Championship Sprint

Your Sinclair

Overall 65%

Rich Pelley 65%

BARGAIN BASEMENT Once again RICH PELLEY leaps into the driving seat of a number 39 bus and zooms off to Cheap City... CHAMPIONSHIP SPRINT Alternative £2.99 Reviewer: Rich Pelley Remember Super Sprint? it was crap. Utterly. It was one of those birds-eye view 'race around lots of different Formula One tracks in a piddly little car' things which was really good in the arcade - but on the Spec? As I've said. Crap. You just couldn't tell what was going on, the controls were dodgy and it was practically the same as Grand Prix Simulator from CodeMasters - which was about a fifth of the price (and which everyone bought instead). Then came Championship Sprint - essentially exactly the same as the Super variety, but this time with a special track editor which meant it was stacks more fun if a trifle 'over-priced'. And here it is again - and it could be yours for the snippish snip of £2.99. But would you want it? I'd say - well, perhaps. The editor is definitely the best bit. It's easy to use - you moving an arrow about and pressing Fire. It's a bit like building a Scalextric set really. This is the only good bit, mind - the graphics are still puny, the controls dodgy. But at a mere three nicker it all seems a lot more reasonable, so maybe this could be for you.

Yes, it's a racetrack. (Well, don't blame me, I just write about the blessed things.)

Your Sinclair

Drive 65%

Visibility 40%

Road Holding 71%

FOATLF 78%

Overall 69%

Jonathan Davies 69%

THE COMPLETE YS GUIDE TO DRIVING GAMES It's strange but true - normally courteous YS readers tend to turn into homicidal maniacs once they get behind the wheel of a Spectrum. We sent JONATHAN DAVIES, who still hasn't managed to get that wretched helmet off, to find out why. It's an expensive business, driving. Not only do you have to hand out piles of dosh to actually get a car, but there are loads of 'hidden costs' thrown into the bargain' too. For a start, you've got to get it insured (in case you crash), which means serious sponds for your average Spectrum owner Then there's road tax, servicing, MOTs, petrol, all sorts of things. And, if you want to keep up with the latest fashions, you'll want to purchase a few 'extras' as well, ranging from simple '-TURBO-' stickers for the back window to alloys, buckets and twin cams. And they all mean spending lots and lots of money. So wouldn't it be nice if you could get your Spectrum to sort of 'pretend' was a car, allowing you to zoom about to your heart's content for minimal outlay instead? Well, actually you can! Yes, all you need to do is buy a suitable driving game, load it up and you've got yourself a set of wheels. It'll be almost exactly the same as driving a real car except that you can crash as much as you like without having to worry about your no-claims bonus. And you'll be able to choose from all the latest posh sports cars like Porsches, Ferraris and Lotuses and drive them as far and as fast as you like without having to splash out on a drop of petrol! (In fact, because driving games are so much cheaper and more practical than real cars, it is predicted that by the year 2012 the motorcar will have become obsolete, replaced by the driving game.) The only trouble with all this is that it's a bit hard to pick up birds with a 48K Spectrum. JUST WHAT, EXACTLY, IS A DRIVING GAME? Mmm, knew we'd have to get round to this sometime. Well, I've had a think and come up with the following spec... - It's got to have either a car, a motorbike or a lorry in it. - That means no bicycles, boats, jet-skis, tanks or anything like that. - And no skateboards either. They're crap. Seems simple enough. It means we're including Grand Prix-type games (where you just race against other cars) and shooting ones (where you zap them) but not similar-looking ones that don't have cars, bikes or lorries in (like boat ones). Okay? Phew. I never thought it would be quite so easy. SO HOW ABOUT THINGS LIKE ARMY MOVES? Oh cripes. Look, just shurrup. will you, whoever you are. No, Army Moves is out, I'm afraid. It's rubbish anyway. So let's take a look at a few examples, eh? It's worth noting that, where driving games are concerned, the ratio of crap ones to good ones is a lot higher than with other types of game (apart from football games, of course). So you can't be too careful. RATINGS The YS Ratings System? You don't want that old thing. No sir, over here we have the brand-new top-of-the-range 1990 model. It's turbo-charged, fuel-injected, 16-valve, super-cooled and has a full X-pack (with droop snoot). And spots. You'll be doing yourself a favour. DRIVE It's no good having a driving game that seems to be simulating an FSO or something. You want real power, a feeling of being at one with the road and all that sort of thing. Control responses, speed etc are all taken into account here. VISIBILITY Assuming you remember to clean all the dead leaves and bird turds off the windscreen before you set out, what's the view like? A thinly-veiled graphics category, in other words, but jolly important all the same. ROADHOLDING It may seem to have everything, but once you've set off, and you've been on the road for a while, do you relish every second that you're behind the wheel? Or do you want to keep stopping at the services? Or perhaps you'd rather just take the bus instead, eh? FIRST-OFF-AT-THE-LIGHTS FACTOR A competitive edge is most important where driving's concerned, both in real life and on the Speccy. So do the other cars put up a decent fight, or do they just seem to be part of the scenery (if, indeed, there is any)? DRIVING GAMES FOR THE BUDDING LADA-OWNER As with all tried-and-tested formulae, driving games are big news in the world of the cheapie. Let's have a look at a few, and maybe try ad work in the odd drive-a-hard-bargain gag. CHAMPIONSHIP SPRINT Electric Dreams This is the sequel to Super Sprint, which just happens to have been the first-ever looking-at-it-from-the-top driving game. (Or it would have been if everyone hadn't done rip-offs before Electric Dreams got the official version out.) This means there are four little cars driving round a series of courses, up to two of which can be controlled by players. Four would have been nice, and perfectly possible. There are spanners to collect which allow you to choose add-ons at the end of the race if you pick up enough. So far so good, but surely there's more to it than this? And indeed there is. Sprint cunningly incorporates a course editor with which you can build up your own custom courses, laden with chicanes, bridges and nasty corners. What fun, eh? So really it's just a plain, ordinary looking-at-it-from-the-top one with a bit of extra pizazz. I used to find them fun, but not any more. Sigh. It's better with a friend, but not much.

