Dreadnoughts

Crash

Use of Computer 72%

Graphics 52%

Playability 52%

Getting Started 78%

Addictive Qualities 56%

Value For Money 66%

Overall 65%

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Producer: MC Lothlorian Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £5.95 Language: BASIC It is a winter's day in late 1914; the 'Great War ' is four months old, and in the North Sea two battle fleets are set on a collision course. The composition of the fleets is identical: four battle cruisers, four light cruisers and 12 destroyers. With six hours of daylight remaining, the two commanders sight each other's smoke. The battle is about to commence. This the latest in the Lothlorian Warmaster series of battle strategy games, and their first sea-based one. The game is played between two people, and like the time-honoured Battleships game played on paper, each player should have private and secret access to his information, which is done via a secret three-letter code inputted at the start. The game is played out in 24 moves, a move simulating 15 minutes of real time, and on four levels, representing the number of enemy Dreadnoughts which must be destroyed to win. There are three phases to play. First each player in turn goes through his Decision Phase and then there is an Action Execution phase. Accessed by the player code, a menu of options is presented which allows the player to list the names and defence strengths of each unit, view the situation (a graphic report of your positions), see the combat reports of each unit, change course and heading for each unit, allocate gunnery targets, set up torpedoes and secondary batteries, a key for all actions completed (end of phase) and a report on visibility. Changing course and speed is done with cursor keys 6 and 7. The combat reports enable you to see what damage has happened after the action phase, and what your ships under fire are observing of the enemy's position. Gunnery results are affected by factors like range to target, whether the gunners are under fire themselves, and the number of other units firing at you. Lothlorien claim the performance of the ships is based on the original vessels. The screen display is largely text menus, but in viewing the situation or in action phase once the combatants are entangled, the units are represented by character blocks with the unit number in them, and a tiny symbolic representation of the unit itself. The blocks are coloured Green for the British and Yellow for the German fleet. Behind each unit a short black line represents the 'wake' and so gives an indication of heading and speed. COMMENTS Control keys: on-screen prompts Keyboard play: fairly responsive Use of colour: average Graphics: poor in action, but well laid out text, etc Sound: very little Skill levels: 4

It may look like Clapham Junction in the rush hour, but this is the North Sea in 1914.

Big K

Overall 2/3

Tony Tyler 2/3

LOAD! LOAD! LOAD! GAME: Dreadnoughts MAKER: MC Lothlorien MACHINE: Spectrum 48K FORMAT: cassette PRICE: £5.95 GAME: Admiral Graf Spee MAKER: Temptation Software MACHINE: Spectrum 48K FORMAT: cassette PRICE: £5.95 Funny how life imitates Art. Just as the US Navy put the giant World War II battlewagon New Jersey back in commission and sent it to lurk menacingly off the coast of Lebanon, several software companies obviously decided that there's mileage in resuscitating this obsolescent - but fascinating - form of naval warfare, where gun-armed ironclads seek each other out on the high seas and, having found each other, do their best to blow their opponents out of the water. Both MC Lothlorien [Dreadnoughts] and new Rye-based company Temptation (Admiral Graf Spee) have elected to simulate actual eras of battleship warfare. The first goes for that most fascinating of epochs, the 1914-18 war, when mighty fleets hunted each other over the wintry North Sea. Temptation's offering reproduces the last cruise of the pocket battleship Graf Spee. Both have 'search' modes, with Dreadnoughts allocating you a pre-set plotline and Graf Spee allowing you to hunt the oceans rather like the Thorn-EMI game Submarine Commander. Of the two, the Lothiorien search mode is the more realistic, since it exactly reproduces the confusion and poor visibility for which that era of naval warfare was noted. However, Dreadnoughts is fairly dull to look at consisting essentially of menus and - I have to say it - spreadsheets, whereby you alter individual vessels' speed and heading. Dreadnoughts eventually gives you a 'look-down' (Zeppelin?) view, whereas the Temps opt tor a bridge view. Combat sequences therefore are tokenised on Dreadnoughts and - because of the BASIC programming - tacky and wooden on Graf Spee. The best thing about either game is the capability of Dreadnoughts to allow two players to alternate on the same console, so that what each player sees (the other guy politely staring at the wall meantime) is exactly what the admiral would see. Of the two, Dreadnoughts is the more authentic overall and more visually boring; while Graf Spee is precisely the other way around. Neither address the contemporary problem of range-finding in any way. Overall, I feel the ultimate naval war-game has yet to come.