Mazeman

Crash

Producer: Abersoft, 16K £4.95 Abersoft's maze is a bit more complex than most and the graphics are clear and bright.

Read it at Crash - The Online Edition

Crash

Producer: Abersoft, 16K £4.95 Abersoft's maze is a bit more complex than most and the graphics are clear and bright.

Crash

Producer: Abersoft, 16K £4.95 Abersoft's maze is a bit more complex than most and the graphics are clear and bright.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Getting Started 8/10

Value 6/10

Playability 5/10

Eugene Lacey

Mazeman from Abersoft is a particularly fast version of Pacman. The speed improves the playability considerably - just as it does in the arcade original with quick responses. One drawback with this version is that joysticks are not widely available as yet for the Spectrum and playing Pacman without a joystick is rather like Blackpool without the illuminations. Again on the minus side the game from the Dyfed-based firm produced no sound effects, bonus fruits or flashing ghosts. Despite my reservations Mazeman was a reasonable version at under £5.00. I found it difficult to walk away from!

DOTS ON THE MENU Pacman may well be the last of the great craze arcade games after much mega-hits as Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Galaxians. Greater competition and an ever increasing number of games releases has created a much greater variety in the arcades and few, if any, definable trends. But there is an added dimension to the Pacman story. While the game was reaching fever pitch popularity in the US the home computer boom was also beginning to happen. The game was soon converted for the home computer and is now an essential part of the games players collection. The game takes its name from the Japanese verb Paku - meaning to eat - which aptly describes the simple task of steering a yellow chappie around a maze - gobbling up dots, bonus fruits, and power pills as you go. There are two types of computer maze game. Straight rip-offs of the Atari original and developments of the basic theme which add a number of original features. Things to look for when buying a straight copy of the Pacman game are bonus fruits, an authentic and steadily accelerating movement of ghosts, multiplying bonus score for ghost gobbling, and an accurately shaped maze. If your computer has joysticks then make sure your maze game works with them. And beware, playing Pacman without a joystick is rather like fishing without a rod. If you opt for an original maze game avoid gimmicky graphics but look for extra features which genuinely improve the playability of the game. A choice of different mazes is a useful bonus as it is good fun developing strategies and working out the best routes. Eugene Lacey