Corners, corners and ruddy more corners.

AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDY 'STREETHAWK' OUNSTED Few people would have guessed that YS had its own resident driving expert. We certainly didn't until our Design Asst told us so. "So, you've got a motorbike, have you, Andy?" "Yeah, I've got a bike. And call me 'Streethawk'. All my friends do." "Right. So, Andy..." "Streethawk." "Er, Streethawk, what sort is it exactly?" "It's a Yamaha or something, I think. It's well hard. It shifts." "Does it really?" "Yeah. It'll burn off anything." "Terrific. Could we have a look at it, do you think?" "Er, no. I didn't bring it in today." "Oh? Why not?" "It, um, wouldn't start. I had to get the bus instead."

LOOKING-AT-IT-FROM-BEHIND ONES These are the most common by 'miles' (yuk yuk), being those games where you see your car on the screen in front of you from a position behind and slightly above it, and with the road coming towards you in 3D. They all started in the arcades with stuff like Pole Position and moved onto the Speccy via Chequered Flag and later things like OutRun. And, of course, there was the classic Road Racer on the front of the May '87 YS. They're generally good fun, but can be a bit samey and tend to be just a case of pressing Left and Right at suitable moments. And an element of violence tends to creep in - you often get a gun or something mounted on your car to bag other vehicles with. (Roadblasters - um, looking at it from behind. And slightly above. (Simple really))

LOOKING-AT-IT-FROM-ON-TOP ONES Kicking off, these are the ones where you get a bird's-eye view of the course and see your car as a little blob hammering round the track (which may scroll if it doesn't all fit onto the screen at once). The basic idea takes its cue from a vintage coin-op called Super Sprint, and you can sometimes get anything up to 29 players on the screen at one time (giving them the edge where competitiveness is concerned). They do tend to lose out graphically though, as there isn't much scope for scrolling 3D roads etc. (Championship Sprint - yes, but is it ass much fun as a Scalextric set?)

LOOKING-AT-IT-FROM-THE-SIDE ONES We're heading into dicey territory here, as we could start wobbling on about scrolling shoot-'em-ups if we're not careful. They do generally scroll however, but they're a bit weird as you don't actually have to worry about steering. All you really have to do is get the speed right when going over ramps and maybe launch the odd missile now and again. Motorbikes, rather than cars, tend to feature prominently in this sort of game, which seems reasonable enough as they look a bit thin when viewed from the rear. One thing we've got to be careful of here is bicycles - they seem to crop up in these rather a lot and, as we already know, they don't count.

