BUDGET BUREAU
£1.99
A mixed bunch of new budget games arrived from Silverbird this month, of which the most original is Pasteman Pat (65%). In this devious picture puzzle game, Pat Splatt has to use his paste brush to assemble a large wall poster from the squares which Nasty Norville has jumbled up (they resemble an SU poster!). It sounds easy enough, but on the most difficult levels you're likely to get a headache sorting dozens of small squares, while inaccurate brushwork by the hero causes frustration. Add to this the extra problems caused by a time limit and the objects thrown by Norville's henchmen (they knock Pat off his ladder!) and you have one challenging game. But if you're a wallpapering fan, this is your game.
Also splashing down from Silverbird is Turbo Boat Simulator (32%), a nautical (but not very nice) shoot-'em-up. Lost in enemy territory, your boat patrols horizontally-scrolling waterways, searching for map parts dropped by allied planes (why can't the pillocks drop a whole map?!). Play simply involves avoiding and shooting enemy submarines and missiles until you find all the map pieces to send you to the next level. Grotty monochromatic graphics don't give much incentive to play on in a game about as exciting as squashed hedgehog racing. Its best feature is definitely the 128K title tune.
Skateboard Joust (30%) is another disappointing Silverbird effort, featuring very primitive graphics and minimal sound. Gameplay is reminiscent of the ancient jousting game, Ostron. But here you have a hovering skateboard and must destroy opponents by jumping up to let your board fly into them! The trendy sport of skateboarding has been over-used of late, and this off-beat implementation provides little excitement. Even Nick 'rad lad' Roberts quickly lost interest (but not his cool).
Just as dull is Players' unoriginal beat-'em-up, Street Gang (24%). Strolling through eight New York streets, you are attacked by all manner of punks and thugs, some of them wielding machine guns. The bad news is that despite the presence of many foes, progress is surprisingly easy. This is especially so when you discover that by continuously jumping to the right, completion of all eight levels is a mere formality. This amazing feature helps to make Street Gang about as eventful as a monks' wife-swapping party.
£2.99
'Who dares wins' is Code Masters' favourite motto. After all, they've dared to sell some pretty dire software at times, yet made a fortune in the process. True to their adventurous spirit, they've come up with SAS Combat Simulator (71%) (neat title, lads!). The good news is that this is one of their better releases. Most of the action is depicted by some decent overhead-view graphics, with your little soldier shooting and grenading swarming enemies. Starting on foot, he can find an armoured jeep and a tank to drive while he blasts or runs over enemy soldiers, and blows even trains to smithereens. After reaching the end of a stage, play switches to a side-view hand-to-hand combat section, with yet more soldiers for the violent hero to punch. Unfortunately this section is both repetitive and irritating as near-perfect timing is needed to dispatch countless foes. Even so, SAS Combat Simulator is a challenging shoot-'em-up with plenty of content.
But there are some places even the SAS would fear to tread. The murky depths of the Atlantic are home for many a deadly shark, and also the setting for Titanic (45%) from Kixx. To reach the famous shipwreck, your diver must negotiate a network of underwater caves infested with a variety of vicious sea creatures. Annoyingly, running out of oxygen sends the diver right back to the start, although I can't understand how he'd survive anyway - the water pressure at such depths would be enough to squash him flat! Nevertheless, survive he does to witness primitive graphics and gameplay inferior to Durell's ancient Scuba Dive. Cartographers will no doubt enjoy exploring and mapping the large cave system, but I found the whole exercise rather dull.
Set in the equally dangerous world of the Roman Empire, Kixx's Colosseum (70%) is all about chariot racing. But this isn't exactly a sport to take up for health reasons. The drivers are equipped with weapons, and the winner is the sole survivor at the end of the race! As Benurio, wrongly-accused of treason (you were on holiday at the time), you must prove your innocence by winning a chariot race (this is almost as strange as British justice!). Racing round the oval track, obstacles must be avoided, while you hack away at other drivers with your axe. If a driver is killed, you take his weapon even if it is less powerful than your present one. The action is fast and furious, albeit very repetitive. Although the sprites are simple, the track is fast-scrolling, and the perspective for the bends is ingenious: the viewpoint follows the chariot round. Despite a very simple concept, Colosseum is surprisingly addictive.
