Ed-On

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 4/10

Memory: Any Spectrum Price: £5.95 Joystick: Kempston In these days of perspective graphics and complex simulations which tax the mind as well as the joystick fingers, a game like Ed-On, from Add-On Electronics, is a little disappointing. It is billed as a car racing game in which the player steers his vehicle round a circuit accelerating and decelerating. The object is to collect the maximum amount of dots while changing lanes to avoid the other car on the circuit. The other machine will do its best to collide with the player's. The circuit is a grid-maze and the vehicles are small UDG symbols. Steering is by the keyboard or you may use a Kempston joystick. Five lives are allowed in each game. The difficulty increases as you become more successful and more opposing cars will appear after the first screen, making the action tougher and more dangerous - a kind of motorised Pacman, in fact. It is no state-of-the-art game and the graphic display offers little excitement. The program is fast, however, and the task set is difficult given this speed. At times it seemed as if the computer was cheating, as the enemy car would tend to leap across sections to meet the other. Steering is easiest with a joystick, though the keyboard controls are simple and well-placed. Manual dexterity and reaction speed are the only qualities needed. Even if that is all you want from a computer game, there are more interesting games available and it had no really addictive pull to it. All in all, an average program with nothing to raise it above so many others.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Crash

Use of Computer 52%

Graphics 45%

Playability 52%

Getting Started 58%

Addictive Qualities 48%

Value For Money 50%

Overall 51%

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Producer: C.C.I. Memory Required: 16K Retail Price: £5.00 Language: Machine code Based on an old arcade game, Ed-On presents you with a series of concentric squares, representing four Streets' with four compass point crossovers. The streets are lined with dots, and you must drive your car around in one direction, collecting all the dots. The computer controls another vehicle, which travels in the opposite direction and which you must avoid. At points in the game flags appear and add bonus points if collected. On clearing a screen you then face the task over again with two enemy cars, and so on. The four directional keys allow you to speed up or slow down, as well as change lanes to avoid the enemy cars. In the centre box your lives appear as well as a simple bar indicator for speed. The enemy cars have a fixed speed of travel, and change lanes whenever they feel like it. COMMENTS Control keys: Q/A up/down, C/B left/right Joystick: Kempston Keyboard play: very responsive although the dual-purpose takes some getting used to Use of colour: poor Graphics: block movement, simple and not very big Sound: average Skill levels: progressive Lives: 5

Fast Ed-on collisions seem inevitable when you're faced with maniac drivers.