OH NO, IT'S EVERY SINGLE DRIVING GAME EVER 3D Stock Car Championship - Silverbird 4x4 Off-Road Racing - Epyx American Turbo King - Mastertronic APB - Tengen (Domark) Battlecars - Summit Beach Buggy Simulator - Silverbird Buggy Blast - Firebird Buggy Boy - Elite Championship Sprint - Activision Chase HQ - Ocean Continental Circus - Virgin Crazy Cars - Titus Crazy Cars II - Titus Cycles, The - Accolade Deathchase - Micromega Duel - Test Drive II, The - Accolade Dukes Of Hazard - Elite Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge - Martech Enduro - Activision Enduro Racer - Activision Fire And Forget - Titus Formula One Simulator - Mastertronic Full Throttle - Micromega Future Bike Simulator - Hi-Tec Juggernaut - CRL Grand Prix Circuit - Accolade Grand Prix Master - Dinamic Grand Prix Simulator - CodeMasters Hard Drivin' - Tengen (Domark) Hot Rod - Activision International Speedway - Silverbird Italian Super Car- CodeMasters Ivan 'Ironman' Stewart - Virgin Knight Driver - Hewson Knight Rider - Ocean Last Duel - US Gold LED Storm - US Gold Maze Death - PSS Motorbike Madness - Mastertronic Motor Massacre - Gremlin Nigel Mansell's Grand Prix - Martech OutRun - US Gold Overlander - Elite Pass Your Driving Test - Audiogenic Pole Position - Atarisoft Power Drift - Activision Rally Cross Simulator - CodeMasters Rally Driver - Alternative Rally Simulator - Zeppelin Road Blasters - US Gold Road Racer - Ocean/YS Scalextric - Virgin Speed King II - Mastertronic Spy Hunter - US Gold Street Hawk - Ocean Stunt Bike Simulator - Silverbird Stunt Car Racer - Microstyle Super Cycle - US Gold Super Hang-On - Electric Dreams Super Scramble Simulator - Gremlin Super Stock Car - Mastertronic Taxi! - Digital Integration Techno Cop - Gremlin Tranz Am - Ultimate TT Racer - Digital Integration Turbo Bike - Alternative Turbo OutRun - US Gold Twin Turbo V8 - CodeMasters WEC Le Mans - Ocean Wheelie - Microsphere

OTHERS With a theme as wide ranging as 'driving' we're bound to come across one or two miscreants that don't really fit into any of the previous categories (the scamps). Well, I have anyway. First of all there are ones like Hard Drivin' and Stunt Car Racer where you get a 3D view out of the window. Then there are the vertically-scrolling ones such as LED Storm which are really a cross between looking-at-it-from-behind ones and looking-at-it-from-the-top ones. And there are boring 'management' ones like Grand Prix. Best forgotten, those. (Erm... an 'other'.)

TEN SIGNS THAT HE'S A CRAP DRIVER 1. He drives round with his foglamps on all the time. 2. He wheelspins every time he pulls away. 3. He drives 3mm from the car in front, and as far to the right as possible ready to overtake. 4. He's always first off at the lights. 5. He's got an Escort 1600 Sport with all the usual accessories. 6. He always parks on double-yellow lines. 7. His car's heavily battle-damaged. 8. He makes frequent use of his three-tone horn. 9. He keeps revving up the engine at traffic lights for no apparent reason. 10. One of his brake lights doesn't work.

TEN SIGNS THAT SHE'S A CRAP DRIVER 1. She's driving a Mini. 2. She's got a Garfield stuck to her back window. 3. Simon Bates is blaring out and the Our Tune 'theme music' has just started up. 4. There's another girl with exactly the same style haircut sitting next to her in the passenger seat. 5. She's driving a Porsche.

THE FIRST EVER DRIVING GAME Despite a sore knee and a terrible fear of the dark, I crouched down in the murkiest corner of the YS shed to browse through our collection of cardboard-boxed archives. And did I come up with anything? Well, not really. I did find out that the Van Houten Chocolate in the YS drinks machine is actually the remains of a consignment of rations from during the war (no-one wanted to drink it then either) and I also came across some rather compromising photos of Andy when he was four years old, but nothing really very interesting in the driving games department. I was hoping to turn up some really ropey-looking Basic game from about 1982, but the best I could come up with was Chequered Flag, a Sinclair game that came out a year later. It's quite good actually - a bit like Polo Position without any other cars to race against. We'll give it a thorough going-over later, but in the meantime perhaps you'd like to think back and see if you can come up with anything better if you find anything older than Chequered Flag, do write in and tell us as we'd be jolly interested to know.

