River Raid

Your Sinclair

Overall 4/10

Marcus Berkmann 4/10

REMAKE REMODEL Those cheapie re-releases, sifted and sorted by Marcus Berkmann. Yup, games these days are like cats - they have about nine lives. First we see them on full price labels, then they reappear on various compilations, then they're out again as cheapies. In the past YS hasn't taken an awful lot of notice, but there are so many now, we just can't ignore 'em. So here's the first Remake Remodel, and the first person to write in and tell us what that reference is, wins three cheapies! RIVER RAID Firebird £1.99 Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann Another old Activision 'classic' disinterred for your delectation, River Raid is, if anything, even older than Zenji, and looks it. You're a fighter pilot buzzing over a river trying to destroy a series of vital enemy bridge links that are well defended by a number of BASIC 'sprites' that are supposed to look like tanks, ships and observation balloons. I can see why Activision took a while to make an impact in the Speccy market if they started with tat like this. What I can't see is why Firebird has agreed to release it again. Avoid.

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

Sinclair User

Overall 3/10

Tony Dillon 3/10

Label: Firebird Author: Activision Price: £1.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Tony Dillon Hello, what's s this? - River Raid. It's so old I wasn't even born when it first came out. (Hunts frantically through the cupboard and find old Atari 2600 VCS carttidge.) It's a prehistoric top-bottom scroller, flying you jet plaane along a treacherous meandering river with high cliffs destroying bridges, ships, the planes that come towards you and the tanks which fire at you. And be careful not to hit the cliffs. Here we go. Wait a minute, there is a speck of dirt on my screen. It won't come off, hang one, that dirt is shaped remarkably like a plane. It is my plane! Cor, innit small. All the graphics are small, about one UDG square big in fact.

Big K

Graphics 2/3

Playability 3/3

Addictiveness 3/3

Overall 3/3

Steve Keaton 3/3

NEXT YEAR - THE THAMES MAKER: Activision OTHER VERSIONS: CBM 64, Atari Home Computers, Atari VCS, Coleco FORMAT: cassette PRICE: £7.95 Convincing conversion of Carol Shaw's celebrated blast 'em up that not surprisingly earned a podium in the BIG K Hall of Fame some time back. Gamesters worth their salt will already know the scenario well. The objective is to fly the River of Death and crank up mega-scores by totalling battleships, choppers, enemy jets, balloons - in fact pretty much anything that moves. So far so what, some may say! Well the magic comes via the design. The vertically scrolling river is divided by bridges into sections which further subdivide into watery warzones of unpredictable peril. Initially enemy resistance is fairly puny but the pace soon hots up. Beginning with Bridge Seven land-based tanks lob bombware carelessly into your path, and come sector seventeen the sky is aflame with the flak from various gunships 'n' off-shore armoury. To complicate matters further there's a constant need to refuel and a great number of unsympathetic animation although the action does seem somewhat diluted in comparison with its Atari cousins. Y'know, I'm sure the ROMS are wilder! Even so this is more than lukewarm and in my estimation something of a compulsory purchase.

Your Spectrum

David Lester 3/5 MISS

Roger Willis 3/5 HIT

Ron Smith 2/5 HIT

JOYSTICK JURY Success in the charts doesn't always mean it's the best game around. Check out the thoughts of our jury this month - Ron Smith, Roger Willis and David Lester - and you'll see what we mean... RIVER RAID Activision £7.99 David: The idea of this game's pretty similar to a number of others I've seen over the last year, most notably Blue Max for the Atari. You have to guide a jet plane up a river, banked on both sides by steep cliffs, shooting enemy planes, helicopters, ships and missiles that get in your way. Refuelling posts appear every now and then but these get fewer and further apart as you progress through the levels. The graphics are quite smooth, but their quality's not so wonderful when you really push your foot down (or whatever you do in planes) - migraine sufferers watch out. Having said that though, you hardly need the graphics quality of Sabre Wulf to produce a good game, and River Raids certainly a good, addictive game. The game's both colourful and attractive to look at, and includes a good selection of start-up options. I must admit I was expecting something a little better from a company like Activision - but then again, the game's aduictiveness is certainly a strong point in its favour. It's just a shame it's a little let down by the quality of the sound and graphics.

