Quackshot

Your Spectrum

Rick Robson 3/5 HIT

Roger Willis 3/5 HIT

Ross Holman 3/5 HIT

JOYSTICK JURY Have we got some great software lined up for you! But first a surprise - the hairy hacker is taking his annual rest (he calls it that 'cos it usually lasts a year!) so we welcome a new joystick juror to the bench, Rick Robson. Now join the three Rs - Rick, Roger Willis and Ross Holman as they find out where the arcade action is! What's the score? Well, the marks out of five at the end of each review is a shorthand way of summing up what each reviewer thought of the game. But will it be a commercial success? For that you'll have to check out the HIT and MISS system. Simple, eh? QUACKSHOT Sparklers £2.50 Ross: It's a cheapie and a jolly good one at that! But it doesn't have the most original idea for a game. In order to disguise this fact, the programmers have come up with a silly scenario that sets the action in a toy factory where rampaging ducks and other beasties are on the loose. And because the inspiration comes from Ancient times - well, when did Tutenkhamun first come out? - the on-screen playing area looks more like a dungeon than an industrial complex. At any one time you'll find yourself looking at about a quarter of the maze that's made up of brick walls. As soon as the chap you control reaches the edge, the screen does a fairly fast and flicker free scroll. But then so it should be - everything else stops while this takes place. In all there are sixteen such mazes. So, what stands in the way of your success then? Well, there's a complete collection of cuddly toys that have turned rather nasty. All that comes between you and constant cuddliness, is a standard issue laser-spitting gun and your duck busters. To escape the mazes you must collect the keys that'll unlock the doors but you can only carry one at a time. OK, so you've seen it before but for my money, and more importantly, for yours this ain't a bad budget buy.

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Sinclair User

Overall 3/5

Norisah Fenn 3/5

Publisher: Creative Sparks Price: £2.50 Memory: 48K Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair Slithering snakes and clockwork yellow ducks are your enemies in Quackshot. Your task is to keep everything quiet in the Acme Clockwork Toy Factory. But as you hear strange noises and start to investigate, you are pursued by giant ducks and green snakes and other wacky wind-ups. The only way to escape is to destroy the clockworks with your stun gun and duckbuster bombs. You have a time limit on each stage, collecting keys and bonuses to transport you to the next phase of your mission and add to your score. You have to negotiate the maze of corridors, which are obstructed by toys or dead ends. There are 16 screens for you to pass. The graphics are smooth and as basic as any other maze game. It is reasonably priced if you like this sort of run-of-the-mill game.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

ZX Computing

QUACKSHOT is the first release that we have received from the new £2.50 "Sparklers" range. This is quite a respectable maze, chase, and shoot 'em up game which kept me busy for some time. It is just as good the earlier releases which were full priced. You are chased through a maze-like factory by berserk ducks, and there are also similarities to Tutenkamen, the old arcade game. I liked it and say welcome to the market to Sparklers and hope we see more.

Your Computer

Overall 3/5

Spectrum Creative Sparks Arcade Adventure £2.95 No prizes for innovation, but value for money at the Sparklers economy price. A Tutankhamunesque maze game in which you, nightwatchman in the Acme Clockwork Toy Factory, are confronted by rampaging clockwork ducks. Armed with duckbuster bombs and stun gun you must fight them and the green snakes off. As with Tutankhamun you have to collect keys to move between levels.

Sinclair Programs

Rating 54%

Colette McDermott 54%

PRICE: £2.50 Mid May saw the launch of a new range of budget software from EMI called Sparklers. First release is Quackshot. As night watchman in the Acme Toy Factory you must get through your nightly routine of checking in at various points and patrolling the factory, whilst avoiding the lethal windups rolling around the passageways. The game takes the form of a maze through which you must move, avoiding as many toys as you can, stunning and bombing the rest. Bonuses can be collected at certain points, as can keys to unlock the doors in your section. The toys are fast moving and the maze layout complex. Scrolling is screen by screen rather than continuous so, until you know a section of the maze it is possible to be almost on top of one of the toys before you know it. Not an outstanding game, but certainly good value at the price, Quackshot is produced for the 48K Spectrum by Thorn EMI, [redacted].

