Joust

Personal Computer News

Lasting Appeal 4/5

Playability 3/5

Use Of Machine 3/5

Overall Value 3/5

Steve McClure 3/5

NAME: Joust SYSTEM: Spectrum 16K PRICE: £5.95 PUBLISHER: Softek, [redacted] FORMAT: Cassette LANGUAGE: Machine code OUTLETS: Mail order BEAT THE BUZZARDS Things are so bad in Joust's world of the Shadow Lords that it's up to you, astride an Ostron (or ostrich) to defend the universe from the evil flying buzzards which are the bane of everything good and decent. OBJECTIVE Once mounted on your Ostron your task is to destroy as many of the evil buzzards as possible by flying into them at an altitude higher than theirs. If you should be unfortunate enough to meet one of these avian menaces head on or below, you become so much buzzard bait. Each buzzard has a different value according to colour. The dreaded Shadow Lords themselves add 150 points to your total. You start out with five lives, a fair number considering the difficulty of the task before you. These are mean buzzards. IN PLAY I soon became aware of basic tactical manoeuvres essential to the success of any serious buzzard-beaters. These include using the various vertical barriers that divide up the field of play as barriers against the attacks of the buzzards. It's also worth noting that these dastardly fellows have a way of suddenly doing tricky little dips and darts that leave the inexperienced Ostron flyer quite unprepared for the inevitable attack. Each time you kill off a wave of buzzards you move on to a harder category of play in which ultimately the screen seems to be full of nothing but the evil green Shadow Lords themselves. These fellows are much harder to kill than their comparatively dull-witted cousins. And just to make matters worse your poor Ostron moves more slowly in each succeeding stage. This is in fact one of the best things about Joust - no matter what level of skill you reach it will always get harder. Sound effects for the game are adequate - there are no bells and whistles, just a convincing sort of squelch sound each time a buzzard finds his target and rather pleasing zap sound when you bring down one of the enemy. Scores are tabulated clearly in the bottom left hand corner of the screen and a high score table featuring the top ten scoring players of any given Joust session is shown at the end of each game. VERDICT Joust is a good, straightforward and challenging game that becomes more interesting the more you play.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

DON'T STICK YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND In days of old when knights were bold they rode around on ostriches. Yes, ostriches. What's that? You've never seen a knight riding one of these bad-tempered birds. Well, just look out for this latest conversion of hit arcade game - Joust. You play the part of the good knight on his trusty ostrich armed with a lance and doing battle with the dark lords on their buzzards. The Dark Lords are no easy opponents as they have been programmed to predict your next a move and lay traps to ensnare you. Softek have also looked to the arcades for the idea behind their second new game this month. Called Firebirds - it is a shoot 'em up hybrid of arcade favourites - Phoenix and Firebirds. An assortment of aliens have to be wiped out before you get to their home base. Joust and Firebirds run on the Sinclair Spectrum in 16 or 48K and are available from London-based Softek at £5.95 each. Dragons meet Monsters in Softeks first release for the fire-spitting micro. The idea of the game is to get your little man safely through several levels to the bottom of the screen and pick up a power pill. Take this safely back to your craft before your oxygen runs out or you get nabbed by one at the monsters. Monsters is based on the arcade game Panic, where you have to dig holes for the monsters with an ice axe. In this Dragon conversion the pick axe is replaced with a laser gun. The game runs on the Dragon 32 and is available now from Softek at £7.99.