Ground Force Zero

Crash

Producer: Titan, 16K £5.00 At first glance it looks like a simple game, but in fact it is quite hard. Very similar to Romik's 'Spectra Smash', which has more options than this version. Your plane keeps crossing the towering skyscrapers of New York, looking for a place to land. There isn't anywhere, so with a genocidal brainwave you decide to bomb the city flat to makes landing strip. With each pass over the city your plane gets lower, so it's essential to knock out the biggest towers before they knock you out. Several skill levels with taller buildings. Simple to play with only a bomb control. Despite its simplicity, reasonably addictive.

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ZX Computing

Guy Haines

READERS REVIEWS Tell us what you think about the software that's on the market. This feature provides space for you to air your views on any software, be it for the ZX80, ZX81 or ZX Spectrum. If you've had a good or bad experience of any of the commercial software packages available for your micro, why not write and tell us. Your reviews should contain your critical thoughts about the software and the relevant details concerning the availability of the package, the price etc. If you can provide any screen dumps to illustrate the review, so much the better. Any reviews published in this section of the magazine will be rewarded with the price of the tape you review. So, if you buy a cassette and send in a review that gets published, you'll get your software for free! GROUND FORCE ZERO Titan Programs Guy Haines The lengths to which some companies go to in advertising their product, in terms of magazine space, makes you think they have something special to offer. A full page colour advertisement of this type prompted me to buy Ground Force Zero from Titan Programs. However, the game simply reaffirms my belief in the old adage 'you can't judge a book by its cover' or in this case 'don't be influenced in purchasing programs by the advertising campaign behind it'. Ground Force Zero is written totally in BASIC, and suffers all the accompanying problems of programming in this language. On loading you are greeted with the 'Dambusters' theme music and a second world war bi-plane chugging across the screen with a prompt asking you to select 1 of 10 levels of difficulty. Then, at the bottom of the screen, skyscrapers of varying height are being constructed and when the bottom of the screen is fully occupied by buildings, your plane begins chugging along the top of the screen once again. As it goes off one side of the screen it reappears at the other but this time it is one line lower. Using simply the 'B' key you must drop bombs on the buildings knocking them down to the ground before your decreasing height causes you to collide with one. Being written is BASIC, the graphics are crude and jerky and the monotony of having only a single key to press brings boredom almost immediately. In my opinion it is the sort of game that you feel you could have whipped up yourself and then put it on some tape and stored away never to be used again. It would appeal to the very young in testing their judgment for the right moment at which to drop their bomb but in todays market, where to stay afloat in the software industry demands high standards, I am surprised that Titan Programs have not been renamed Titanic. At £6 a throw the program is ludicrously priced but it did teach me a lesson. From now on, I'll find out what I'm getting before I part with any money! For further information on the cassettes reviewed in this article you can write to the following addresses: Silversoft Ltd, [redacted]. New Generation Software, [redacted]. Red Shift, [redacted]. Artic Computing, [redacted]. Automata UK Ltd, [redacted]. Abacus Programs, [redacted]. Bug Byte, [redacted]. Softek Software, [redacted]. PSS, [redacted].

Crash

Producer: Titan, 16K £5.00 At first glance it looks like a simple game, but in fact it is quite hard. Very similar to Romik's 'Spectra Smash', which has more options than this version. Your plane keeps crossing the towering skyscrapers of New York, looking for a place to land. There isn't anywhere, so with a genocidal brainwave you decide to bomb the city flat to makes landing strip. With each pass over the city your plane gets lower, so it's essential to knock out the biggest towers before they knock you out. Several skill levels with taller buildings. Simple to play with only a bomb control. Despite its simplicity, reasonably addictive.

Crash

Producer: Titan, 16K £5.00 At first glance it looks like a simple game, but in fact it is quite hard. Very similar to Romik's 'Spectra Smash', which has more options than this version. Your plane keeps crossing the towering skyscrapers of New York, looking for a place to land. There isn't anywhere, so with a genocidal brainwave you decide to bomb the city flat to makes landing strip. With each pass over the city your plane gets lower, so it's essential to knock out the biggest towers before they knock you out. Several skill levels with taller buildings. Simple to play with only a bomb control. Despite its simplicity, reasonably addictive.