Maze Chase

Crash

Use of Computer (CP) 25%

Use of Computer (MU) 28%

Graphics (CP) 25%

Graphics (MU) 20%

Playability (CP) 15%

Playability (MU) 12%

Addictive Qualities (CP) 10%

Addictive Qualities (MU) 7%

Value for Money (CP) 20%

Value for Money (MU) 15%

Chris Passey

Matthew Uffindell

ELECTRO GOBBLE - PACMAN TYPE GAMES In our sixth comparison, reviewers CHRIS PASSEY and MATTHEW UFFINDELL snatch a glass of water and a handful of power pills and prepare to do battle with a legion of ghosts... Pacmania came over from the States quite a while back. Initially the game was regarded as odd in that it was relatively non-violent for a computer game, but it rapidly established itself as the number one arcade favourite. Although the craze is over now, there are still a lot of pacfans around. As a classic maze game, Pacman was among the first arcade originals to be copied in numerous forms on to the Spectrum. Copyright owners, Atari International, have been promoting their expensive 'official' version since before Christmas, but it competes against some very strong 'unofficial versions. Some are good, some not so good, and there are some interesting variants. In brief, the classic version should have a medium complex maze connected horizontally by a wrap around tunnel. In the four corners are a similar number of power pills. Each pathway of the maze is regularly dotted. In the centre is a 'home' for ghosts of differing colours and point values, which are released into the maze at intervals. The object is to take your Pacman, an orange ball with a gobbling mouth, around the maze and eat all the dots to promote to a more difficult screen with more intelligent ghosts. Eating a power pill will cause all the ghosts to turn blue and edible. In this condition they should run away from your approach at a slower speed than yourself, Strawberries appear at intervals and can be eaten for bonus points. MAZE CHASE Producer: Hewson Cons. Memory Required: 16K Retail Price: £4.95 Poor graphics, unexciting and unaddictive seem the words to sum up this one. The graphics are small, undetailed and lacking in colour. Control is with the cursors to make things even worse. It didn't appeal at all - the less said the better. (Sorry Hewsons!) CP Like a lot of these games, this version is quite old, and it shows, it is very primitive with its design and graphics. The maze is exceptionally complex, with the odd lemon positioned randomly in it. Power pills, too, appear randomly placed. Ghosts move about the maze not caring at all whether you eat the dots or not. The game does have 12 different mazes, but the terrible cursor keyboard layout is quite unresponsive - if not positively erratic. Can't be recommended apart from historical interest - Maze Chase to 3D Lunattack - there's encouragement for you! MU

Crash

Producer: Hewson, 16K £4.95 Considering the quality of most Hewson programmes, this one is a complete mystery. Put it down to history. It's probably the simplest one available, with matchstick figures, white ghosts and some fruit as power pills. Four screens, cursor keys so works with AGF or Protek joysticks. Not very good.

Read it at Crash - The Online Edition

Crash

Producer: Hewson, 16K £4.95 Considering the quality of most Hewson programmes, this one is a complete mystery. Put it down to history. It's probably the simplest one available, with matchstick figures, white ghosts and some fruit as power pills. Four screens, cursor keys so works with AGF or Protek joysticks. Not very good.

Crash

Producer: Hewson, 16K £4.95 Considering the quality of most Hewson programmes, this one is a complete mystery. Put it down to history. It's probably the simplest one available, with matchstick figures, white ghosts and some fruit as power pills. Four screens, cursor keys so works with AGF or Protek joysticks. Not very good.

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 8/10

THE WORLD COMES TO VISIT If you have a Spectrum and you want to know about far-off places you may never have to pick up a gazetted because of a new database package called Countries of the World. The program, for the 16K and 48K Spectrum, centres on an incredible high-resolution colour drawing of a world map. The countries can be listed and scrolled through backwards and forwards. Each country has a code number and by referring to that number you can access its statistics, general information and a graphics representation of its position on the globe. The detail in the program is very fine but some points made about countries are inaccurate. For instance, the program gives the capital of Andorra as Andorra-La-Viella, where it should be Andorra-La-Vella. Little mistakes like that spoil the program. Another new release is Maze Chase. The program is in the Pac-man mould but is very addictive and difficult to play. The manufacturer says the game has four mazes on the 16K version and 12 on the 48K. We have managed to get through only the first few mazes as the game is so difficult. The player must eat the energy pills and lemons while staying away from the evil guardians. If a magic strawberry is eaten the guardians will lose their power and you can eat them. Maze Chase and Countries of the World are available from Hewson, [redacted]. Maze Chase costs £4.95 and Countries of the World £5.95.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Personal Computer News