But it's back to the future for The Hit Squad (70%) from Code Masters. In post-apocalypse 2125, evil Emilio Bocker rules the city of Los Angeles with an iron grip. Something must be done, so you decide to search the city for Booker's hidden lair. But who are you? Well, when the game starts you can choose to be one of four different streetfighters, such as stealthy Stak and 'sexy Xena'! Exploring twelve parts of the city simply involves jumping around platforms, shooting nasties while searching for teleport and weapon disks. But the action is well-portrayed by large, Colourful graphics, while the digitised title picture of the four fighters is particularly impressive.
Another playable Code Masters release is Fast Food (68%). Despite the strange moniker, this is actually a souped-up version of Pac-Man! The hero, however, resembles that old egghead, Dizzy. Hamburgers chase the oval hero around many mazes, while he tries to eat all the other food. Special abilities may be obtained, including burger-eating, by collecting various objects. What really disappoints is the pedestrian pace at which the action takes place. But amusing, animated screens every three levels provide an incentive to keep playing. The neat presentation is improved further on 128K machines by the inclusion of a neat in-game tune.
However, even decent presentation would do little to improve Cult's dire Soccer Star (28%). This football management game is about as unrealistic as you can get. Firstly, there are only eight teams per division. But worse still, you are only allowed to buy and sell players at the beginning of the season: so if your team is rubbish, you're stuck with it! Match presentation is equally poor, consisting mainly of a ball wobbling along a line - this is meant to represent 'the balance of the match'! The goalmouth action is slightly better but is hardly exciting. With such limited options and poor presentation, Soccer Star is a sure candidate for relegation.
Label: Players
Author: Kevin Parker, Colin Swinbourne
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon
Yo, the guy in this game is almost as big and bad as me! He's no ordinary street-wise punk, no sir, he's the leader of a street gang. The most competitive sport on the American city streets ever to appear. You are Micky Spatsburg, ex cop and brain surgeon who has to cross the dangerous streets of New York in a desperate bid to reach the east side to save the life of a small child who desperately needs surgery. (Their plot, not mine).
As a game, Street Gang is a flipscreen affair. You've got to get to the right hand side of the screen, beat up all the baddies and avoid the bullets, and it looks really nice. So it should, because the graphics are by none other than budget supremo, Colin 'Joe Blade 1 & 2, Deviants, Thing on a Spring, Brat Attack' Swinbourne. Yeeey! Shame the gameplay doesn't match up to the graphics.
As you move from left to right, assailants run on from both sides of the screen. Regular hard guys just run across the screen, some of them stopping to wave a fist in your direction. Armed gunmen run about, stopping sometimes to take a shot in your direction. As in real life, bullets aren't a problem. All you have to do to avoid one is jump into the air.
At various points along the way, you find lots of spare weapons, just left lying around casually. Things like knives and baseball bats adorn the sidewalks. In the rough and tumble back streets of New York, even the litter is lethal. All the extra weapons seem to do is to extend your reach a little and make your graphic look more ferocious.
Now, the graphics. They're fab. All the sprites are large and well detailed and cartoony. The backgrounds are quite nicely laid out as well, and guess what, in colour mode there's tons of colour clash. Thankfully you can change between colour and mono backgrounds at the touch of a button.
The problem with the game? it's far too easy. It seems that if you keep jumping from left to right, you can't be hit by bullets and you avoid all the thugs. This is not good. I got to level three on my first go. This is also not good. The levels are only five screens long. This is the pits.
Another fine graphical effort from Mr Swinbourne, but a poor attempt at a game. Shame really.
Amstrad, Spectrum: £1.99
Mickey Spatsburg, as well as having a stupid name, also has a death wish. After the infamous "Curl" - leader of the biggest gang in New York - threatens to mug everyone who crosses his East Side district, guess where Mickey decides to go?
Streets and roads of the Big Apple are displayed side-on, and Mickey makes his way from left to right across the flip-screen scenery. All manner of assailants appear and attempt to stop Mickey dead in his tracks, with everyone from acid house fruitcakes to gun-wielding grannies laying into our hero. Mickey hits back with bare fists and jumps over gunshots, but can also collect weapons en route.
A bulging bicep signals Mick's current strength, and as he gets hit, so the arm withers. Death sees Mickey explode (!) and reappear at the start of the level.
Hardly in the same league as Renegade, this one. Combat is too limited to be of any real interest and the zombie-like characters simply wander on, attack, and wander off again. An over-simplistic beat-em-up, and really not recommended.
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