Sir Clive's Nightmare

Your Sinclair

Overall 79%

Jonathan Nash 79%

PUBLIC HOUSE Oh blimey. I really can't think of an intro. Quick, Andy, the phone! (Furious dialling.) Hello, Intro Man? We need your help. Yes. That's right. Basically, we need an intro for a public domain column. Mmm. I see. Good idea. Thanks very much. We'll be expecting your invoice. (Hangs up.) Well, Andy, Intro Man recommends a nice, straightforward 'Here's Jonathan with the last three demo reviews,' as it's clear, concise and to the point. I'll act on his advice at once. (Clears throat.) Oh, damn and blast, out of room. To finish off Public House, I've three not-bad-at-all demos - one from a new group, one from an established programmer, and one from a musician who likes to really annoy people by also being a good coder but telling everybody he's really crap. Sorry, that wasn't terribly funny, was it? I'll stay late and rewrite it. Sir Clive's Nightmare By The Killer Klowns Reviewer: Jonathan Nash We here at YS love imaginative demos. As a rule of thumb, as soon as the scrolly message starts, we move on to something else. So we were transfixed by Sir Clive's Nightmare in a rabbit-staring-down-a-lorry manner, except, of course, that was a lie. But anyway, Sir Clive is the story of an interstellar invasion by zombies (we think) which is foiled by the timely intervention of Super 128K Man (we think). The demo starts with a big pic of a Killer Klown (so Andy instantly awarded it 98%) before moving on to a frontier Western town where - oh no! - zombies start crawling out of the ground. The action then cuts to a planet not far away, where a bendy 128K blasts off and zooms across the galaxy to save the day. In between the demo stops to get in an ad for the programmers' next demo (the scamps) and there's a lot of epic-y but not quite English blurb to keep the story bubbling along. So much for the plot. The execution is similarly slick. (Look, that was a slick plot, we're telling you.) Apart from a pair of ripped tunes (tut tut) there's no sound, but the marvy graphics really give the demo that all-important oomph. 'Oomph,' it goes. In an all-important fashion.

It's nice to know that, as well as being the biggest-selling home computer ever in the history of the universe, the Speccy is also built to cope with the stress of interstellar travel.