Sam Stoat Safebreaker

Your Computer

Overall 3/5

Paul Bond 3/5

Spectrum 48K Arcade adventure Gremlin Graphics £6 95 The latest character to emerge from the warren of the Gremlin Gang, Sam Stoat would appear to be as guilty as Monty was innocent. Intent on stealing a very valuable diamond he braves bouncing bedsprings, runaway pool balls, nasty green bottles, pogo gnomes and deadly gnomemobiles in his quest. Rather like Statesoft's Icicle Works, you get four main scenarios to choose from. Sam prowls about in the dark below four houses ranging from easy to hard. Press the fire button and pop goes the stoat - you're in the house of your choice. The basic scheme of the game is to locate the explosive bomb and match - then you can blow the safe. Having grabbed the diamond and whatever other jewellery may be lying around in the house, you can then move on. Each house contains 20 screens including the vital bottle of stoat elixir that boosts Sam's blood level - shown graphically in the form of a syringe at the bottom left hand side of the screen. At the top is shown high-score and how much money you personally have gained ill-gottenly. The maximum score attainable is, we are assured, £64,384. This is not a game that I personally would go wild over. When all's said and done, it has to be remembered that the four houses with 20 screens are just the same house with different levels of difficulty. Some nice graphical possibilities are hinted at, but Gremlin have a little way to go yet if they want to mutate into something bigger and meaner. Keep trying though, lads.

Sam Stoat Safebreaker.

Your Spectrum

Dave Nicholls 1/5 HIT

Roger Willis 3/5 MISS

Ross Holman 2/5 MISS

JOYSTICK JURY Up before the beaks - Dave Nicholls, Roger Willis and Ross Holman - comes all the new games software, from the greatest to the grottiest. Back on the bench again, our joystick jurors are here to pass judgement on all the latest software. Read their sentences before you commit your cash. WARNING! Just in case you find our scoring system too confusing, here's what it's all about. The score out of five at the end of each person's review is based on their own experience of the game. But that's pretty subjective... so they also use the HIT and MISS system to indicate its potential as a commercial success. SAM STOAT Gremlin Graphics £6.95 Ross: Sam Stoat, Gremlin Graphics' latest anti-hero is an evil little burglar. His beady eye is trained on four houses in a very select area and he's intent on purloining the jewels concealed within. The four houses are graded in difficulty and you can choose which one to start Sam off in. There are twenty rooms per house (see what I mean about a select area), one of which contains a safe, and each safe contains a diamond. To get his mits on the diamond, Sam must blow up the safe with a bomb which he finds in each house. Then it's a ease of light the blue touch paper and retire rapidly. With the diamond and any other jewellery in his swag-bag, he can move on to case the next joint. At the bottom of the screen is an unusual timer (a bloodometer) which the aenemic Sam has to keep topped up by tippling at a bottle of Sam Stoat elixir. That's his excuse! Sam's not alone on his blagging jaunt but has to contend with a variety of other creatures, most of them gnomes. Probably got bored with sitting round the pond with a fishing rod. The game's very colourful but the breaking and entering is needed to get the adrenalin running.

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Sinclair Programs

Rating 35%

Colette McDermott 35%

PRICE: £6.95 GAME TYPE: Arcade Gremlin Graphics' games. You either love them or you hate them. Nobody at Sinclair Programs loves them, but we may be unusual. Sam Stoat Safe Breaker resembles Monty is Innocent in many ways and, if you liked one, you are likely to enjoy the other. Sam Stoat is trying to break into a series of houses, to rob the owners of all their valuables. To do so, he must find the bomb in each house and take it to the safe, find the match in each house and take it to the safe, break into the safe, steal the diamond which it contains and then escape. Each of the screens is littered with the bizarre wandering enemies in which Gremlin specialises. Contact with any of these enemies will sap your energy. The graphics for each screen are well drawn. In one room Sam must creep past the owner of the house or, at least, past his big toe, which is sticking out of the bath. Movement between series of rooms is done through mouseholes. As usual, though, it is the flickering graphics which make this game an eye-straining problem to play. As the enemies move around, the background behind them takes on their colours. With six characters zooming around a room at once, you have to have good eye sight, a well-adjusted TV set, and a strong stomach to be able to watch the game. Sam Stoat is produced for the 48K Spectrum by Gremlin Graphics, [redacted].

Personal Computer News

Overall 8/10

Bob Chappell 8/10

PRICE: £6.95 PUBLISHER: Gremlin Graphics [redacted] Following in the footsteps of its Monty Mole series, Gremlin has introduced a new character - Sam Stoat. Sam, who comes complete with swag bag, aims to enter one of four mansions, each with 20 rooms, and crack the closely guarded safe. Each mansion gets progressively tougher. In order to blow open a safe, Sam has to find a bomb and a match. Once he has the bomb, and it's as big as he is, Sam has to drag it around with him wherever he goes. The rooms are attractively and colourfully depicted. There's no scrolling - the screen clears at the edge of one room and refills the next. An alternative method of leaving a room is by walking through a mousehole in the skirting board. This takes Sam to the edge of a water-filled pit which he must cross, if he's clever enough, by leaping from one moving platform to another. The game is similar in style to Monty is Innocent but more interesting. The animation is not as strong or smooth as some games, but it is effective. For a zany challenge with bright colourful graphics, Sam Stoat fits the bill nicely.

Crash

Use of Computer 63%

Graphics 74%

Playability 64%

Getting Started 63%

Addictive Qualities 51%

Value For Money 63%

Overall 68%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Gremlin Graphics Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £6.95 Language: Machine code More alliterative arcade adventure from Gremlin. In this one you play Sam Stoat, a cunning cat-burglar for stoat-burglar if you prefer). The object is to enter one of the four houses on the start screen (house 1 easy, house 4 hard), then locate the bomb and the match to blow the safe, and escape. Escape is only possible if you have collected the diamond necklace carelessly left lying around on the floor. On finding the bomb it will follow you around. Points are awarded for picking up any other valuables you may come across. Each house has a series of rooms interlinked with each other, but as usual there is a lot of nightlife in them, vicious gnomes, drunks, bouncing bed springs, spiders, bats and more. These tend to eat away his energy, indicated at the bottom of the screen by a 'Bloodometer', but it can be replenished by finding Stoat Healing Elixir. Once the diamond has been collected, Sam can leave the house through the mousehole, which turns out to be a large lake with five pillars standing in it. The three middle ones rise and fall in a rhythm which makes leaping from one to the other rather difficult. Falling into the water is fatal of course. The game is played over 80 screens, twenty per house. COMMENTS Control keys: Q/W left/right, P/L up/down (L is not mentioned on the inlay) B to SPACE to jump or enter a house Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair 2 Keyboard play: simple layout and responsive Use of colour: good Graphics: very good, some excellent animation and drawing Sound: good start tune, lacking in spot effects Skill levels: 4 selectable by house choice Lives: it says 4 on the inlay, but this seems a little silly as you have one life and an energy (Bloodometer) level Screens: 80

Sam Stoat, swag bag on his back, encounters a few nasties. He could always pop into one of the two mouseholes....

Sam has found the bomb inside a room in one of the houses. The bomb will follow wherever he goes.