Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom

Sinclair User

Overall 2/5

Clare Edgeley 2/5

Publisher: US Gold Price: £7.95 Memory: 48K Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Cursor One of the most uninspiring games ever has just been released by US Gold. Buck Rogers - who is he, anyway? - has been licensed from Sega and part of the game adapted for the computer. No doubt US Gold has tried to be faithful to the arcade version, but surely the graphics could be more detailed. After all, the original is a couple of years old with graphics of the Space Invaders era. You start by skimming forward across the surface of Planet Zoom. In the first tedious screen electrified portals appear. Just fly through 11 of those and onto section two. Next fly through the posts and kill off numerous alien saucers and space hoppers. There are five sections in each level, increasing in difficulty. Finally you reach space where assorted aliens and the mother ship must be blasted. At level two, the whole sequence starts again. Planet Zoom consists of lines of colours receding to the horizon. Those with mono sets may count themselves lucky. In colour a revolting pink and crimson form the lines and in level two, a brilliant blue and red. No doubt level three is as horrible. In short, there are better things to spend your money on.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Your Spectrum

Rick Robson 3/5 HIT

Roger Willis 2/5 HIT

Ross Holman 2/5 HIT

JOYSTICK JURY Have we got some great software lined up for you! But first a surprise - the hairy hacker is taking his annual rest (he calls it that 'cos it usually lasts a year!) so we welcome a new joystick juror to the bench, Rick Robson. Now join the three Rs - Rick, Roger Willis and Ross Holman as they find out where the arcade action is! What's the score? Well, the marks out of five at the end of each review is a shorthand way of summing up what each reviewer thought of the game. But will it be a commercial success? For that you'll have to check out the HIT and MISS system. Simple, eh? BUCK ROGERS US Gold £7.95 Rick: I cut my arcade teeth on cosmic combat capers such as this so I wasn't too impressed with (yet) another Space Invaders clone - even if it is in sort of 3D. Still, for any star pilots out there with L-plates on your joysticks there's a certain nostalgic charm about fighting your way through the different levels of combat before the Final Frontier is reached and the ultimate confrontation with the Death Star (oops! sorry Mother Ship). The game offers whizz bangs a plenty in the end but the generous fuel supply, a benign assortment of hoppers and saucers that rarely zap and never go into hyper space, won't leave you sweating at the controls. Buck's own ship has the manoeuvrability of a camel train but providing you can ride a bike through a barn door you should learn to save the Planet Zoom and enjoy a Cornetto at the same time. And beware the graphics - tacksville. This is no Zoom with a view but a planet covcred with your Mum's kitchen lino. Though I had it sussed in the time it takes Connors to question a line call, I still had plenty of good wholesome fun purging my blood lust annihilating aliens.

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Crash

Use of Computer 80%

Graphics 75%

Playability 82%

Getting Started 78%

Addictive Qualities 65%

Value For Money 66%

Overall 67%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: US Gold Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £7.95 Language: Machine code Our hero Buck has, up till now has been forced to fight his way off the planet of Zoom from within the confines of the CBM64. Now that's all changed. Buck is ready to grace Spectrum fed screens. Buck Rogers and The Planet Of Zoom, to give it its full title is a pretty straightforward shoot em up. The game is divided according to the insert into 5 levels of 5 battles. The first three battles are fought across the planet's surface, the flat part of which resembles the freshly cut grass at Twickenham, except that the horizontal stripes flash from one lurid colour to another giving the impression of forward movement. Your ship sits in the lower half of the screen and is able to move left or right and, to give the effect of changing altitude, a little way up and down. The electron posts are a hazard common to the first three battles. They look a little like rugby posts without the crossbar but with wire hoops around each. The first battle has only electron posts looming out from the distance. Ten little triangles at the top of the screen tell you how many posts must be negotiated before you can reach the next screen. Round two requires the removal of sixteen triangles but this time, enemy ships count as well as the posts. Two types of craft can be destroyed: wield, sproingy Space Hoppers and Saucers. Destroying each loses you one little triangle and gets you 400 points. For the maximum points, try and fly through all of the posts because they are worth 500 points a time and with good reason. The third battle is pretty much the same but this time without the hoppers so more saucers. These guys are unpleasant simply because they have a nasty habit of coming at you from behind as well as from the front. If you clear the eighteen triangles you move off into space where you must destroy a wave of 20 saucers, again a lot of the little creeps are sneaking up from behind. Your final task is to destroy the mother ship, a pretty monstrous thing that must be hit dead centre. Not so easy while it keeps firing nasty little missiles at your ship. Now that you have managed to destroy the first mother ship you will be awarded an extra life to help you on your way through the next four levels. While you are avoiding fatal collisions with posts and aliens you must bear in mind that each one of your 'lives' has a limited fuel supply. No matter how well you fly, sooner or later your ship will drop out of the sky so be aggressive and keep an eye on the fuel bar at the top of the screen. The Planet of Zoom is depending on you. COMMENTS Control keys: Q to P and Y to T left/right, 1 to 0 and A to L up/down, Z to M to fire. Joystick: Cursor type, Kempston and Interface II Keyboard play: very good Use of colour: a bit too vivid at times Graphics: neat but not outstanding Sound: good fire sound but little else Skill levels: 6 Lives: 4 plus extra given Screens: 5

Flying over a gaudily coloured Twickenham-type terrain, its go for the posts, but avoid a touch. Zoom, Zoom with Buck Rogers.

Out in space amongst the twinkling stars, blast the saucers and watch out for the Mean Mother Ship.

Sinclair Programs

Rating 37%

Colette McDermott 37%

PRICE: £7.95 A nightmare scene. You are crossing a zebra crossing when suddenly it starts scrolling towards you. Suddenly it changes to shades of lurid pink. Then the aliens start raining down. You shoot faster, and faster and, suddenly the mother ship appears. It is awful, it is hideous, it is Buck Rogers and the Planet of Zoom. The game divides into five sections. You steer your ship through gateways moving towards you, then aliens have to be shot down while you dodge the gateways. These are followed by more aliens, then you are transported into space to attack more aliens and destroy the mothership. Once this uninspiring sequence is complete, it begins again only, this time, the landscape is made up of a new, hideously bright, combination of colours. Your ship is well represented on screen, swooping and gliding from left to right. Other graphics are crude, and the landscape is eye strainingly awful. Buck Rogers is a straightforward shoot 'em up with little to recommend it. Produced for the 48K Spectrum by US Gold, [redacted].