GAMES GLOSSARY If you can tell a Pacman from a Defender and a Galaxian from a Space Invader you probably know your way around computer games. But if some of the game terms we have used in this supplement, or in the issue itself, are new to you, then this page should supply the answers. In it we take some of the best known types of computer game and describe how they are played and what features these games normally incorporate. So, if we claim that Penetrator is a "Scramble-type game" and that leaves you just as much in the dark about what to expect, then below there is a full description of Scramble to put you in the picture. ASTEROIDS The Asteroids came into the arcades courtesy of Atari. It features a small dart-shaped craft controlled by the player which can rotate left or right and thrust or fire in the direction it is facing. There is one further control, the panic button (hyperspace) which lets you travel to another part of the screen chosen by the computer. The enemy is mainly made up of large asteroids which sweep across the screen in large deadly groups of rock. When blown up these break into smaller fragments worth extra points. There is extra danger supplied by two UFOs. The first larger creature you'll meet fairly early on. It tends to spray shots in all directions and often crashes into an asteroid. The smaller variety is far more deadly in its own shooting and also more difficult to hit. Each cleared screen means you start again with extra asteroids. DEFENDER You can't expect to keep a finger on every control button in Defender or you'd end up in knots. The action, which takes place above an alien landscape, involves some seven control buttons and takes patience to gain proper mastery of your lone craft. That patience can be rewarded though, as Defender is challenging from the word "Go". The Defender craft can go: up, down, thrust forward, reverse direction, fire, smart bomb and hyperspace. Ten humanoids wander on the landscape and these may fall prey to raiding alien creatures known as Landers. Landers pick up the humanoids and take them to the top of the screen. If they succeed in getting there the Landers turn into fearsome mutants hellbent on your destruction. In all there are six alien opponents. On top of Landers and Mutants, these are: Pods are quite harmless but contain the small and persistent Swarmers; Bombers seed space with white bombs and Baiters only appear if you take too long clearing a screen of the rest of the aliens. If all 10 humanoids are captured, the planet explodes and all remaining alien life attacks your craft at once. Defender games usually feature a small radar screen which shows what is going on at all parts of the planet surface. FROGGER Frogger has spawned a whole host of computer games with a similar theme. This game features a frog hero who must jump across a road and make his way across a river torrent to five frog-holes in the bank. The busy road usually features live streams of traffic travelling in both directions at varying speeds, between which the player must hop his frog without wrapping it around any fenders. Once across the road, the river can be crossed by leaping onto floating logs and onto the back of swimming turtles, until our frog can enter a vacant spot in the far bank. Turtles have a habit of diving though so don't let a frog dally too long on one. Being carried off the edge of the screen (by log or turtle) also results in a note in the funeral column of Amphibians' Weekly. When all five frog-holes have been filled, the game becomes more difficult with extra traffic being added to the road, snakes traversing the bank between road and river and alligators appearing instead of logs in the river. A timer running down on each frog also adds to the difficulties. The arcade original also featured a small lady frog who could be "picked up" on the logs and offered a lift home for a bonus. Other bonuses can be scored by entering a frog-hole in which a tasty fly meal has come to rest. DONKEY KONG Donkey Kong is the strange name for a climbing and jumping game which features a starlet-grabbing monster gorilla. Often referred to as Crazy Kong or Crazy Climber in the computer circles, it has only just found its way onto the home screen. The game features a gorilla holding a girl captive at the top of the screen and an intrepid hero (Mario the carpenter), who starts at the bottom of the screen. Between the two is a connecting network of platforms and ladders up which Mario must run to achieve his rescue. Kong hurls barrels down the screen and Mario makes use of his "jump" button to leap over them. He can also grab a hammer and smash the barrels as they approach him. Once at the top of the screen a new complex is built with Mario, again starting from the bottom with a view to rescue. This time the screen features a series of conveyor belts and deadly fires which travel around on the ladders and belts. GALAXIANS The Galaxians were the sons of Space Invaders. Instead of proceeding down the screen at a leisurely pace, they wavered at the top of the screen before swooping down in batches of two or three (or more often on a solo mission) firing bombs. The player has the usual left, right and fire controls on his laser base and must take care not to get trapped in a corner. He scores double points for a galaxian hit in mid-swoop and there are bonus points for taking out the red fleet commanders, who usually descend flanked by their generals, dispersing bombs at such a rate that the first instinct is to flee for cover. That is the essence of Galaxians but with each destroyed platoon, new waves appear at screen top and their attacks become more frequent, more accurate and, all too often, more deadly! PACMAN The ghostly world of Pacman is made up of a dot-filled maze, a hungry dot-eater and four pursuing spectres. Pacman variations can be found under a whole range of titles from Vic-men to Gobbleman, Snapper to Super Glooper and many others. Most dot-eating games are related to it. The main character is the dot-eater, which travels around the maze, eating every dot he touches. His objective is to clear the screen of dots. He is hampered in this by the four chasing ghosts whose touch is lethal. The Pacman's main defence against the ghosts, who usually number four, are energiser dots. These pulse in the four corners of the maze and, upon being eaten, reverse the roles for a short while. This means that Pacman can turn the tables on the ghosts and eat them for bonus points. He is allowed only a few seconds of dominance before the usual hunter and hunted rules come back into operation. It is also usual for fruits to appear on the screen occasionally and these too can be consumed by Pacman for bonus points. When Pacman has cleared the screen, it refills with dots and the game restarts except that this time the ghosts are a little livelier and a new fruit, worth extra points, appears at this level. SCRAMBLE Scramble should have a big one-way sign on its cabinet. The screen rolls from right to left, taking the player's craft along it into ever-increasing danger. Scramble variations often contain the word "Mission" or "Attack" but there are some weird and wonderful titles about. The player controls a craft heading right across the screen over hilly terrain His craft can never turn around and opt out of its mission but he does have some control over his destiny. His controls are up and down, fast and slow and he can both bomb and fire at his enemies. The Scrambler is not usually equipped with enough fuel to complete his task, but it is normal to obtain more fuel by bombing fuel tanks on the ground and so (mysteriously) replenish his own stocks. The enemies come in all shapes and sizes. Most common are missiles which fire up from the ground as your craft passes overhead and alien invader creatures which frequently inhabit caves and fly at the player's craft. The original Scramble game sent the player through a series of different terrains with new challenges in each section. And most computer Scrambles attempt to duplicate this with a number of different stages. Scramble requires a cool head which can find the right control in a crisis, but it makes an ideal computer game as success naturally leads to new and more difficult stages. INVADERS Space Invaders started the whole computer game craze back in 1977 and most gamers know the format backwards. Still, just a brief resume... The invaders come in waves above the ground and move in rows across the screen one step at a time, firing missiles earthwards. When one row of the aliens reach an edge of the screen, the whole platoon jump down a line and return back the way they came. When they achieve their slow progression to the bottom of the screen, the game ends. The player controls a laser base which moves left to right and fires directly up from its position. His aim is to blow up the entire fleet before it reaches the bottom of the screen. Flying saucers move across the top of the screen in both directions and can be hit for a mystery bonus score. In the arcade original, top saucer scores of 300 were achieved by firing 22 shots before shooting at the first saucer, then firing 14 shots in between each subsequent saucer. Some computer versions have copied this technique.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Getting Started 8/10

