911 TS

Your Spectrum

Dave Nicholls 1/5 HIT

Roger Willis 2/5 MISS

Ross Holman 2/5 MISS

JOYSTICK JURY Our three-ring circus of Roger Willis, Ross Holman and Dave Nicholls is back in town. Watch 'em put all the latest arcade games through the hoops - and have a laugh at the clowning around. 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? 911TS Elite £7.95 Roger: Stuck up past its hub-caps in blatant advertising for Dunlop tyres, including permanent on-screen logo and an opening 'choice' screen featuring four different types of competition rubber from the aforesaid corporate enterprise, this lump of software claims to transport us through the experience of driving an upmarket hairdresser's motor car through various rally sections in less-than-glorious 2D scrolling action. (If, as Elite's packaging blurb boldly states, the Porsche 911 is the "world's leading sports car" then I'm Sir Clive Sinclair. This is fortunately untrue, although we seem to share similar intelligence and cash flow problems...) Players also get a chance to 'buy' other go-faster goodies besides tyres, before attacking their first stage. There is, we quickly discover, no pretension to driving simulation. The game is nothing but a simplistic 'dodge-the-random-object' slice of kiddie-level arcadia. Maybe I'd have been better off on Pirellis...

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Sinclair User

Overall 1/5

Chris Bourne 1/5

Publisher: Elite Price: £7.95 Memory: 48K Joystick: Not Specified "Hey guys, I just had a great idea in the bath. How about a game about a Porsche?" "Triff, boss. And we could get a major tyre company like Dunlop Tyres SP Tyres UK Ltd to endorse it." "Won't that cost greenbackwise?" "No way. All we have to do is underline Dunlop Tyres wherever it appears on the insert and in the game. We could only allow players to use Dunlop tyres in the game. The possibilities hype wise are endlessville, boss." "I like the way you're thinking. What do the programmers reckon on schedules? Can you do it for Monday, kid?" "Uh, like, that's a bit heavy. I mean, I was going to take Sharon to the Motorhead concert tonight..." "No sweat. Just lay down that old scrolling routine we used in all the other games." "But the Porsche doesn't jump fences like the horses in Grand National, boss." "So what? Put some bushes and logs n'stuff in the middle of the road. I saw this great ZX-81 game a couple of years ago in a mag which scrolled up the screen with bushes and things. You remember - I was playing it in the bath when I got the idea for Kokotoni Wimp." "Don't you think the punters will notice?" "Punters? Shmucks. No more arguments, boys, or its P45 city for the lot of you. Besides, when they see Dunlop Tyres all over the cassette they won't bother about the rest. We're talking action, we're talking hype, we're talking spondulistani... " 911TS. Another great game from Elite. Don't buy it.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Crash

Use of Computer 70%

Graphics 75%

Playability 55%

Getting Started 57%

Addictive Qualities 54%

Value For Money 55%

Overall 58%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Elite Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £6.95 Language: Machine code Author: The inlay card states that 911TS has been produced with the cooperation of the Dunlop TyreCo. However from the information uncovered by the CRASH network of agents it seems that the game was put together for Dunlop to be used in their spring publicity drive. This may mean that the game might be a little difficult to find in the shops. In essence what we have here is a car racing game. You are an ace rally driver on a very tough course being relentlessly pursued by an unsporting foe. The opening stage of the game shows the player with £2000 to spend on goodies for the car. The add-ons are selected from four pages each with a choice of four items which range from tyres (price from £248 up to £644) to steering and suspension systems. You will have to budget carefully in order to buy the optimum range of accessories, the extras are not fitted to your car for the start but must be collected en-route. The race takes place over 8 stages through four different types of scenery. The main playing screens presents a birds eye view of the road and a map of the course marking the positions of each of the 8 stages together with the position of your car and that of your foe. On the left an indicator shows your speed and opposite a similar indicator shows the amount of damage you car has sustained. At the top of the screen the distance to the end of the stage is shown together with the total score and the time remaining to complete the stage. Your car appears to stand still while the road scrolls downwards, and since only a small part of the road ahead is in view you have very little warning of the oncoming hazards. At the end of stages 1, 3, 5, and 7 you are able to take advantage of pauses to collect some of the extra goodies which you may have ordered for without added features your car will not have the performance required to finish the race. Should you survive the race you can start again but each new start becomes more difficult as the time allowed to complete each stage shortens. COMMENTS Control keys: O/P accelerate/brake Z/X left/right Joystick: not stated but Kempston appears to work Keyboard play: suitable layout and responds well Use of colour: good choice but slight case of the attributes Graphics: attractive with smooth scrolling action Sound: none Skill levels: 1 but game becomes progressively more difficult Lives: 1 but damage reduced at the end of each stage Screens: scrolling action

Rallying along on your Dunlops can be rather a slow process.