Bubble Buster

Crash

Use of Computer 70%

Graphics 61%

Playability 53%

Getting Started 66%

Addictive Qualities 45%

Originality 45%

Value For Money 58%

Overall 57%

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Producer: Sinclair Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £5.95 Language: Machine code Author: Hudson Soft Bubble Buster is pretty simple to describe. You are a small man at the bottom of the screen and you can move left or right. firing missiles upwards. A large yellow bubble comes sailing in from the top left and bounces about all over the place. The object is to hit it, when it will split into two smaller bubbles. Hitting one of these will cause it to split into three tiny bubbles, and each of these hit will burst. You're dead if any bubble should hit you. Points are only scored for hitting the small bubbles and bursting them. The first three stages have increasing numbers of bubbles. The fourth is a bonus point stage where the bubbles don't harm you and you must score as much as you can in a limited time period. After this everything repeats at a greater pace. COMMENTS Control keys: A/D or J/L left/right, CAPS/SPACE = fire Joystick: ZX 2 Keyboard play: responsive, but slightly irritating with the left/right key Use of colour: poor Graphics: large, fast, not detailed Sound: fair Skill levels: progressive difficulty and speeds Lives: 3 Originality: not totally original as concept seems to be based on several others like Asteroids, Galaxians and Breakout

Galaxian bubbles in a game of what goes up must surely squash you flat when it comes down.

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 5/10

FEEBLE FOUR FROM SINCLAIR ERIC AND THE FLOATERS Memory: 48K Price: £5.95 Joystick: Interface 2 ZIPPER FLIPPER Memory: 48K Price: £5.95 Joystick: Interface 2 DRILLER TANKS Memory: 48K Price: £5.95 Joystick: Interface 2 BUBBLE BUSTER Memory: 48K Price: £5.95 Joystick: Interface 2 Sinclair Research is continuing its policy of marketing games under licence with four new releases. Zipper Flipper by R.E-D Sunshine is a pinball program with a fruit machine feature included. You have to break down a wall of bricks with the ball to bring the fruit machine into play. The other three games are all by Hudsonsoft. Driller Tanks, which sounds like a video nasty, is a simple game of underground warfare, as you use your tank to prevent marauding monsters tunneling to the surface. Bubble Blaster is a slightly more interesting program in which you must burst bubbles with a ray gun before they land on you. Those three games all suffer from a very simple concept which has not been developed to provide any real variety during the play. The graphics on Bubble Blaster, though they could be better yet, are of higher quality than in the other two programs but are also the least complex when seen on the screen, even though they may be well-programmed. The fourth in the series, Eric and the Floaters, is clearly superior to the other three. Eric is attempting to explore a lost underground civilisation by planting bombs in a network of tunnels to clear blockages and reveal treasures. He is pursued by balloon-like Floaters, which also have to be killed with the bombs. The concept is again simple but in this case there are a number of hidden surprises which increase the enjoyment for the player out of all proportion to the extra trouble taken to program the refinements. To play the games with a joystick you will have to use Interface Two, or one of the programmable interfaces, as Sinclair is clearly not interested in supporting peripherals manufactured by other companies.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online