Sweevo's Whirled

Your Sinclair

Rachael Smith

128 GAMES And so they came - the first trickle of 128 games. Sinclair cleverly made sure that the software was there, ready for the new machine. But most of the first releases have been expanded versions of existing titles, and we all know, don't we, that bigger doesn't necessarily mean better? After all, it's what you do with it that counts. So here it is - the highly personal, Rachael J Smith guide to those first ten releases. SWEEVO'S WHIRLED Gargoyle Games £9.95 Reviewer: Rachael Smith Now this is more like. If the silliness of the original wasn't enough to drive you to distraction, this'll do the job. The addition of extra rooms - extra levels even - has led to increased lunacy. The noses that spout from the floor are not to be sniffed at, unless you're being picky. This is a must for new Spectrum owners and even upwardly mobile ex-48K-ers may feel tempted by the thought of yet more fruit. One of last year's ten best goes to the top of the 128 tree. So there they are, ten offerings for the 128. All benefit from having their amplified sound blasted out through the TV, and where the new sound chip has been used to full effect it's like suddenly being able to hear after years of deafness. But while there are things here to appeal to the person who's never owned a Spectrum before, I can't see much point in duplicating a game unless you were a big fan of the original. And that means that we're not yet in a position to say whether the 128 itself is worth buying. We'll have to wait until games that make full use of that extra memory - that do things that can't be achieved in 48K - appear before we all decide to trade in our old machines.

Sinclair User

Overall 4/5

Chris Bourne 4/5

Publisher: Gargoyle Price: £9.95 Memory: 128K Joystick: Kempston, cursor, Sinclair Gargoyle's contribution to the great 128 bandwagon/beanfeast is a new version of Sweevo's World, reviewed in the February issue. Retitled Sweevo's Whirled, which just about sums up programmers Greg Follis and Royston Carter's idea of verbal humour, the game now contains 250 different rooms in a Knight Lore lookalike of great wit and style. All the energy has gone into creating new rooms and the differences which that makes to the gameplay. There's no added music, alas, just the same old beeps, now amplified through the TV speaker. Whether you reckon that makes it sound twice as good or twice as bad is a matter of personal opinion. For those who don't know the original, you must travel around the interconnected levels of Knutz Folly, an artificial planetoid full of rubbish and weird genetic experiments. These must be cleared up in order to win. Sweevo himself is a delightfully animated creature of extraordinary clumsiness. He parachutes into rooms, curls up in a ball when rocketed up lift shafts, and see stars when he hits objects. Recurrent themes include deadly fruit, horrible fingers which stick up through the floor at a moment's notice, little Hitlers, nasty girls, the Goose which lays the golden egg and other strange creatures and traps. Additions to the 128 game include sets of upturned nostrils, which seem to be just waiting to suck you into snotty oblivion, and strange Victorian style streetlamps. Although you can't push objects around as in the 3D Ultimate games, Sweevo's Whirled contains much more intricate routing problems as there may well be hidden exits and entrances to rooms via unseen transporters. Greg and Roy have a nasty habit of leaving important objects or places hidden behind towers of blocks so you only find them when you're on top of them. The other side of the game is its insistent mockery of the rather serious Ultimate classics, Knight Lore and Alien 8. This lifts the game from lookalike status to a class of its own, as its quite clear what Gargoyle are up to from the start. The old boot from Knight Lore lurks around, and the continual picking up of tins upon which to stand to reach other objects is a sort of high energy version of all that ferrying around of objects in the Ultimate games. Full marks for fun on that score. Other additions to the game include an extra two start positions which you can choose in addition to the original four. Many of the new rooms have been distributed around the maze fairly evenly, so that players of the original will find it's not just a question of solving the old game and then moving to a new section. The original version won five stars for its original humour and sheer scale and chutzpah. While Sweevo's Whirled is clearly better, by virtue of being much more complex and vastly larger in size, the lack of good sound and anything really new and noteworthy leads up to knock a point off for not trying as hard as possible. It's also £2.00 more. I'm sure Gargoyle's programmers - possibly the best in the business - can do better with their next 128 release.

The following pages show a selection of games for the Spectrum 128 and include Daley Thompson's Supertest and NeverEnding Story which come free with the machine.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

ZX Computing

The Spectrum 128's that were ghosted into software houses around the country during the past few months came out into the open at the official 128 launch. Programmers have been feverishly preparing games to ensure the machine has credible software support. Despite assurances that 48k games run on the 128, to potential buyers this may seem like fitting a moped engine into a Ferrari. Compatibility is of course an asset but the machine's viability rests on the utilisation of its added features for games writing. The software houses have come up with a miscellany of revamped classics using the 128's new capabilities to varying degrees. Games written specifically for the 128 are in the pipeline but the first offerings are reviewed below. SWEEVO'S WHIRLED! Gargoyle Games £9.95 The original version of Sweevo's World would probably have gotten a ZX Monster Hit if they had existed at the time the game was released, so the 128 version starts off with a good pedigree behind it. The basic plot of the game remains the same; you must guide Sweevo around the rooms of an asteroid inhabited by all sorts of insane creatures, geese and brownies, Horrid Little Girls, deadly fruit and collapsing weights. The humour and strangeness of the obstacles were what made Sweevo's World stand out from the recent spate of Knightlore clones, and of course with an extra 80K of memory to play with it's all still there; plus lots more. The game now contains 250 rooms as well as having enhanced sound. The number of sections in the game has been increased, so that instead of starting in places like Lonesome Pine and Really Free, you can now add to that list Nobody Nose (a group of rooms inhabited by deadly noses!) and several others. It would have been nice to have continual music rather than just the tune at the beginning, but Sweevo is still one of the most enjoyable games currently available on the Spectrum (48 or 128K).

