Brainstorm

Your Sinclair

Graphics 2/10

Playability 7/10

Value For Money 6/10

Addictiveness 7/10

Overall 6/10

Tony Worrall 6/10

BUDGET BONANZA What we got? Loadsacheapies! And we got Tony Worrall to review 'em. Take it away, Wozza! BRAINSTORM Firebird £1.99 Reviewer: Tony Worrall Brainstorm, in concept and design, is very similar to Zolyx, (also from Firebird Silver,) in that moveable lines must be... er... moved around a multi-coloured checker board in an attempt to drive the bouncing ball onto point scoring squares. A fair old slice of brain power is required to reach anything above the third screen. Something I failed to do (without cheating that is!) Like Zolyx this game is extremely simple to understand, and the graphics seem to be just as basic, but its still quite fun to play. A test of reactions and quick thinking rather than luck and guesswork, this is perfect budget fare, although I can't help feeling that we deserve something a little more sophisticated, even at this bargain basement price. All the same, Pete Cooke has come up with another little game - and if you go for puzzles, you'll like this.

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Sinclair User

Overall 8/10

Chris Jenkins 8/10

Label: Firebird Author: Steve Cooke Price: £1.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Chris Jenkins Doff by Tau Ceti programmer Pete Cooke on a wet Tuesday afternoon, one assumes, Brainstorm is a combination of quick reactions and forward planning which is well worth a look. The screen is divided into coloured blocks, and around it bounces a little white bed. At the bottom of the screen are three line-projectors. Select one from the menu on the right of the screen, move your pointer to the playing area, end press fire to project a line on to the screen. The aim is to pen the bouncing ball within the impenetrable lines. The trick is to pen it in over the red-coloured areas of the screen, where the ball will score you points until the timer runs out, but other colours will lose you points, so a cool hand and a quick eye are demanded. With 26 screens of increasing to complete, Brainstorm is a lot more fun than it looks and should be on your shopping list.

CrashCrash Smash

Presentation 80%

Graphics 57%

Playability 91%

Addictive Qualities 92%

Overall 90%

Kati Hamza

Nick Roberts

Paul Sumner

Producer: Firebird Retail Price: £1.99 Author: Pete Cooke Brainstorm is a journey into an arcade strategy game, in which the player uses his wits and reflexes to survive the many devious traps and pitfalls of the game. The main objective is to score as many points as possible within a set time limit. This is achieved by trapping a ball within the red point scoring areas scattered around the screen, using manoeuvrable coloured lines. The player is initially faced with several options: to play the game, view the high scores, redefine control keys, and to choose one of five starting screens and three difficulty levels. Once these decisions have been made, the battle commences. There are 26 screens, lettered from A to Z, each more difficult to complete than the last. The playing screen is split into coloured squares, with the player in control of three coloured lines and a cursor. The squares are coloured either red, green, magenta, blue or black. Hitting a red square increases the player's score, magenta squares decrease the player's score, green warps the ball to a different part of the screen, and both black and blue squares are neutral, affecting neither the ball nor the scoreline. The player has to trap the ball, using one or all of the lines (accessed by positioning the cursor over the desired colour box, and hitting the fire button), within reach of a red area of the screen, whilst attempting to avoid either the magenta or green parts. The player is provided with 100 points, and a target score, highlighted in red, of 100 points. As the game progresses the current score rises and falls, according to the ball's path across the screen. The ultimate aim is to end the time limit with the current score matching or exceeding the target. If the score drops below the target, however, the colour of the target score changes from red to magenta. If more points aren't scored pretty damn pronto, the game ends. Once the appropriate amount of points are scored, the player is then whisked onto the next screen and his previous score is transformed into the start-of-level score and target. This carries on throughout the game, and if the player's score reaches zero, or the current score falls below the target, then the game ends. COMMENTS Joystick: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair Graphics: colour is an integral part of the game, and is well used Sound: simple spot effects Options: three levels of difficulty, choice of four starting screens

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