Zip-Zap

Crash

Producer: Imagine, 48K £5.50 Author: Ian Weatherburn In Zip Zap you area severely damaged robot with a motor that won't turn off and only limited braking power, so you tend to travel in circles. A teleport delivers you (nice graphic) into a swirling mass of miserable aliens from whose deadly touch you are partly protected by a failing shield. The idea is to buzz chaotically around in confusing circles to collect four power units. When you touch one it automatically attaches itself to the teleportal, When all four are in position you can get back to the teleportal in time. By Imagine's standards, not their best game, but still better than most games around. Joystick: Kempston, AGF, Protek, Fuller.

Read it at Crash - The Online Edition

Crash

Producer: Imagine, 48K £5.50 Author: Ian Weatherburn In Zip Zap you area severely damaged robot with a motor that won't turn off and only limited braking power, so you tend to travel in circles. A teleport delivers you (nice graphic) into a swirling mass of miserable aliens from whose deadly touch you are partly protected by a failing shield. The idea is to buzz chaotically around in confusing circles to collect four power units. When you touch one it automatically attaches itself to the teleportal, When all four are in position you can get back to the teleportal in time. By Imagine's standards, not their best game, but still better than most games around. Joystick: Kempston, AGF, Protek, Fuller.

Crash

Producer: Imagine, 48K £5.50 Author: Ian Weatherburn In Zip Zap you area severely damaged robot with a motor that won't turn off and only limited braking power, so you tend to travel in circles. A teleport delivers you (nice graphic) into a swirling mass of miserable aliens from whose deadly touch you are partly protected by a failing shield. The idea is to buzz chaotically around in confusing circles to collect four power units. When you touch one it automatically attaches itself to the teleportal, When all four are in position you can get back to the teleportal in time. By Imagine's standards, not their best game, but still better than most games around. Joystick: Kempston, AGF, Protek, Fuller.

Sinclair User

John Gilbert

IMAGINE ZIP ZAPS THE GAMES MARKET Imagine has gained a reputation for producing games with original concepts and Zip Zap, for the 48K Spectrum, is no exception. The game centres on a robot which is the last of its race. It must collect power cells which are used with a time transporter which will extract it from its present dangerous situation and you into the next level. It would be an understatement to say that the graphics and sound are superb. Unlike previous Imagine games, Zip Zap has a depth of concept which should keep you playing for hours. The controls of the robot are difficult to understand at the start, until you realise that the left button will make it arc left and the right key will make it arc right. Only when you take your finger off the key will it stop arcing. That means that you could describe a complete circle if you want to reverse to avoid the aliens which will hinder your movement at each level. The aliens change on each level and we calculate that there are 32 types of alien which you must encounter before you return to the first type on level 33. That means you will have to do plenty of playing to discover all of the alien types and that is what makes the game so compulsive. Zip Zap is an excellent arcade-quality game. It can be obtained from Imagine, [redacted]. It costs £5.50.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

ATTACKED BY HORRIBLE LITTLE MEN Zip Zap casts you as a droid being attacked on all sides by vicious aliens. To survive you have to collect four power discs which will enable you to be beamed up to the next level. You are armed with a laser gun which will enable you to blast a pathway for yourself though blasting is not the main aim in this game. The real skill is in controlling your droid and learning how to use the breaks to stop yourself careering into the aliens. Zip Zap is the latest from Imagine Software for the 48K Spectrum. The game features an Asteroids-style wraparound screen and has no less than twenty levels to get through. It's available from Imagine stockists now at £5.50. If £5.50 is a little bit more than you can afford at the moment and you also live in the Manchester area then turn to page eleven for your chance to win one of three new games from Imagine. The other two games which were featured in our August issue are Zzoom and Arcadia for the Commodore 64.

Personal Computer News

Lasting Appeal 3/5

Playability 2/5

Use Of Machine 3/5

Overall Value 3/5

Mike Gerrard 3/5

NAME: Zip-Zap SYSTEM: Spectrum 48K PRICE: £5.50 PUBLISHER: Imagine, [redacted] FORMAT: Cassette LANGUAGE: Machine code OTHER VERSIONS: None OUTLETS: Mail order, Smiths, Boots, Menzies, most dealers ROBOT RAMPAGE They may be good or bad, but Imagine's games are guaranteed to be different, which sometimes makes them difficult to describe. Zip-Zap has you controlling a robot floating around in outer space, avoiding aliens and gathering four fuel cells which enable you to transport to the next sector. There the whole business starts all over again with different-shaped aliens. The aim, of course, is survival and high scores, for which there is a record. OBJECTIVES The robot you control is a Buddha-like figure that is beamed down a hollow column of light, otherwise known as the Tele-portal system. Once that has retracted you are floating about on a screen that is swimming with aliens, and which also contains the four fuel cells you must collect together. For once this is a game where you have only one life, and you survive for as long as you have energy left. You start the game with 99 units. Indicated near the top-centre of the screen, and as this gets low your speed of movement is reduced, but energy is replenished slightly as you complete each sector. IN PLAY The aliens can be either shot or avoided by maneouvering... I would have said nifty maneouvering, but neither keyboard nor joystick offers you too much control over your robot. If you want it to head in a particular direction you must try and stop it rotating at just the right point, when it will come out of its circling and go forwards in a straight line till you rotate it again. It's difficult enough trying to explain this in writing, but doing it is even worse. The graphics are first class, there's no doubt about that, with 32 different types of aliens as you progress through the screens, which I only managed courtesy of a special review copy which permits such a feat. VERDICT Outstanding graphics unfortunately don't make up for the lack of control you have over your character. Why on earth there couldn't have been a straightforward up-down-left-right movement to avoid the nasties and get about the screen I don't know.