Value 6/10

Playability 5/10

DINING OUT WITH THE GHOSTS A stack of Pacman-type games have been cluttering up the C&VG reviews office over the last few weeks. A new maze gobbling game is added to the list of software available for the Spectrum at the rate of about one a week. We tested a batch of the more obvious straight copies of the arcade original. First on the screen was Spookyman from Abbex Software of London. This game got off to a bad start as it did not tell me which keys to move my little man around the maze. A prime consideration in this game! Although the maze looked fairly good the Pacman somehow failed to convince. It just didn't feel like controlling a little chap with a personality of his own. Having just borrowed an Atari 400 with a Pacman cartridge I was used to much better player involvement in the game. If you got caught by one of the ghosts the game paused for an annoyingly long period. There is also an absence of shrinking and gobbling sands and the characteristic gulp, gulp, gulp as you clock 200 then 400 and 800 in the arcade original. Next up was Mazeman from Abersoft of Dyfed. This was the fastest and most playable of the pile but this too left a little too much to be desired. The game produced no sound effects, bonus fruits or flashing ghosts. All of the games would have been greatly improved by the use of a joystick. Playing Pacman without a joystick is rather like Blackpool without the illuminations. Based on Pacman but with a few twists of its own was Gulpman from Campbell Systems of Essex. This game offered thorough instructions with a comprehensive list of game options. You could choose one of fifteen mazes and vary the speed of your little man and the chasers. Another interesting variation on the basic Pacman theme was a laser-gun with a limited amount of energy with which you could shoot the chasers. On the minus side Gulpman has pretty basic graphics. The Gulpman for example moves around the maze without moving his legs. It would have been more convincing had the program simulated some sort of running motion. Artic Computing of Hull also produce a Pacman-type game called Gobbleman, which I believe is a fairly close copy of the arcade game. I cannot give you my comments on this game however as it steadfastly refused to load on my Spectrum. I was not over impressed with any of these versions. I don't know if it's the software or the machine but frankly Spectrum Pacman is not a patch on its Atari and BBC model B counterparts. But if you really want a Pacman for your Spectrum, Gulpman just pips Mazeman. You might be better advised going for some of the original maze chase games.