Crash

Use of Computer 78%

Graphics 83%

Playability 88%

Getting Started 81%

Addictive Qualities 85%

Value For Money 85%

Overall 86%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Createive Sparks Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £2.50 Language: Machine code Author: C.S. Pryke With games such as Toy Bizarre and Chucky Egg 2 there really does seem to be a spate of industrial crisis games, after a childhood spent playing of these games I'm not surprised that nobody wants to go into industry it's too dangerous. In Quackshot the player assumes the role of a nightwatchman at the Acme Clock work Toy Factory, who, no doubt had hoped that his first night on the job would be a quiet one, not a chance! He is going to face a revolution. As he explores the factory complex he is faced with numerous toys, ducks, spiders and snakes to name a few. For some reason all the toys have taken a strong dislike to watchmen and are out to kill him. His only means of defence are a stun gun and antiduck bombs. The gun only fires left and right so the bombs are needed to rid those toys not prepared to come out and chance a straight fight. In fact a bomb will clear the whole screen of every sort of nasty but as the bombs are limited you can't use them too liberally. The game is played over a series of 16 linear mazes. Each maze is about 5 screens long and access to the next maze is gained by finding the key which unlocks the door. Each progressive maze has an increasing number of locks within it, forcing you to collect more keys to work your way to the next door. As you can only carry one key at a time this means exposing yourself more frequently to the nasties while you go back to get the next key. The maze is full of surprises, the least pleasant being a helmet shaped creature that homes in on you at great speed. Transport chambers allow you to relocate yourself, a useful means of escape. Points are scored for moving from one maze to another and for picking up strange objects from within the maze, apart from the keys these objects have no other purpose. As you move the maze scrolls sideways. A map of the current maze is shown at the top of the screen and a countdown is provided to allow the player a measure of progress in any particular maze. COMMENTS Control keys: D/C up/down, N/M left/right, SS for bomb, S to fire Joystick: Kempston and Sinclair Keyboard play: comfortable Use of colour: very good Graphics: very good Sound: good Skill levels: 1 Lives: 4 Screens about 80

Looking for the way out from maze one in QUACKSHOT.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Graphics 7/10

Sound 5/10

Value 8/10

Playability 8/10

MACHINE: Spectrum SUPPLIER: Creative Sparks PRICE: £2.50 Everything has gone quackers at the Acme clockwork toy factory. All is peaceful for the nightwatchman until the toys - led by large yellow ducks - stage a rebellion. Armed with a stun gun and duckbuster bombs the nightwatchman has to shoot and blast his way out of trouble. The nightwatchman also has to collect keys to open doors to various levels of the factory and hunt down the wacky-windups as they rampage over 16 screens of action. Watch the feathers fly!

THE PRICE IS RIGHT Buying computer games can be an expensive business. Some can cost anything up to £14. To buy all the latest titles as they come onto the market would cost a small fortune. And that's beyond the pocket of most people. So it's no wonder that software companies have started producing a range of games costing no more than a couple of pounds. Unfortunately, besides being cheap, some were very nasty and a waste of money. It seemed far better to save up and buy a top price game. But such is the potential of the market that the quality of the games has improved while the prices have been kept low. So Computer & Video Games thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at some of the current budget games on the market from software houses. Firebird, British Telecom's software company, is now in the process of updating its Silver catalogue which was launched in October 1984 with great success, with all the games selling for £2.50. Star of the original 20 titles was undoubtedly Booty on the Spectrum 48k and Commodore 64 which, claims Firebird, has sales now in excess of 100,000. It's now being converted to the Amstrad and should be available by late summer. In Booty, Jim the cabin boy faces death by drowning or at the hands of the Ghost Pirate as he searches through the hold of the Black Galleon in search of treasure. Another favourite is Gogo the Ghost on the Commodore 64 which has, believe it or not, 150 frames of haunted happenings. New games shortly to be introduced into the Silver range are Microcosm for the BBC B, Subsunk for the Commodore 64 and Don't Panic for the 16k and 48k Spectrum. Mastertronic, formed in April 1984, now claims to be the brand leader in budget games - its extensive range sells for just £1.99 each. In its first 12 months of trading, Mastertronic says it has audited figures of sales for two million games. New developments for 1985 in the £1.99 range include two semi-educational games in its Mistertronic titles - Make Music with Mistertronic and Type Rope - aimed at the six to 11 age range. Earlier this year, Atlantis Software launched three games under its new Atlantis Gold label, selling at £2.99 each. They were the Dungeons and Dragons-style Adventure Velnor's Lair for the Commodore 64 and Nicotine Nightmare and Self Destruct, both on the Spectrum 48k. The last two have proved so popular that Atlantis is in the process of converting them for the Amstrad - a move which again points to the growing popularity of the machine. Mike Cole, of Atlantis, says: "We believe in the Amstrad as the next thing to come. It's a lovely machine. We will be supporting it." Being launched this spring is The Sparkler range of games from Creative Sparks at £2.50. Sandy Mackenzie, of Creative Sparks, says: "There is a a need to supply good quality software at prices affordable to kids". The company's decision to produce cheap software was prompted to a great extent by the large number of excellent games sent in by amateur writers. "By promoting games in the budget range," says Sandy, "we are opening the industry to new talent, and also serving the interest of games buyers by publishing good games at reasonable prices. After all, low prices doesn't have to mean low quality." Soit seems that pocket-money power is being recognised at last and computer star wars could soon become computer price wars. About time, too!