Domark
£9.95
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies
A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, hordes of people who should have known better flocked down to their local arcades to experience the latest in coin-ops... Star Wars! A sit-in cabinet, vector graphics and even speech. What could be more up-to-date?
Well, the years have passed and even though Gauntlet and Marble Madness have been and gone, the hordes keep filling the battered old Star Wars machines with ten pees, determined once more to destroy the Deathstar and save the galaxy from the evil empire. Leap into the cockpit of Luke Skywalker's X-Wing fighter and battle your way to the Deathstar knocking down TIE fighters left, right and centre. Then skim over the surface of the planet dodging between towers and zapping their tops for a few extra points. Finally it's down into the trench, where you must avoid barriers and enemy fire to plant a laser bolt in the exhaust port and blow up the Deathstar.
Gripping stuff, but how does it play? Fans of the coin-op will be pleased to hear that all the fast and furious action they relish has been retained, though perhaps a bit more jerkily than they may remember. All that's missing really is the sound. There isn't any! (Apart from a moving rendition of the Sfar Wars theme tune at the beginning, that is.) The programmers use the old slows-it-down-too-much excuse, but in these days of AY-3-8912 sound chips I'm afraid it seems more like laziness!
Apart from that, this is a near-perfect conversion from the original, and in this sense it has been well worth the wait. The question is, of course, is it worth buying? Addicts of the arcade machine will love it, but I'd have thought they'd already have a copy of Realtime's Starstrike, which is very similar and has been out for ages.
As a game in its own right it stands up well against the millions of other vector graphics shoot 'em ups knocking around at the moment. The only problem is that wiping out the Deathstar is a bit of a doddle, so you'll find yourself looping round the levels several times per game. Other than that, what can I say ? Go get a copy, and may the force be with you - unless you prefer Weetaflakes!
BARGAIN BASEMENT
Once again RICH PELLEY leaps into the driving seat of a number 39 bus and zooms off to Cheap City...
Hit Squad
£2.99
Reviewer: Rich Pelley
I don't like to boast or anything, but I met Darth Vadar once - he came to my school when I was about six and I sat on his knee. Impressive? Hmm. Perhaps I should tell you about the game instead.
Well, it's a conversion of the ever-popular coin-up (from a long, long time ago in a... etc) - a 'vector' graphics job incidentally (ie spooky see-through 3D graphics). There're three main bits - firstly bombing around space in your spaceship shooting down Tie-fighters and fireballs, then zooming through the towers on the surface of the Deathstar (blowing the tops off for extra points), and finally flying along a trench inside the Deathstar shooting more fireballs, locating the exhaust port, blowing up the planet and scarpering pronto. And, er, that's it really. The entire caboodle's a 'look out of the window/fly into the screen' job. It works well (if a little jerkily) and is pretty much like the coin-up apart from the severe lack of sound - something to do with there being "no sound in space". (No, really.) Another reason to get 'peeved off' is that it's pretty simple to complete the thing, so you can easily find yourself looping round the levels quite a few times.
But not until you've had your three quid's worth out of it. (That is unless you prefer to spend your £2.99 on a cuddly Ewok instead.) (Eh? Ed)
Coming, erm, now actually, to a cinema near you...
THE COMPLETE YS GUIDE TO FILM AND TELLY GAMES
Knowing full well what a square-eyed bunch you are, we thought it was about time you were given the facts on film and television licenced games. Once again, JONATHAN DAVIES was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
(Cough. Deep, manly voice.)
'In the beginning there were loads and loads of Speccy games. Loads of them. They sold all right, but not exactly in enormous numbers. The trouble was, you see, that none of them seemed particularly exciting. They had nothing that caught the public eye. They were just computer games. Had no 'cred'.
Then a small cog within a long-since-extinct software house had an idea.
"Why don't we give our next game the same name as an incredibly popular film? Then everyone would buy it just because they'd seen the film and they'd foolishly think the game would be just as good. How about i, eh?"
