Well?

AMSTRAD: No, no, no, The Spectrum’s still a really strong market for us and we’ll keep supporting it.

CRASH: Oh, that’s good.

AMSTRAD: Yes, its got a really strong market in the UK, Spain and lots of places in Europe!

CRASH: So, it’s still on the production line?

AMSTRAD: Indeed it is.

CRASH: That’s lubbly jubbly, so a big Hurrah! for that! Byeeee!

(Click!)

AND A NEW ONE FROM ’STRAD!

There’s a new machine coming from Amstrad who are forcibly putting themselves at the forefront of taking powerful PC machines into the games market. And what’s this bundle of fun called? The PC 5286 Games Pack!

The games side of PC machines has been growing in popularity for a long time. Their power capabilities far exceed the Amiga, but no company has produced one specially for the leisure market.

Amstrad’s new machine is real top-end stuff, with great graphics and sound facilities on board (something most PC users have had to fork-out extra for). The price tag for the bundle, including three hot games, is £899 plus VAT: cheap in the PC market, expensive in the home computer market. Oh, and the Ed can’t help wondering if this announcement stems from a meeting he had with Amstrad hardware boffins last Spring, when he commented (sagely): ‘The only way forward to the ultimate leisure-based computer is to take a PC, jazz it up with graphic and sonics capabilities and sell it as an entertainment-based machine.’ Could it be... (probably not).

Lemmings

Cute suicidal furry folk come to the Speccy!

Yes! It’s true! The smash hit game from been converted to the Speccy by Psygnosis. Just in case you’ve been living in a cupboard and have never heard of Lemmings, here’s a brief rundown of what the game’s about.

The idea is to save as many Lemmings that drop into screen as possible by getting them to exit at the other end of a given landscape. A bit tricky, since these cutesy characters haven’t got a brain cell between them and all they know is how to walk, one following the other blindly.

They walk in one direction until the end of a cliff arrives — and oblivion. Luckily there are things you can get individual ones to do which will block a dangerous path or facilitate safe exit. These include building, climbing, blocking and parachuting (safer than falling). You must also accept that you will never save all 99 Lemmings that drop into screen: some will be unlucky, others will have to be sacrificed tor the good of the multitude.

LOTS OF LOVELY LEVELS!

So, this is where the fun starts. The landscapes you have to conquer get more dangerous for the poor creatures as you go along, and the jobs to give them get less, so you have to use your brains to work out exactly how to get the required percentage to the exit. The 16-bit versions of the game had 120 levels in all, split into four categories: Fun, Tricky, Taxing and Mayhem! The Spectrum version looks set to follow suit (which was completely excellent), so it looks like Psygnosis are going to have a real hit on their hands!