Starbike

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 6/10

Richard Price 6/10

BIKERS OUT OF CONTROL Memory: 48K Price: £6.95 Joystick: Kempstonm, Fuller, Protek, Sinclair Once they have fathomed how to choose the game control options budding BMX star-warriors should have a pretty good time with Starbike, a fast arcade production from The Edge. You must steer your starbike across the planet's surface to rescue friendly droids and return them to the safety of your lander module via a teleport located in your sector. Large numbers of hostile alien objects swarm over the screen and will eventually wear out your shields and send you to wherever it is deceased BMX star-warriors are supposed to spend eternity. There are a number of control options and you can choose from several joysticks, the Fuller Master Unit, Interface 2 and Currah microspeech. Working out how to select those requires a couple of A Levels. It may take you some time to get used to the thrust controls but, all told, the game is exciting and quite addictive.

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C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Graphics 8/10

Sound 8/10

Value 8/10

Playability 7/10

MACHINE: Spectrum 48k SUPPLIER: The Edge PRICE: £6.95 An Orola, in case you didn't know, is a bouncing yellow blob which knows what it's doing and where it's going. It's also pretty fed up, as some mean race called the Mordra has just blown its planet to smithereens. Luckily, though, they just happened to have these escape pods a hand and some Orola managed to get away. An escape pod seats five and, for reasons known only to the Orola, they sent one escape pod to each of a galaxy of planets. Your task is to tour those planets, returning the Orola to their teleporters which they have set up. Each time you do this, you are moved on to the next sector to look for another Orola. Problem is that if, after getting the last one, you are at the wrong side the planet, you have to fight your way back again across the galaxy before you can take off. That's the general idea of the game which took some time to puzzle out. The instructions are written in the form of a memo from the Commander and there's a lot to remember. Once the game has loaded, you can select the controls. You can use a Kempston, Fuller or Protek interface or the keyboard. The first thing I noticed was the similarity to Jet Pac. Sound effects are similar and so is the man on his starbike, even the aliens move in the same way. The difference is that the screen scrolls sideways as opposed to being set on a single screen. It's colourful and fast, but if you've already bought Jet Pac, you may be disappointed.

Personal Computer Games

Graphics 8/10

Sound 6/10

Originality 4/10

Lasting Interest 4/10

Overall 6/10

Bob Wade

Peter Connor 6/10

Samantha Hemens

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K CONTROL: Keys, Kemp, Curs, Sinc FROM: The Edge, £6.95 Saving little alien creatures is the object of this new game and very cute they are too, these Orola. The blurb describes them as 'bouncing, yellow blobs of sentience', which is pretty accurate except for the bit about sentience. They also have extraordinarily long antennae which wave from side to side as they do their bouncing. You arrive on a planet in your lander craft, and pop out riding the starbike. Your mission: to investigate the five sectors and rescue any Orola that might be stranded there. To help you there are scanners with whirling dishes. You fly through them and an arrow appears pointing the way to the stranded Orola. So, off you go on your bike. You get the Orola and take it back to the teleporter which dumps it in your ship and dumps you in another sector. When you've collected the last one you have to get back to your ship in the time limit and escape to another planet. It's not easy though. The planets are full of hostile alien life forms, and the starbike's shields can only take five hits before total vaporisation. For protection, the bike automatically emits a constant stream of laser fire. Your joystick fire button is used, not for firing, but for controlling thrust, which gives the game a strange feel on first playing. It all sounds a bit like Lunar Jetman, and it looks even more like it. The graphics are excellent, but very Ultimate. The trouble with the game is that it gets pretty boring. Shoot, pick up, go back to ship, go to another planet and do the same thing. The aliens are varied and some planets are more difficult than others, but it all boils down to the same thing. A bit more variety in what you have to do and the game could have been a great deal more fun.

Crash

Use of Computer 84%

Graphics 80%

Playability 78%

Getting Started 80%

Addictive Qualities 69%

Value For Money 70%

Overall 77%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: The Edge Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £6.95 Language: Machine code Author: Paul Curtis The Edge is a new name in Spectrum software, but not newcomers because these are the programmers, under a different name, that produced material for Softek. With the demise of Imagine, The Edge are claiming to be the producers of the first true megagames. Starbike is being pushed as the first game ever to be "voted" into Computer & Video Games' Hall of Fame before its release. The object is to collect lost aliens from several planets while avoiding the multitudes of space debris floating around. It begins with your lunar lender arriving on the planet surface. Hundreds of aliens (space debris) floats, bounces and spins around. The landscape also contains a large radar dish or scanner, as well as various devices that shoot at Starbiker or hinder his progress. He emerges from the rescue craft already on his jet bike which is armed with continuous automatic laser fire. Near to the lander is an alien depository. Flying to the large scanner and stopping on top of it will result in a small arrow appearing in the base score line which indicates the direction of the next alien to be rescued. The aliens are small yellow balls with stalks that bounce up and down in a somewhat carefree manner considering that thay are lost! They are collected by running over them and then they hang beneath the bike until you can dump them into the depository. The process is then repeated until all the lost aliens have been found. As it isn't stated on each screen how many there are on a planet it requires careful attention to the scanner. Returning with an alien to the lender will result in its taking off for another planet, possibly leaving some unrescued aliens behind, and for this crime, points are docked from your score. Starbiker is provided with a shield value of five, and hitting any debris will knock the shields down by one. There is only one life in what is designed as a high scorers' game. COMMENTS Control keys: Q-T thrust, bottom row alternate keys = left/right Joystick: Kempston, Protek, AGF, Fuller, Sinclair Keyboard play: very responsive, simple keys Use of colour: quite good Graphics: fast, large, well detailed and smooth, a few details lacking here and there Sound: good Skill levels: progressive difficulty Lives: only 1 with 5 shields Screens: scrolling Special features: 1 or 2 player games, uses Currah microspeech, also offers of raffle, with every copy having possible winning numbers for a free subscription to C&VG or one of several BMX bikes.

Alien hanging neatly below the Starbike you head for the dustbin to dump it in.