Mike Gerrard

SPECTRUM SPECTACLE Mike Gerrard looks at Spectrum releases, confronting amazing mazes and alien invasions. And still they come at you, trying to turn your home into the ultimate arcade. Games good, bad and indifferent - this latest batch of 16K Spectrum cassettes has examples of all three. BEETLEMANIA £4.95, AWA Software, [redacted]. To start with the good. Beetlemania is a Pacman style game, written in machine cod, in which four beetles chase you round a maze. I found it even more addictive than the original it is based on. For one thing, the graphics are excellent, with the green beetles scuttling round like scorpions, while the man races frantically along with his little legs going at nineteen to the dozen. The game begins with a brief demonstration showing you how you're to collect the eggs, which are left one at a time by the beetles, and deposit them safely in what is described for some reason as a lock. Eggs and locks appear randomly in the maze, and when four eggs have been safely collected an exit will flash, and you must scurry out of that to the next level. This is the same maze, but with several of the walls joined up, so giving you a little less breathing space. Succeed here and the same thing happens again, making it very tricky indeed to avoid the beetles in the increasing numbers of blind alleys. Further success takes you back to the original maze, opened up again, but this time with a purple spider racing along the corridors to add to your problems. Beyond that I don't know, as the spider got me every time. This increasing difficulty is a welcome feature, as is the sensible way the control keys are spread: Q for up, Z for down, I for left and P for right. You have five lives, three skill levels, and while there is a high-score record the game's only fault is that as soon as the last life is lost it switches instantly back to the opening screen without giving you a chance to check your score. But that apart, congratulations to the game's author, Steve Hughes, for improving on a good original. MAZE CHASE £4.95, Hewson Consultants, [redacted] What a contrast to Maze Chase, which is a simple (and I do mean simple) variation on the same game. The action is quick enough, being also in machine code, but this isn't so much Pacman as Matchstickman. Control here is by use of the arrow keys, which has never seemed to me the most sensible part of the Spectrum keyboard layout, and the graphics are disappointing after Beetlemania. There are four mazes in the 16K version, with 12 in the 48K program also on the tape, and your opening options are instructions, demonstration, resetting the high-score to zero, or play. A major complaint is that if you don't press any key within about 30 seconds, which is quite possible if you've left the tape to load, you automatically get a long demonstration game, with all three lives, and no way to break out of it that I could find. Otherwise you get the usual features of four ghosts, fruit to eat, and increased speed as you go. Not a patch on the original, though. JAWZ £4.95, Elfin Software, [redacted] Jawz is the underwater Space Invaders which most people will know - in fact you'll need to know it as there are no instructions in the program to explain exactly what you're meant to be doing. You are told the control keys and the cassette insert tells you that you're meant to be killing the sharks while avoiding the poison pellets the jellyfish at the top of the sea are dropping down on you. This isn't a game that ever particularly appealed to me, but Jawz is an adequate if slightly limited adaptation offering you a one or two-player game, a high-score record and three skill levels. Unfortunately the sharks look as frightening as a bowl of goldfish. GALAKZIONS £5.95 each, Micro-Gen, [redacted] The aliens in Mikro-Gen's Glakzions are more menacing - or at least the first five rows are. The final row contains what look remarkably like two pairs of flying yellow knickers. The action in this game should be fast enough to appeal to the addicts, though the creatures don't move off the side of the screen and back on again. In fact the aliens are quite restrained to begin with, the first wave peeling off in ones and twos and firing very few shots at you - but you have to watch the shots they do fire, which spit down the screen with great speed. From the second wave on, though, they come at you in great swirling bunches, and while they don't exhibit the usual nasty tendency to herd you into a corner for the kill, they are nevertheless very nippy movers - especially those knickers. Not a perfect copy, then, but still a satisfying version. PANIC £5.95 each, Micro-Gen, [redacted] Panic, or Space Panic as it's better known, comes from the same company. It is the familiar aliens and ladders game where you control a little man, or as in this version, a tall thin man, who is being pursued along levels and up ladders by nasty little creatures which he must kill by luring them into holes and then bashing them on the head, it's just as well they're not an endangered species. With the wealth of colour available on the Spectrum, it's hard to see why anyone would choose to make the creatures purple against a black background, unless they have a strong sadistic streak. As with Galakzions, if you like the original you probably won't be disappointed with the speed and features of this version. The man turns into an ominous skull and crossbones should he be sent to meet his maker, while if you fail to bash an alien after luring him into a hole he will change colour (or she will, it being difficult to tell with aliens). It will then take a plunge through two holes to see the alien off. If you fail again you get another colour change, and will need three holes to despatch him. After that, forget it. A choice of skill levels would have been nice, but you can't have everything, I suppose. Both these Mikro-Gen games will work with MikroGen joysticks, though when I attempted to use my Kempston ones I got some very odd results. Or maybe I've just been killing too many aliens lately, I don't know.