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Crash

Use of Computer 73%

Graphics 74%

Playability 78%

Getting Started 82%

Addictive Qualities 72%

Value For Money 66%

Overall 74%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Activision Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £7.95 Language: Machine code Author: Carol Shaw Christmas 1984 will be the time when all those American games arrive at last on the Spectrum. Activision seem to have taken a long while to turn their attention to the smaller computers, and have now done so with a vengeance! Adapting their 'Atari River Raid' program has been one of the first jobs. Set on the River of No Return, this scrolling shoot em up is described as a mission to score as many points as possible by destroying enemy battleships, helicopters, fuel depots, jets, land tanks, hot air balloons and bridges before your jet crashes or runs out of fuel. Well that seems pretty straightforward! The river is described by green banks on either side and blue water in the middle. The landscape scrolls vertically down the screen with your jet centred. Movement is possible left and right and the jet may be speeded up or slowed down, which effectively speeds up the scrolling. There is only one skill level but the game is played as a series of bridges. The more bridges you pass, the harder life becomes. The river is dotted with islands, some of them very large, and sometimes it narrows down so much that you are flying along a tiny zig zag route. Basically you must not touch any object (including the land) except fuel depots. The fuel runs out at a constant speed regardless of flying speed and is topped up by flying over the fuel depots. The slower you fly over them, the more fuel you get. They, too, can be blown up by firing missiles. The bridges which divide up the playing levels must be destroyed. Land tanks which can be seen crossing the bridges ahead of you will start firing back, after bridge 7. For players who have reached a reasonable level of skill, it is possible to skip some of the first, easier bridges. COMMENTS Control keys: 2/W accelerate/slow down, O/P left/right, bottom row letters to fire Joystick: Sinclair, Kempston, Protek, AGF Keyboard play: good positions and responsive Use of colour: good Graphics: smallish, smooth, generally reasonable Sound: well used Special features: optional start level and two-player games

Approaching one of the bridges in RIVER RAID. Sadly the blue and green don't reproduce too well in black and white.

Personal Computer News

Overall 7/10

Mike Gerrard 7/10

PRICE: £7.99 PUBLISHER: Activision [redacted] No prizes for its graphics, but the game should win friends among people who enjoy playing for a while without being zapped into oblivion or, in this case, into the River of No Return, which is the waterway you're following in your assault jet. It's length makes the Amazon look a mere stream - I've gone through 35 bridges already. Mention of Zaxxon might create the wrong impression, as this isn't in the same league, but it's a similar style as you control your fighter flying over a landscape. No 3D here, just a bird's eye view of the river scrolling (a little jerkily) from top to bottom, with your plane at the foot of the screen. Sinclair, Kempston or any cursor-controlled joystick can be used instead of the keyboard, the controls being left-right, accelerate-decelerate and fire. There is a rapid fire. Accelerate-decelerate merely alters the scrolling speed of the screen. You can halt the game. The objects you blitz are crudely done, and all you ever see on the riverbank is an occasional mountain. Hardly realistic, and neither is the sound, unless a ship being exploded really does make a squelching sound: The other sound is an audible reminder of the state of your fuel supply, as you can either bomb fuel dumps or fly over them to somehow suck up the fuel. One or two people can play, and you can start on any of four different bridges: the first, fifth, twentieth, or thirtieth (not the ones the notes say). The documentation could be said to be lacking, and I wish it was lacking the twee notes about the program designer's Californian cycling activities. Despite the limitations, the game's not at all bad. You move along a stretch of river, sometimes divided, with intermittent bridges to blast, well, squelch. If you can hit one when a tank's crossing, so many points the better. Hazards include boats, planes, choppers, and tanks on the river-bank. Of course, these get more numerous, with the gaps between fuel dumps increasing. By the time you reach about the twentieth bridge, you need all the fuel you can get... frustrating to be rapid-firing and realise you've just zapped the only fuel dump as it emerges at the top of the screen. A jolly enough game then, perhaps more for the junior champs than the heavyweight brigade.