Protector

Your Sinclair

Overall 57%

Jonathan Davies 57%

BARGAIN BASEMENT He's strong, firm but fair, extraordinarily good-looking and what's more he's been put in charge of the Bargs again. Jonathan Davies, my man... PROTECTOR Mastertronic £2.99 Reviewer: Jonathan Davies Ah ha! A helicopter game - time to dust down the age-old 'chopper' jokes. But then again, space is short, and I really can't be bothered, so let's dive straight into The Review. This three-quid's-worth places you in the driver's seat of a helicopter at a training school in the Nevada desert. Unsurprisingly you are a trainee chopper pilot. Your mission? To fly around and collect supplies that are dotted around the landscape and deposit them back at your base. Player two, or the computer if you're a bit lacking friend-wise, does the same. Once all the supplies have been collected a bomb will appear which can then be dropped on your opponent's base. End of game. The 'competitive edge' is provided by the ability to nick supply cases from the other guy's base for one's own use (while he's not looking, of course), and to shoot him, causing him to drop whatever he's carrying. Everything happens extremely quickly, making the controls rather tricky to get to grips with and giving the computer a definite advantage. This is the kind of simple idea which so often makes a really fab, addictive game. In this particular case, though, Protector turns out to be a distinctly unfab, unaddictive game.

Sinclair User

Graphics 30%

Sound 40%

Playability 60%

Lastability 50%

Overall 50%

Chris Jenkins 50%

Label: Mastertronic Plus Author: P.A.L. Developments Price: £2.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Chris Jenkins Apart from the fact that it has the worst graphics in the world Protector has a lot going for it. It's certainly fast - so fast, in fact, that when you're playing against a computer opponent, it's all over before you've got your chopper off the landing pad. In fact, despite the shooty-shooty cover artwork, there's more than a teeny element of strategy to this one. The split screen shows a desert landscape featuring a mountain base and your helicopter landing pad. In the bottom half is your opponent's chopper. The aim is to pick up supplies from the desert, return them to your base, then assemble a bomb from them and nuke your enemy. Nice! The graphics are frankly weedy, with the worst-designed helicopters I've ever seen - they look more like soap-bubbles, and the monochrome backgrounds are similarly sparse. Still, you can't say that things don't move quickly; the screen scrolls so fast that it's difficult to bring your chopper to rest exactly over a crater, and lower yourself onto it. Your computer opponent doesn't have any difficulty, which makes it much more fair if you play against a second human. The most annoying aspect of the game is the way you have to wait on your landing pad as your chopper is refueled and re-armed after each crash. You can lose a life by crashing into a mountain, but you can't collide with your opponent. You can shoot each other with your 30mm Gatling canon (which goes 'blip blip') ) but this just causes you to drop the load you're carrying. The best part of the game is dipping into your enemy's fortress and pinching his goodies - but he can do the same to you, remember. Worth £1.99, certainly. Pity it's £2.99, really, but that's life.

Crash

Overall 47%

Nick Roberts 47%

BUDGET It's a budget bonanza, and as he loves hard work, we've handed the whole lot to Nick Roberts for his crucial, ultra-cool scrutiny! Take it away Nicko... PROTECTOR Mastertronic £2.99 Helicopters, choppers and flying machines galore! Yes you've guessed it! The budget software industry has gone mad over these machines with rotor blades on top and Anneka Rice inside. So what has Protector got to offer that the others haven't? SPEED! Most games would give their right memory chips to have the scrolling speed of this, but unfortunately it ruins this game. You need lightning reflexes to stop and start your chopper without crashing. There is no such thing as acceleration in Protector the two speeds you have are either 0 mph or 100mph! The idea behind the game had potential. You're at pilot training school, and to become top dog you must collect three parts of a bomb and deliver them to your cave base. Once there the bomb is assembled and can be dropped on the enemy cave to win the game. The screen is spilt into two with your current position in the landscape in the top and the enemy's in the bottom. The two overlap occasionally, and you get double vision! Presentation is a strong point, with an excellent loading and title screen, but surprisingly no music to cheer things up. You need to be really sneaky to get on in Protector. You can steal the bomb parts and the actual bombs from your opponent's cave, the only trouble is that they can do the same to you! if you live life in the fast lane, by all means get Protector.