Ghost Town

Your Spectrum

Brian Pedlar 5/10

Gerralt Jones 6/10

Ieuan Davis 5/10

Your Spectrum is continuing to scour the country's computer clubs to get the undiluted thoughts, feelings and impressions of dedicated games enthusiasts - in order to provide our readers with unbiased evaluations. Any club wishing to offer its reviewing services should contact Ron Smith, Spectrum Soft, [redacted]. We sent this month's batch to the Bangor Computer Club of North Wales, where their expert reviewers got to work; their plaudits and barbs can be seen over the following pages. First, let's have a look at the club and what it offers its members. The Bangor Computer Club was formed 18 months ago by noted author, Dilwyn Jones. He wanted to meet the needs of local home computer users, and holds meetings in member's homes on a spur-of-the-moment basis. There are currently 25 to 30 members whose ages range from 13 to 30 and, although there's no longer a fixed membership fee, those attending are expected to splash out towards the cost of the evening. Its members have the chance to try out each other's software and exchange ideas. Members can always call upon their colleagues to help solve problems. Anyone in the area who's thinking of joining the club should contact Dilwyn on [redacted], outside office hours. THE LINE-UP This month's reviewers are Ieuan Davis (25), Gerralt Jones (22) and Brian Pedlar (31); all three are long-standing members of the club and avid games enthusiasts to boot. They represent the 'Old Gold' strata of Speccy users, so we won't be expecting starry-eyed reactions to our selection of new games. GHOST TOWN Virgin Games £5.95 A Wild West text-based adventure game set in a deserted American town after the California Gold Rush. You get line maps of streets and buildings, and the whole thing is written in Basic - there's no machine code in them thar hills, pardner!

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Crash

Overall 43%

Producer: Virgin Games, 48K £5.95 Author: John Pickford Ghost Town is a pretty accurate copy of Phipps Associates' 'Greedy Gulch', but it's nowhere near as much fun. There's the same old empty town with a sequential map showing the locations of the various establishments where useful items and information may be found to help you locate the gold mine in the desert. Once in the desert there don't seem to be any graphics worth speaking of. At least the text is nicely written and the response times are very good. But if I had to choose it would be Greedy Gulch. Overall CRASH rating 43%, BASIC.

Read it at Crash - The Online Edition

Crash

Overall 43%

Producer: Virgin Games, 48K £5.95 Author: John Pickford Ghost Town is a pretty accurate copy of Phipps Associates' 'Greedy Gulch', but it's nowhere near as much fun. There's the same old empty town with a sequential map showing the locations of the various establishments where useful items and information may be found to help you locate the gold mine in the desert. Once in the desert there don't seem to be any graphics worth speaking of. At least the text is nicely written and the response times are very good. But if I had to choose it would be Greedy Gulch. Overall CRASH rating 43%, BASIC.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Keith Campbell

DEFINITELY NOT SCOTT! EDITOR - believe it or not, spelling is as found! In the hotel lobby: The walls are elaboratley decorated. Examine walls - You can't. In the hotel room! There is a bed in one corner with a dirty matress and a single pillow. Lie down - you can't. Sleep - you can't. Examine pillow - You can't. Lift pillow - OK. Should you now LOOK you will see a small key. In the stable: A saddle hangs on the wall: Examine saddle - You can't. Get saddle - it isn't here. In the Assay Office: There is an upturned filing cabinet. Open cabinet - There isn't one! You've heard Scott Adams games will soon be available for the Spectrum, haven't you? Well this isn't one of them. Described as a graphical adventure, all outdoor locations are displayed on part of a map - pretty redundant stuff since all the necessary descriptions and exits are provided in the text anyway. Ghost Town is written by a teeny bopper with no dictionary, John Pickford. How Virgin Games have the nerve to give such trivia the name of a great, I cannot understand. Perhaps they don't even know there is already a Ghost Town? They should stick to producing records, and leave Adventures to those with some knowledge. Or could it be they are hoping to confuse Spectrum owners? Ghost Town from Virgin Games for 48k Spectrum, a rip-off even at £5.95.

ZX Computing

James Walsh

Ghost Town is set in a deserted American town, abandoned after the California Gold Rush. It is not as easy to play as most other adventure games, but is quite a challenge for anyone who likes long adventure games. Your aim is to find old Jake Clampett's gold mine and return to the Town Square with the gold. But beware the sweltering heat of the desert, and steer clear of the Sheriff's Office if possible, for if you carelessly wander into one of the cells the door will slam shut and you will be trapped. The only major fault of the game is that it has limited graphics, so consequently it will only appeal to the more serious games player. Ghost Town is not as much fun or as exciting as most other adventure games, but it is reasonably good value for money.

Personal Computer Games

Graphics 3/10

Sound 2/10

Ease Of Use 5/10

Originality 6/10

Lasting Interest 5/10

Overall 5/10

Steve Mann 5/10

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K JOYSTICK: No CATEGORY: Adventure SUPPLIER: Virgin Games PRICE: £5.95 Set in an American town that was abandoned after the Californian gold rush, Ghost Town is an adventure in which your task is to find a deserted gold mine, and return to town with the contents. But, before you set off, you will need various items of equipment that are scattered about the town. Commands are entered in one of three formats: two-word sentences (OPEN DOOR, GET GUN, and so on), single words (QUIT, INVENTORY) or letters (N, S). If the cassette inlay had not included a screen picture, I would probably not have known that this was a graphic adventure. There's a short machine code routine that enables drawings to be done in the background colour and displayed instantly on completion. This didn't seem to work too well in my review copy, and most of the locations were represented by a blank screen. It's a mainly Basic program and although some simple protection devices are used it's quite easy to break into it to see how it works - despite the warning in the listing that 'CHEATING DOESN'T HELP'.

Micro Adventurer

DD

THIS TOWN IS COMING LIKE A... MICRO: Spectrum 48K PRICE: £5.95 FORMAT: Cassette SUPPLIER: Virgin Games, [redacted] Ghost Town is a you'd imagine from the title an adventure set in a deserted burg somewhere in the old west. When the game begins you find yourself, without the benefit of a single instruction to tell you why you're there or what you're looking for, in the main street. The only thing to do is explore, and luckily there is an on-screen display showing the street plan of the immediate area. You set off eagerly into the saloon or the hotel. At this point disillusionment sets in. Most of the buildings have no graphical illustrations and many consist of only one room. All of them are strikingly barren and it soon becomes apparent that most of the things described are only there to set the scene, since you can't look at them more closely, examine them, or affect them in any way. The words "You can't" become all too familiar, since they are the response to all but the most obvious commands. The problems to overcome are similarly straightforward, so once the requisite mundane objects have been collected it's a short trek across the desert to the gold mine, which inevitably turns out to be your goal. By far the best things about Ghost Town are the Graphics. The street plan is useful and clear, the pictures of rooms (all two of them) are very attractively drawn, and the maze which forms the major obstacle to finding gold is convincingly depicted. The program defines its own character set which is clearly designed and an improvement on Spectrum's. But the plot and descriptions are so ordinary and the choice of actions so limited that Ghost Town would probably be boring for the experienced adventurer and frustrating for the novice. Overall, not a bad game, but certainly nothing special.