Sir Lancelot

Your Spectrum

Dave Nicholls 3/5 HIT

Roger Willis 3/5 HIT

Ross Holman 3/5 HIT

JOYSTICK JURY All the latest software from around the houses! Passing judgement this month are Dave Nicholls, Ross Holman and Roger Willis. Our regular crew of software screw balls are in fine form this month. Draining the dregs of Christmas spirit are Dave Nicholls, the hairy hacker; JSW champion Ross Holman; and our own two-wheeled terror, Roger Willis. 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. SIR LANCELOT Melbourne House £5.95 Ross: This is a simplified Manic Miner-type game that packs an incredible 24 screens into a 16K Spectrum. The idea behind the game is fairly unoriginal - collect the flashing objects on each screen to make an exit appear that's used to get on to the next level - but the actual implementation is quite cute. Your little Lancelot figure runs around at a fairly hectic pace, and all the spare Lancelots march in unison to and fro across the bottom of the screen. (Ring any bells yet?) The aim of the game is to progress through all the rooms of the castle in search of the Holy Grail. A menagerie of animals patrol the various key points, although memory does rather restrict their number. Lancelot jumps gaps, moves left or right (even when falling) and has no problem surviving even the longest of falls. The graphics appear to move in four-pixel stages, which means that it's slightly less precise than 1 would have liked - but the obstacles and objects have been carefully placed to pose maximum problems.

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

ZX Computing

Instructions 70%

Presentation 70%

Addictability 70%

Value For Money 75%

ZXC Factor 7/10

David Harwood 7/10

Melbourne House Publishers [redacted] PRICE: £6.95 Another game for the 16K Spectrum (hooray!) is Sir Lancelot from Melbourne House, so a good quality game can be expected. Sir Lancelot is loaded using rapidload, which is supposed to speed up loading times by half. This is a very good idea for 48K games (why didn't they adopt this with Holmes?), but there is no real need for this with a 16K game and I did not notice any improvement in loading speed. Unfortunately, this is another grab and collect program and is of the same genre as all the others. Can we possibly have something else please? You, as Sir Lancelot, need to go through 24 rooms in the castle and collect all the treasure that is hanging around. Animals do the guarding of the treasure and there is a time limit for you to gather everything in the room and scarper to the exit before the time runs out and a life is lost. The action is fast, as you move Sir Lancelot around with O for left, P for right and CAP SHIFT to jump. With a suggested completion time of three weeks, the game should keep you amused for some time. The graphics and sound are alright, but nothing brilliant. The largest letdown is that every time a life is lost, you have to wait for the funeral march to be played.

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 7/10

John Gilbert 7/10

WILLY IN ARMOUR Memory: 16/48K Price: £5.95 Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Cursor If you own a 16K Spectrum and have felt left out since Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy were produced for the 48K machine then Sir Lancelot, from Melbourne House, may take away some of the heartache. Although the author does not equate the game with the best-selling Willy series there are some obvious parallels. As the fabled knight in shining armour you must investigate 24 rooms through which have been strewn treasures, including keys, crowns and gold, and seven difFerent types of monster. They move mechanically up and down or across the screen and your task is to develop a strategy to defeat them and retrieve the treasure. The solutions to the treasure quests on each screen are made harder when the objects seem to be out of reach. However, each screen contains an answer and it just takes practice to get to the next one. Sir Lancelot is a 48K game crammed into a 16K machine and as such the author should be congratulated.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Personal Computer Games

Graphics 7/10

Sound 6/10

Originality 3/10

Lasting Interest 7/10

Overall 7/10

Martyn Smith 7/10

Peter Connor

Peter Walker

Robert Patrick

MACHINE: Spectrum 16/48K CONTROL: Keys, Kemp, Sinc, Pro FROM: Melbourne House, £5.95 Let's not beat about the bush: Sir Lancelot is as close to Manic Miner as you can get without copyright problems. There are 24 screens for your character to run through, collect objects and, to finish the sheet, drop into a box. While doing this he must avoid various nasties including cooking pots on legs, Pacmen and birds. Complete all 24 and Sir Lancelot collects the Holy Grail. The screens are traditional platform-fare, though staircases ('up' only) transport the little knight from level to level and he can fall any distance. So what's special about Sir Lancelot - well, Melbourne House have managed to pack everything into 16K... now that's pretty amazing. Sir Lancelot himself is a far better graphics character than Willy, detailed and very endearing. The sound is also very reasonable with a nice little bleep when an object is picked up. The game is packaged very well and there is a superbly drawn title screen with music at the start. Sir Lancelot is not an immediately easy game to play. On the first screen it can take some time to figure out the best route to the objects to be collected. The Pacman at the top moves pretty quickly and will gobble you up many a time before you get the knack of evading him. Other screens introduce military opponents: they look a bit like Lance but they're definitely not good guys. They patrol the bottom of the screen and make it tricky to get up to the objects. Sir Lancelot is very impressive, given that it's only in 16K. For those owners with only that much memory it's a great buy. The many more with 48K will want to think twice about buying something that's good, but not as good as Jet Set Willy.

