Subspace Striker

ZX Computing

Nick Pearce

THE '81 SOFT SELECTION Nick Pearce levels his critical eye at some of the latest software packages for the ZX81. GALAXIANS AND GLOOPS - QUICKSILVA Quicksilva have produced an excellent game of Galaxians for the ZX81. The action is fast and responsive and it is a pleasure to play. Two types of Galaxian move in formation across the top of the screen, and swoop down attacking your base. You have three lives and the speed, firing rate and the number of swooping Galaxians are adjustable by the player. You get more points for hitting Galaxians as they swoop down rather than those in formation. Scoring is displayed on the screen, and at the end of each game your score is entered onto a league table which can cater for up to 15 games/players. The first batch of swooping Galaxians are particularly good at searching out and destroying your base, and some deft manoeuvering is required to avoid their attack. Thereafter the battle is fierce but a high score can be achieved by the experienced player. If it becomes too easy, the level of difficulty can easily be increased. A fast-moving and impressive machine code game. Nicely boxed and with Gloops - a maze game on the B side of this cassette, it is reasonable value for money. Quicksilva have recently taken on the marketing of Pixel games. The Pixel games have been re-packaged by Quicksilva and have been given attractive covers featuring science fiction artwork. Trader and Subspace Striker are two such games. TRADER Trader is a three-part space adventure in which you travel round a galaxy of six planets trading with the inhabitants. The object of the game is to make a fat profit on the way whilst avoiding the many and varied pitfalls you will encounter. The graphic displays with this game are very good indeed. There is a short interactive-type game within each of the three parts of this adventure, and a few decisions have to be made - the wares to buy and at what price you sell them, for example. But to a large extent this game moves along at a relaxed pace through the various screen displays with only a little input necessary from the player. One problem is that each of the three parts of the adventure have to be LOADed separately - the variables are held in a secure memory space to be carried forward to the next part to make a continuous game. The first time I played the complete game took about one hour, but altogether some 20 minutes were spent waiting - impatiently - for the next successive part to LOAD. A game in a number of parts to overcome the limitations of even 16K of RAM (which is soon filled by adventures of this sort) is a good idea, but is more suited to a computer system with fast access disc storage. The slow ZX81 cassette based system makes patience an essential prerequisite - perhaps one of the 'fastload' programs on the market could be used with Trader to good effect. The cassette comes attractively packaged in a box with a comprehensive booklet describing the background to the game and including a Trader story. A good idea, excellent screen displays, and a game to sit back and enjoy. Perhaps a little overpriced at just under £10. SUBSPACE STRIKER Subspace Striker is a more interactive game, but a lot of time is still spent watching the screen displays too much maybe for the trigger happy arcade game enthusiast itching to shoot down some federation ships with antimat torpedoes. The graphics are certainly very good; each of the four types of ship in the federation fleet, and your own ship Swordfish - is displayed in great detail on the screen at the appropriate time. The interactive part of the game involves targetting a federation ship in your gun sights and then blasting it from the sky, after which you quickly dive back into the safety of deep space to await the next federation ship to pass. You have ten antimat torpedoes in each game, and there is an element of danger as the federation fleet also has weapons. Not a game to get the adrenalin really flowing too much time is spent watching the screen displays for that - but nevertheless an absorbing game which is good fun to play. The second game on this cassette is Zor, Battle of the Robots. Graphics are a feature of this Pixel game too. In this one, you are on a remote and barren planet and must uphold Earth's honour and supremacy in a battle with a Champion of Zor. You start equally matched with your opponent with 2,500 MJ of energy, which can be used as a weapon or shield. From then it's up to you to use your energy in the best possible way to overcome your adversary - and good luck. The extensive use of graphics in each game on this cassette means that both take up nearly all 16K of memory, and both take a long time to LOAD. The programs are preceded by a short loading test which can be used to set optimum volume/tone settings on your recorder. I had no problem loading either game. Quicksilva is at [redacted]. The cassettes reviewed above are priced as follows: Galaxians + Gloops £4.95 Trader £9.95 Subspace Striker + Zor £3.95

Sinclair User

PIXELS MAKE USE OF SPACE Two interesting new space games, both in 16K, are from Pixel Productions. In Subspace Striker, you are the captain of the Swordfish, which lurks in hyperspace shooting-down enemy vessels with its deadly Antimat torpedoes. A fairly familiar theme is enlivened by some splendid graphics of the various spaceships and excitement is added by the capacity of the Swordfish to surface and dive to avoid enemy fire. An especially good destruction sequence compensates for the misfortune of suffering a direct hit. The instructions are a little confusing at first but stay with it. It costs £5.50 for the ZX-81 version. There are outstanding graphics in Trader, too, many of them animated, and the story line is original and entertaining. You are an inter-galactic trader trying to make a profit on your wares while escaping a variety of pitfalls on your journey from moon to moon. You will need to do some quick thinking and it helps to have pen and paper handy to keep tabs on your stocks. We made a killing on Synthomunch, a yukky kind of staple food popular in the Meridian area, but cannot guarantee it will work for you. The game is in three parts, so that it is in effect a 48K saga, with plenty to keep you absorbed to the end. The complete thing costs £10.50. Both games are available from Pixel Productions, [redacted].

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

CUT OF THE FEDERATION'S SUPPLY LINES Take control of an airborne Swordfish and rid the galaxy of Federation troops. The Federation has taken over the planets in the universe ruling with austerity. As the commander of a super space cruiser your job is to disrupt the Federation's space lanes to cut off their fuel and arms supplies. You man the flight deck of a sophisticated cruiser, a subspace striker named Swordfish which is equipped with a newly developed subspace drive. This facility allows you to hide in deepest hyperspace and "surface" when you want to attack the enemy using lethal Antimat torpedoes. Detecting the enemy is made easier for you with a real space sensor probe which can indicate the location of vessels and give you a readout of their speed and range. The Federation has fleet of a sweepers, carriers and cruisers which are on red alert to attack your ship when it surfaces. Their cruisers are equipped with subspace mines and are o n the verge of mastering the technology of subspace drive. This game is the first product from a new firm Pixel Productions set up to write software for the VIC-20 and the Sinclair ZX81. Based in Southwest London, the firm plans to bring out more software for both machines on a regular basis. Subspace Striker runs on both the VIC and the ZX81 with 16K expansion RAM pack. It's obtainable by mail order for £9.50 (VIC version) and £5.50 (ZX81 version).