Sweevo's Whirled!

Crash

Julian Rignall

ALL THE LITTLE EXTRA BITS Julian Rignall, for it is he, puts down the joystick attached to his Commodore 64, wanders into the CRASH office and has a quick look at the game we've received for the 128K Spectrum. Between thee and me, he ended up well impressed - a diehard Commie 64 man, Jaz left the office muttering about buying the new Spectrum. Can't be bad news for Sinclair, that.... Hmmmm, a Spectrum with added bits? What would they be? I wondered. Wheels, a bit of whoosh, twiddly things? Nope, none of these - just extra RAM and an on-board hot plate to keep your coffee warm as you bash the baddies through the night. Well, it's not really a hot plate, but it doesn't half act like one. Anyway, what do these extra features mean to yer average gamesplayer on the street? Two 128 games are given away with the computer: Daley Thompson's Supertest and The Neverending Story. Daley's appeared on the Spectrum some time ago, and the original game had eight events which were loaded in two parts. The new 128 version has an extra four events: the javelin, 100m sprint, 110m hurdles and the triple jump along with the eight others and they're all loaded in a single go, making the game far more jolly and varied to play. Ocean have also made use of the 128's three-channel sound capability: excellent music accompanies the title screen and jingles play before and after each event. The whole game is far better than the 48K original and is a great freebie! The other game in the package is the official adventure of the film The Neverending Story. Again, the original version was a multiloader, although this time the game came in four chunks. The 128 version is another single load program, which makes it far more enjoyable to play. Again it's free, so you can't really complain. IN THE CHIP FACTORY Moving on to the 128 games you'll have to pay money for, Hewson's take the prize for releasing the very first 128K game - Technician Ted - the Megamix. Technician Ted 48K first appeared early last year, earning a CRASH Smash for programmers Steve Marsden and David Cooke. What Hewson have done is taken the original torturous platform arcade adventure and expanded it, making it twice as big - now there are over 100 different screens and thirty tasks to complete. AAAAAGGGH you might say, those lousy sadists... the original Tech Ted was bad enough!! The gameplay is radically different and the whole program has been 'tweaked' to take advantage of the new machine's capabilities. But don't fret poor things, each of the tasks has now been numbered so at least you know which task you're supposed to tackle next; the only problem is finding out how you complete them. Three channel music adds extra atmosphere to the game as you whizz around the factory. A special mention must go to the loader - it tells a story whilst the game loads and the music is superbly done. £7.95 buys you this piece of arcade adventuring action, only £2 more than the 48K original. ALL A BIT OF A WHIRL Gargoyle Games have also taken a tentative leap upon the 128 bandwaggon and whizzed out Sweevo's Whirled(sic) which is available for £9.95 - no increase. Capturing all those horrible Wijurs has now been made an even more difficult task with an extra fifty rooms to confuse and confound all you budding androids. There are some new images too - ginormous noses stick up through the floor (but luckily there are no huge bogeys to foul up our intrepid android's workings), fingers which make strange indecipherable (LMLWD) signs and there is also a curious lampost... I don't know what it does because I haven't seen the light (laugh, you philistines). Obviously there are no musicians at Gargoyle because there is no three channel sound, but the tune does sound better because it comes through the telly. CHATTY AND TUNEFUL Odin's Robin of the Wood and Nodes of Yesod have been souped up and join the handful of titles currently available for the 128K machine. The game elements and playing area of both 128 versions are unchanged but they now feature excellent music (as good as the Commodore any old day, believe me 'cos I'm a horrible ZZAP! reviewer). Also, a nice surprise awaits you... both programs talk. Yup, they do, and it's not too bad - a lot better than the dalek with laryngitis stuff that the old Spectrums used to burble out. 128 owners can hear Robin shouting "OW" when he gets an arrow in a painful place, and "give me a chance!!" a few seconds before he shuffles off this mortal coil. The game welcomes the player by saying "Can you help Robin in his quest for the silver arrow" upon loading - real arcade stuff! Nodes follows a similar path on the 128, with Champagne Charlie moaning and groaning as he trundles round the moon's underground caverns in his search for alchiems. You're also told when his life energy is running low, just in case you don't notice... wheee! Arc of Yesod is expected in the office any day now, and includes the fire option that was missing from the 48K version which should make it much more fun to play. Once again Odin have kept pretty much to the same game, but enhanced the product with speech and music. Odin are selling their 128 games for £9.95 - the same price charged for the originals. PARADISE EXPANDED Mikro-Gen's game Three Weeks in Paradise, which collected a CRASH Smash in its 48K incarnation last month, has been extended for the new machine and costs a pound extra, making it £10.95. The plot has grown a little, so completing the 128 game involves a lot more adventuring. Six new screens have been patched onto the game (go through the plug to find them). Some three channel music kicks the game off, otherwise the sound is much the same. FOR SKUFFLE FANS Fighting fans will no doubt be pleased to hear that Domark have added a pound to the price of Gladiator for the 128, making it £9.95. For the extra pennies you get two different graphics for the combatants - in the original version both gladiators were identical except for their weapons. Sound hasn't been upgraded a great deal - a sort of fairground tune plays on the menu screen and after a gladiator has been killed, and bopping noises indicate a hit on your opponent. One, two or four people can play the 128 version which includes ten new screens and a fairly polished demo mode. Essentially, however, the gameplay remains the same.

New obstacles and a new nasty lurk within Gargoyle Games' 128 version of SWEEVO's WORLD - called SWEEVO's WHIRLED. Take a glance at that conk…