"Er, we could do, I suppose."
"Great."
"But what if the film company finds out? They might sue us or something."
"Oh yeah."
"Tcha."
"I know - we could ask them first."
"That's a point. Go on then."
"What? Me?"
"Yeah. Give them a ring and ask if they'd mind."
"Oo-er. Cripes. Okay then." (Dials very long trans-Atlantic phone number.)
"Hullo. We'd like to name our new game after your film and we were wondering if it was okay by you. Right... yes... oh, I see." (Cups hand over receiver.) "They want us to give them lots of money."
"Erm, well in that case we'd better." (Removes hand.) "Yes, that'll be fine. We'll send you some right away. Bye."
"Super."
"But. er..."
"What?"
"How are we going to come up with a game that's anything like the film?"
"I don't know really."
"How about if we have a bloke walking around shooting people?"
"That sounds fine. I'll program it right away."
And so the film and telly licence was born. It... cough. Choke.
Oops. There goes the deep, manly voice.
Anyway, film and telly games, eh? Everyone's doing them these days, as they're one of the few remaining ways of making serious money with computer games. Run a grubby finger down the charts and you'll find nearly all the top-sellers are film and telly licences. (Or arcade conversions, of course.)
But why do we keep buying them? After all, just because a game's named after a really brill film doesn't mean it's going to be any good, does it? Surely we aren't buying them simply because of the flashy name on the box?
Erm, well in the old days, software houses assumed this to be the case, and chucked out a stream of absolutely appalling games with 'big name' titles. Things like Miami Vice, The Dukes Of Hazard and Highlander were all pretty dreadful, but it was hoped that they'd sell on the strength of their names. But we weren't fooled. Oh no. The games didn't sell well, and the companies were forced to think again.
Eventually they came up with... the 'bloke walking around shooting things' idea. And they've used it more or less ever since. Lucky then that they tend to be jolly good all the same, and sometimes come up with the odd original idea to spice things up (like The Untouchables did, or perhaps Back To The Future Part II).
RATINGS
As always seems to be the case, the trusty YS ratings system doesn't really seem adequate when it comes to film and telly games. So here's what we've put together instead...
LIGHTS
What does it look like? Nice? Or not very nice at all? (You mean are the graphics any good? Ed) Er, yes. That's it in a nutshell. (Then why didn't you just say the first place? Ed) Erm...
CAMERA
How does the general atmosphere compare to the film or telly programme the game's meant to go with? Have programmers just taken a bog-standard game and stuck a flashy name on it? Or have they made an effort to incorporate a bit of the 'feel' of the original?
ACTION
Does the plot follow along the same sort of lines as the film or telly programme? Is there plenty action-packedness? And is the game the same all way through, or does it follow the original's twists and turns?
CUT
Um, how does the game compare to all the licences around at the moment? Is it better? Or worse? In other words, is it a 'cut' above the rest? (is that really the best you can manage? Ed)
STAR WARS
Domark
Actually this is more of an arcade conversion than a film and telly game, but we were a bit desperate. It's the game of the really old arcade game of the film, you see, but it just about sneaks into our definition of things. It's actually quite good as film games go as it makes an excellent attempt to stick to the film's plot without getting too bitty and generally crap. Also, and most critically, it doesn't have a bloke walking round shooting things.
You're Luke Skywalker, and what you've got to do is destroy the Death Star. This means firing up your X-Wing fighter, flying through space warding off enemy TIE fighters, then flying over the Death Star picking off towers and finally flying through a ventilation duct (or something) to take out the Death Star's heart at the end. It's laid out as a 3D wire-frame shoot-'em-up which was impressive when it appeared in the arcades all those years ago and still plays well today. The only weird thing is that it's pretty easy to complete all three levels, whereupon you wrap back round to the first and end up destroying the Death Star 20 or 30 times per game. Spooky.
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