Rider

Your Spectrum

Brian Pedlar 7/10

Dilwyn Jones 4/10

Gerralt Jones 6/10

Your Spectrum is continuing to scour the country's computer clubs to get the undiluted thoughts, feelings and impressions of dedicated games enthusiasts - in order to provide our readers with unbiased evaluations. Any club wishing to offer its reviewing services should contact Ron Smith, Spectrum Soft, [redacted]. We sent this month's batch to the Bangor Computer Club of North Wales, where their expert reviewers got to work; their plaudits and barbs can be seen over the following pages. First, let's have a look at the club and what it offers its members. The Bangor Computer Club was formed 18 months ago by noted author, Dilwyn Jones. He wanted to meet the needs of local home computer users, and holds meetings in member's homes on a spur-of-the-moment basis. There are currently 25 to 30 members whose ages range from 13 to 30 and, although there's no longer a fixed membership fee, those attending are expected to splash out towards the cost of the evening. Its members have the chance to try out each other's software and exchange ideas. Members can always call upon their colleagues to help solve problems. Anyone in the area who's thinking of joining the club should contact Dilwyn on [redacted], outside office hours. THE LINE-UP This month's reviewers are Ieuan Davis (25), Gerralt Jones (22) and Brian Pedlar (31); all three are long-standing members of the club and avid games enthusiasts to boot. They represent the 'Old Gold' strata of Speccy users, so we won't be expecting starry-eyed reactions to our selection of new games. RIDER Virgin Games £5.95 An MI5 agent parachutes into enemy territory, collects a Resistance motor bike and checks out the mined roads ready for the invasion - ta-rah and toodle-pip!

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Crash

Overall 50%

Producer Producer: Virgin Games, 48K £5.95 (1) Authors: Roy Poole & Terry Murray The writers of 'Yomp' have come up with another quasi-military theme game in two parts. First screen you leap from a plane on a parachute and try to land on one of a stream of riderless motorbikes below. These have been supplied by the resistance movement of the occupied country you are spying on. If you succeed in landing on one it cuts instantly to the second screen. This is a 3D view of a country road, heavily sowed with visible mines, down which you must guide your careering bike. Although the details and large graphics are quite good the game ends up being unplayable. You can't brake and turn at the same time for instance. It all palls very quickly and ends up being much slower than it should. Reasonable control keys, seven skill levels, no joystick option. Only a fair game. Overall CRASH rating 50%. Mixture of BASIC and M/C.

Read it at Crash - The Online Edition

Crash

Overall 50%

Producer Producer: Virgin Games, 48K £5.95 (1) Authors: Roy Poole & Terry Murray The writers of 'Yomp' have come up with another quasi-military theme game in two parts. First screen you leap from a plane on a parachute and try to land on one of a stream of riderless motorbikes below. These have been supplied by the resistance movement of the occupied country you are spying on. If you succeed in landing on one it cuts instantly to the second screen. This is a 3D view of a country road, heavily sowed with visible mines, down which you must guide your careering bike. Although the details and large graphics are quite good the game ends up being unplayable. You can't brake and turn at the same time for instance. It all palls very quickly and ends up being much slower than it should. Reasonable control keys, seven skill levels, no joystick option. Only a fair game. Overall CRASH rating 50%. Mixture of BASIC and M/C.