TOP FIVE GEARS 1. Third 2. First 3. Fourth 4. Second 5. Fifth (where available)

Your Sinclair

Graphics 6/10

Playability 7/10

Value For Money 5/10

Addictiveness 7/10

Overall 6/10

Tony Worrall 6/10

Electric Dreams £9.99 Reviewer: Tony Worrall Hands up all of you who enjoyed the original Speccy Super Sprint? Hmmm! not an awful lot it seems. Alright, hands up everybody who thought it good value for money? Even less I would have thought. Good news. Electric Dreams, for reasons best left to its marketing managers, has released a follow-up entitled Championship Sprint. The 'Super' may have been hacked off the title, but CS is a superior package, thanks to the welcome inclusion of a track designer on the flip side of the tape. True, the 'A' side appears to be more or less identical to the original Super Sprint (a selection of tricky tracks and a dreadful start-up screen), so owners of that game will feel a mite peeved off if they think they are forking out for something new. But the 'B' side is where all the real action takes place. This is the Championship Sprint Course Construction program, and now you have the chance to experiment with totally wild designs, and pit in as many features and obstacles as can be safely fitted onto the track. Using the track designer couldn't be simpler, (and that's a great help to a simple person like me). Everything is icon controlled in the best way possible. So a series of icons run down the left hand side of the screen, while the main part of the screen is taken up by the design itself. Moving your cursor and pressing fire drops a section of track onto the screen. This can then be shifted around at will, positioned or removed. It's all up to you really. If you have ever messed about connecting bits of Scalextric together you should have a pretty good idea of what I mean. Once your wacky designs are complete and everything checks out okay, save your custom creations and load them into the 'Racing' side of the tape. Select the custom tracks option and away we go. Up to eight new tracks can be loaded, but if you get bored with those, there's nothing to stop you having a crack at designing a new set. Championship Sprint is much better value than the overpriced and un-rewarding Super Sprint. Even so, all the old niggles about poor control and dodgy sprites are still here, which is a pity. The programmers have had the chance to improve all those things that let Super Sprint down, but seem to have been concentrating more on the construction aspect than on the gameplay. To sum up (M'lord). If you really enjoy this type of racing game go for it, but just because some of the tracks have been custom-built, don't expect an easy ride - the computer-controlled cars never give up without a fight. Fans of the original Super Sprint will enjoy this, but if you already have that game, forking out another tenner for what is little more than a glorified track designer, may force you to think twice.

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)

Ace Rating 713/1000

Andy Wilton 713/1000

Electric Dreams alter course. Construction sets are great things to have around on most games, so a re-designable Super Sprint must have looked like a good move for ED. As it turns out, this one's not quite the hot property you might have expected. The track designer is nicely implemented but the range of track shapes available isn't too large - you can't even do the first standard Super Sprint track properly - and in any case different tracks can only hold your attention for so long. What gripped about the original was the great control and driving action, but sadly this one just doesn't have that in the same way. Reviewer: Andy Wilton RELEASE BOX C64/128, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Imminent Spec, £9.99cs, Out Now Amstrad, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Out Now Predicted Interest Curve 1 min: 60/100 1 hour: 75/100 1 day: 80/100 1 week: 60/100 1 month: 50/100 1 year: 10/100

Sinclair User

Overall 7/10

Jim Douglas 7/10

Label: Electric Dreams Author: Catalyst Coders Price: £9.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Jim Douglas Neeeeeeeoooooowwww! When you're an experienced Formula One racing driver like me, it's pretty tricky to find a race sim that offers any sort of challenge these days. Having finished Outrun in ten seconds, annihilated Nigel Mansell's G.P. In a mere moment, and complete every track in Super Sprint with no difficulty whatsoever, I was beginning to think that I'd never find a driving game to challenge me again (Stop making things up, you idiot - Ed). Anyway, Electric Dreams - apparently stuck in sequel mode - is bringing out Championship Sprint; the sole difference between this and their earlier Super Sprint is the Course Construction aspect, so you'd have to be completely barmy to buy both. What you've got to do is hare around a series of eight tracks as fast as possible, beating the "drone" (computer-controlled) cars and avoiding the oil patches. Sliding the little cars around the tracks is strangely satisfying, even though the graphics aren't up to much. All the standard features appear in the construction option. You can position your track anywhere on the screen and then cycle through all the possible road sections until you find a piece suitable for connection. You can, obviously, make your course as easy or difficult as you wish, before saving it to tape. The "racing" side of the tape can then be played, and your tracks loaded in and played. So, what's the verdict? It's a tight package. Well put together and easy to use. It's attractive to look at, too, but I wonder if people can really be persuaded to part with £10 when there are similar budget games around lacking only the course designer aspect. The resulting question is, is the track designer worth about £7?