Big K

Graphics 3/3

Playability 3/3

Addictiveness 2/3

Overall 3/3

John Conquest 3/3

HAVE AT YE, SIR CLIVE MAKER: Melbourne House FORMAT: cassette PRICE: £5.95 A minor miracle from Stephen Cargill who's managed to squeeze 24 very different screens, complete with seven monsters and moving staircases, into 16K, making this is one of the best games available for the junior Spectrum while not being disgraced in the 48K's league. Sir Lancelot has to collect all the treasures on each screen, dodging the monsters, before he can get to the exit and on to the next, in his quest for the Holy Grail, with only four lives in hand. Sir L's animation is very well done and with only three actions - left, right and jump - he's pretty easy to control on the keyboard; though, as ever, even more so with a stick, the monsters are much wittier than most and include dog birds, Pac-Man, a cooking pot and bouncing balls. Timing is of the essence to avoid them, because you can't do anything to them. One nice feature is the red carpet on which the ghosts of slain Lancelots ascend to heaven. Whoops, what a giveaway!

CrashCrash Smash

Use of Computer 90%

Graphics 89%

Playability 88%

Getting Started 93%

Addictive Qualities 89%

Value For Money 90%

Overall 90%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Melbourne House Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £5.95 Language: Machine code Author: Stephen Cargill Here's the first game from Melbourne House's new 'Studio B' based in England. Your task in this manic platform-ish game is to investigate 24 rooms in the castle and to collect all the things of use to you as you go. This is obviously the kind of useless existence that King Arthur's knights of the Round Table enjoyed, seeking, collecting and getting killed off. Although principally a platform style game, Sir Lancelot has many variations on the different screens, ladders, stairs, towers, hidey-holes and all sorts of things. Because of the combination and placing of collectible objects and hazards, strategy becomes an important element in the game. Even when all the objects have been collected, you cannot clear a screen until you reach the flashing exit which appears when the last object is taken. There is a large playing area, with score lines and animated 'lives' remaining running along beneath. COMMENTS Control keys: alternate keys on second row for left and right and SHIFT to SPACE for jump Joystick: cursor type, but hardly needs one Keyboard play: very responsive, nice simple keys Use of colour: excellent Graphics: excellent Sound: very good Skill levels: 1 Lives: 4 Screens: 24 Special features:

Another screen which looks deceptively simple.

You've got to be quick to dive into the alcoves.

Read it at Crash - The Online Edition

Sinclair Programs

Rating 80%

June Mortimer 80%

PRICE: £5.95 GAME TYPE: Arcade In the excitement of software launches for Christmas it is easy to overlook the fact that, these days, 16K Spectrum owners are suffering just as much as ZX-81 owners from scarcity of new software. Melbourne House have taken this into account with their new launch, Sir Lancelot, which will run on the 16K Spectrum. It is a complicated arcade-style adventure in which the aim is for your character, Sir Lancelot, to avoid the moving nasties on the screen and, by moving left and right and jumping, collect the objects. To confuse matters even more, there is a time limit of 999 time units, and these slip away extremely quickly. The game calls for strategy and timing. Each screen will take some time to complete as, with the time limit ticking away rapidly, it is not necessary only to be able to collect the objects, but to be able to collect them as quickly as possible. There are many screens, of which the first two are likely to keep you occupied for some time. The graphics are smooth and flicker-free, the game is fast moving and a number of fun details, such as the extra-life Sir Lancelot's which march up and down the screen, make this an excellent game, which will probably be enjoyed by 48K and 16K owners. Sir Lancelot is produced for the 16K Spectrum by Melbourne House, [redacted].

Personal Computer News

Overall 8/10

Karen Isaac 8/10

PRICE: £6.95 PUBLISHER: Melbourne House [redacted] Sir Lancelot could well have been called son of Manic Miner, because the two are astonishingly similar in many ways. Sir Lancelot must collect all the valuable items contained in a room in the castle, to enable him to move on to the next of a series of 24 rooms. To Sir Lancelot's despair, vicious pac-men, preying birds, and adversary knights plague the screen. The moment our brave knight makes the slightest contact with any of them. he is instantly interred. Then an illustration of a grave appears with the letters RIP written on a headstone, and poor Sir Lancelot's soul rises to heaven. But our knight, not content with the situation, continues to try and defeat his enemies until all four lives have been used. The number of lives left is displayed at the bottom of the screen as knights marching to and fro. You start in one of the colourful rooms in the castle. Once you press the correct keys, you will start running here and there, up and down stairs and escalators. While our knight is frantically collecting the items, time is rapidly running out. This is displayed at the bottom right of the screen. A bright flashing box with the word 'out', indicates that you have finally collected everything. Jumping into the box moves you onto the next phase. Every time you clear a sheet, it gets harder. The more time you have left on completing the sheet, the higher your score will be. Sir Lancelot is a fast and exciting arcade game. The graphics are basic, but even so the figures are effective.