Crash

Use of Computer 45%

Graphics 55%

Playability 50%

Getting Started 60%

Addictive Qualities 45%

Value For Money 45%

Overall 50%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Virgin Games Memory Required: 48K Recommended Retail Price: £5.95 Language: basic with some machine code Author: Roy Poole & Terry Murray The authors of Virgin's Yomp have again come up with a quasi-military theme. The object of this two-part game is to parachute into enemy territory (you're an agent from MI5) and land on a motorbike, then escape on the bike, checking out the enemy's mined roads. You do this by weaving in and out of the mines which fortunately still have their markers on so you can see where they are. A sensible menu appears, towed on behind a plane which lets you choose between one and five players, and skill levels ranging from 001 to the coveted 007! The game commences with the plane roaring across the screen and you falling out. It then cuts to a second screen where you are seen floating erratically down under your parachute. Along the base riderless motor bikes slowly pass by. These have been provided by the Resistance, although how they get so many riderless bikes to move along and without the enemy seeing them is not explained! The idea is to land neatly on one of the bikes. This isn't as easy to do as it sounds. At the last moment, just when you think you've got yourself lined up, the harness is released and you drop. If you miss a bike it's back to the top. The second part starts immediately you land on one. Here you get a head on view as the bike with 'you' on it races down the heavily mined road. You can swerve left and right, accelerate or brake. If you hit a mine, that's it. On the higher level of difficulty the speeds increase and more of the mines are live. Although the patterns of mines remain much the same from game to game, the mines which are active are never the same. COMMENTS Keyboard positions: reasonable Joystick options: none Keyboard play: responsive but you can't brake or accelerate while veering left or right Use of colour: average Graphics:average Sound: continuous but unadventurous Skill levels: seven Lives: one

My Kingdom for a Harley! The riderless bikes await.

Screen 2 - dodging the marked mines, RIDER.

Personal Computer Games

Graphics 4/10

Sound 4/10

Ease Of Use 7/10

Originality 7/10

Lasting Interest 3/10

Overall 3/10

Wensley Dale 3/10

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K JOYSTICK: No CATEGORY: Arcade SUPPLIER: Virgin Games PRICE: £5.95 Players of Rider will be taken for a ride in more ways than one. It is based on the premise that, as a British agent, your mission is to find the location of mines on the roads of a country the UK is about to invade. The first ride is a parachute one. You're dropped into the country above a line of motorbikes provided by the Resistance. By manoeuvring left and right as you descend, you must land on a bike, different coloured bikes being worth different points. Once on a bike, it's off down the mined road, avoiding the mines as long as possible. The game ends when you either explode on a mine, or crash into a bollard. There's a lot of bollards to this game, starting with a ridiculous scoring system. Landing on a bike gets anywhere from 19 to 900-odd points. Landing on a red bike when red bikes are worth only 19 points means a brilliant ride score far less than crashing a good bike immediately. Another thing is that the location of mines and bollards is the same every time, and soon becomes familiar. In programming terms, the RANDOMISE function is screamed for. Rider is brought to you by the same programming team that did Yomp. Like that game, Rider has a military flavour, and one of its two stages is remarkably like Horace Goes Skiing - swinging left and right to avoid obstacles. This is a widely used theme, so its probably coincidental that the best parts of Yomp and Rider are available with more charm and smoothness on Horace's Holiday. However, to be fair, Rider offers seven speed levels and a score table for up to five players, which Horace doesn't. Perhaps these will go down well at the barracks.

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 6/10

EXTRA LIVES WOULD MAKE A MORE ExCITING RIDE Two recent releases from Virgin Games are Rider and Angler, both for the 48K Spectrum. In Rider, you are an MI5 agent charged with a two-part mission. Stage one consists of parachuting into enemy territory and attempting to land on a moving motor-cycle. Thus mounted, you then move to stage two, which entails riding through a minefield to check the terrain prior to invasion. You choose any level of difficulty from 001 to 007 and must avoid not only randomly-placed mines but obstacles which may cause you to crash. If you manage to stay the course you will be promoted. The graphics in both stages of the game are lively and the second stage promises a fast and challenging ride. A major fault, however, is that if you crash during stage two, you have to go back to your original parachuting exercise. Extra lives for the motor-cyclist would have made the game more satisfying, as the second part is the more exciting and difficult to master. Angler could help confirm the low status of fishing as a spectator sport. In it you are at sea with your trawler, attempting to catch a variety of fish, all gaining different scores according to their type. The trawler moves left and right and pressing any key casts the fishing line. According to the instructions, the length of time you keep the keys depressed determines the length of the line but, in the reviewer's experience, the line showed an infuriating tendency to stop short of any fish at which it was aimed. The game features a scoreboard so that you can compete against your friends and a high score earns a certificate of merit. Fairly rudimentary graphics and slow responses, even if you choose an advanced level of difficulty, do not make it wildly exciting. Rider and Angler are produced by Virgin Games, [redacted] and cost £5.50 each.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online