Krazy Kong

ZX Computing

S Green

READERS REVIEWS More of your thoughts about the software you buy. This feature provides you space to air your views on any software, be it for the ZX80, ZX81 or Spectrum. If you've had a good or bad experience with any of the commercial software packages available for your micro, why not write in and tell us? Your reviews should contain your critical thoughts about the software and the relevant details concerning the availability of the package, its price, etc. You should aim to produce something like 250 to 500 words per package, depending, of course, on how enthusiastic you are about the software. 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 which gets published, you'll get your software for free! KRAZY KONG Personal Software Services S Green This program is one of the best programs for the 16K ZX81 I have ever seen. Costing only £3.95, it is a real value-for-money program. The idea of the game is to jump over the barrels and fireballs dropped by a crazed gorilla at the top of the screen. In this version there are three different screens, each as hard as each other. The first stage which is the same as the Arcade version, you are an inverse A, moved by the cursor keys, trying to get to the top of a steel structure by climbing ladders and outwitting the barrels and the fireballs, by jumping with the Break key. At first this is hard, but after some practice, the top can be reached easily. A bonus counts down until you get to the girl (an inverse J). At this point, you will receive the rest of the bonus. If your bonus runs out, you will lose a life, of which you have three. When you press a key, the next screen will be displayed. This comprises conveyor bells, fireballs, inverse dollar signs (worth 200 points), and the girl. At this stage I wondered how I could get to the top, as I could see no obvious route. First, I climbed to the first conveyor belt, which promptly changed its direction, and dumped me into one of the fireball pits. Having one life left, I managed to get to the place where I thought I could go no further. I could see no route of jumping across to a conveyor belt, two character spaces away. I did not realise you could move and jump at the same time, I only thought you could jump into mid-air and back down again. But having overcome this problem, I waited until the conveyor belt was moving in the right direction, and managed to reach the girl after about 30 tries. Then the next stage... You have to move around the screen, running over inverse colons (of which there are eight). This stage, by my reckoning, is the hardest. The fireballs are much faster than you, and if you jump over them, sometimes they come back and you land on them! If you run over a blank where a colon used to be, you will fall and die, but it is possible to jump over them. After practically hundreds of goes, I managed to complete this stage. After that, you return to the start, but everything is speeded up.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

MONKEY BUSINESS WITH KONG! What do you get if you take a gorilla, a blond starlet, and a mad carpenter called Mario. Correct - you got it in one, it's Donkey Kong! More accurately, it's Krazy Kong, in this new version of the hit arcade game for the 16K ZX81. The game has three screen presentations with tumbling barrels, money bags and lifts. It is available from Personal Software Services of Coventry at £3.95, including postage and packing. Spectrum owners have also been included in the new releases from PSS with a scrolling maze game. The idea of Maze Death Race is to escape from an enormous maze before the evil cars run you down Maze Death Race is available at £4.95.