Crash

Presentation 58%

Graphics 44%

Playability 44%

Addictive Qualities 41%

Overall 44%

Mark Caswell

Nick Roberts

Paul Sumner

Producer: Electric Dreams Retail Price: £9.99 Author: Catalyst Coders Ever fancied roaring around a racetrack at high speed? Standing on the winner's podium with a bottle of champagne in one hand, and a blonde in the other? Well in this game, the player at least gets to try the racing bit. Converted from the Atari coin-op game, Championship Sprint gives one or two people the chance to test their driving skills on a Grand Prix racetrack. Initially, participants are given the choice of either racing on a standard track or on one of their own design, created using the track editor which is included on the flip side of the tape. The program then prompts for the number of players and their chosen control method (joystick or keys). Once this is set, the course itself may be selected from one of eight tracks. The game starts with four cars sitting abreast of the starting grid. The flag drops, and they're off! Human drivers compete against computer controlled opponents and attempt to finish first over each three-lap race. Not only having to contend with their digital adversaries, there are also hazards on the track: oil, water, gravel, and a baby whirlwind do their best to send the player spinning off the road. However, help is at hand in the shape of gold spanners: collecting four of these endows the player's car with useful bonus extras for the next race, such as turbo boost and higher top speed. At the end of the current race the cars are shown in the pits, along with their placings, scores, and best lap times. If in a particularly creative mood, the player can use the construction set to design devious tracks to delight or annoy friends. Selections are made by clicking the cursor on a series of icons placed along the right-hand side of the screen. These allow the user to view the segments of track that are used to create the course, select obstacles to place in the drivers' way and check a finished track for faults. Once completed, tracks can be saved to tape for posterity. COMMENTS Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair Graphics: a large range of sections allow many varied tracks, although the individual segments are simply drawn Sound: appalling. No tunes and few spot effects Options: definable keys, track construction set and one or two players

Ready and steady but no go.

The Games Machine

Overall 72%

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £9.99 Commodore 64/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99 Amstrad CPC Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99 SPANNER IN THE WORKS Licensed from the Atari coin-op, Championship Sprint - for those of you who can still stand the pace after the recent plethora of Sprint clones - has one main advantage of over Super Sprint (also published by Electric Dreams) and that is the ability to design your own courses using the track editor. Catalyst Coders are the programming force behind the game, and they have improved it considerably over Super Sprint. The game of Championship Sprint is just as you would expect: eight different tracks to race around, each with whirlwinds, gravel, oil and water hazards. The objective is simply to race four circuits against three other cars on each of the eight tracks and emerge the winner. Collecting the occasionally appearing spanners may later improve the car's performance, giving it either super turbo, turbo acceleration, a score increase or higher top speed. It is advisable to use a joystick because the car is less easily controlled via keys. Losing a race means the end of that particular game, but should first place be achieved you go onto compete in the next race, and so on until all eight tracks are completed. Two players can also race simultaneously against two computer controlled cars. SCALE TRICKS Championship Sprint's attraction is the track editor which allows you to create and race on your own courses designed from 30 different pieces of track. It is like building a Scalextric track - the piece of track desired (whether it be a ramp, a straight, a comer or whatever) is selected and the cursor moved to the location where you want it to be placed: press fire to position. Along the top of the screen are pull down menus (these appear as icons along the right-hand side on the Spectrum), split into lour groups, which activate more options - hazards, ability, screens and options. Through hazards you can decide whether you want whirlwinds, gravel, water or oil, and in what quantity on the track. Ability has two sub-options; Spanners, lets you put up to seven spanners on the track, and Drone Speed determines how fast the opposition travels, ranging from zero (slowest) up to five (fastest). Screens accesses three sub-options: Next shows you the next track, Clear erases the track on the current screen and Set Course lets you input the direction the cars race around the track. The final choice is in the Options menu: from this you can save or load tracks, set the playing keys or see all 30 different track segments. Without the track editor Championship Sprint would rate as merely a good rendition of the Sprint theme, but with its inclusion, the package proves an interesting addition to the range.

Better graphics and improved playability on the Spectrum version.

For once the cars actually look like cars rather than blobs of colour - Amstrad screen.

"Championship Sprint proves an interesting addition to the range."

AMSTRAD CPC Overall: 72% Championship Sprint is probably the best of the genre that has been plaguing our screens in recent months. For once the cars actually look like cars rather than blobs of colour. The playability has been increased, leaving none of the frustration which spoilt Super Sprint. Through its implementation, the track editor is far easier to use on the Amstrad than other versions. So Championship Sprint is a commendable rendition on the Amstrad and should be popular with its arcade followers.

COMMODORE 64/128 Overall: 70% Like the Spectrum, the Commodore incarnation of Championship Sprint plays well but the editor is fiddly to use. One definite advantage over the others, though, is the ability to play the game straight from the track editor rather than saving out a track and then having to load it back into the main game program, which makes the whole process quicker. Despite the aging theme, Championship Sprint is the best of the current selection.