Desperado

ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)

Graphics 4/10

Audio 3/10

IQ Factor 1/10

Fun Factor 4/10

Ace Rating 428/1000

Andy Smith 428/1000

Go! Get 'em Floyd. Wyatt Earp you ain't, but some over-worked and underpaid sheriff you is. You've got five stages (four on some versions) to complete, and some mean gun-toting critters to avoid. The first stage is a continually vertically scrolling shoot-em-up set in a western town. Baddies come from the top and bottom of the screen and the idea is simply to shoot them before they shoot you. Extra benefits are available in the game by shooting stars found lying on the floor - you don't get a helpful benefit every time though so you have to be careful when approaching the shot stars. At the end of each level there's a particularly vicious baddie to dispose of before you proceed to the next level. On Level Two you're trying to cause as much damage as possible to the railway station. Survive this and next you're on your way down a canyon full of blood-thirsty injuns! The next stage has you shooting the rapids avoiding alligators, Indians and a host of other hazards, before you finally come face to face with a young scamp lobbing boomerangs at you in a very determined fashion. Complete all the levels and you can rest assured that the remainder of the citizens can sleep soundly in their beds. Gunsmoke offers nothing more than the average shoot-em-up, except some poor animation and annoying gameplay. The inability to turn round and shoot baddies that are coming up behind you is particularly annoying. There's nothing here to get the adrenalin pumping for very long. Reviewer: Andy Smith RELEASE BOX Spec, £8.99cs, £12.99dk, Out Now Amstrad, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Imminent C64/128, Under development Predicted Interest Curve 1 min: 50/100 1 hour: 58/100 1 day: 50/100 1 week: 35/100 1 month: 12/100 1 year: 0/100

Beware that chap on horseback - he'll start lobbing bombs at you.

SPECTRUM VERSION The sprites are all black and rollerskate unconvincingly around the place. Sound effects are poor and don't do anything to add excitement. As shoot-em-ups go, this is not one of the best.

Sinclair User

Overall 9/10

Tamara Howard 9/10

Label: Go! Author: Toposoft Price: £8.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Tamara Howard Now look, just because this is a cowboy sort of game, there's absolutely no excuse to start, or even continue, this review along the lines of, I Was Born Under a Wandering Star, Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head, or such other Western-style film tunes. No, I'm not the sort of gal to hang around saloons and drink raw whisky and sing (That's a lie for a start - GT) so I'll just get along with this here review. Gunsmoke, latest release from Go! is a conversion from a little known coin-op, which was, to say the least, not overly impressive in the first place. Yet again, the scenario is of lone good guy against hordes of screaming bad guys with simply enormous weapons. Each of Gunsmoke's levels involve ploughing your way through various outlaws of varying nastiness (the weight of the guy's beard is usually indicative of the degree of ghastliness of his character) in order to reach Mister Big, the Last Outlaw, the Final Bad Guy. And he takes an awful lot of killing. Along the way to Public Enemy Number 1, there's the odd bouncing horse (don't axe me why) and some handy stars a-lyin' on the ground. Shoot the handy stars to reveal bonus points, and the odd stick of dynamite which alternately blows you up, and, er, doesn't. No sign, as far as I can see, of those barrels which appear in the coin-op revealing new boots, guns and other pieces of weaponry. Apart from the lack of barrels, Gunsmoke on the Spectrum bears a good resemblance to Gunsmoke in the arcades. The graphics are good and clear (despite being that ghastly shade of yellow which seems to be all the rage in games these days) and your character moves with a good, manly swagger. But yet again, we've got the rotten invisible bullets syndrome. Or rather you can see the bullets, but owing to the enormous number of them present on the screen at any one time, the chances of avoiding 'em are pretty slim. It's a tough game, with the baddies outnumbering you several to one, and things crack along at a fair pace. But it's not a game that's anything out of the ordinary. It's a relatively good conversion of a relatively good coin-op, and that's it. Period. There's nothing to lift it up to the standard of the Cybernoids and Fireflies of this world. If you want a perfectly competent cowboy blast, go for it. If you want innovative and astounding gameplay, p'raps not.

Your Sinclair

Graphics 5/10

Playability 5/10

Value For Money 5/10

Addictiveness 5/10

Overall 5/10

Duncan MacDonald 5/10

US Gold £8.99 Reviewer: Duncan MacDonald The Sheriff glanced at his pocket watch. He tried to gulp, but his mouth was too dry. The time was fast approaching high noon; the sky was blue, the air was dry and the sun was beating down relentlessly on his hat. Phew! Wotta scorcher. A shot rang out, a bullet whistled past his ear. Another shot, the bullet ricocheted off his little silver badge. The time had come, the 'pesky varmint' gang were in town - but this time they had bitten off more than they could chew, because this is where you join in. Playing (of course), the part of the Sheriff. You view the action from above and behind, as the screen scrolls down towards you. You're in a wild-west town, treading the dusty street as the 'Hollywood facade'scenery flashes by on either side. Whoops - did I say 'flashes'? Then I must have been fibbing; even 'trickles by' would be an overstatement. Nope, it has to be said, this is a femtoscroller; glacial in stealth and going nowhere in a hurry. It's slow by cracky! Anyway, as the screen scrolls, numerous Cowboys 'leap' (saunter, actually) out of side alleys and also appear from the top of the screen. Shoot them before they shoot you time, but with the added problem that the graphics are so awful that half the time you can't see their bullets. This results as you might imagine in an awful lot of dying. Occasionally you will be charged at by a giant cockroach wearing a coy-boy hat. Yes it's true - that's what it looks like! it throws bombs at you. All in all what we have here is one little birrova lame qame I'm afraid, chumkins. Wibbly animation, dodgy sprites, jerky scrolling, camouflaged bullets and a giant cockroach isn't (for my money anyway) worth nine quid, knowworrimean? Anyway, just enough room left for one of my incredibly brilliant jokes: Q: Why do cowboys ride horses? A. A coconut.

Crash

Presentation 70%

Graphics 56%

Playability 46%

Addictive Qualities 50%

Overall 54%

Kati Hamza

Mark Caswell

Paul Sumner

Producer: Go! Retail Price: £8.99 cassette, £12.99 disk Author: Topo Soft Being Sheriff of a Wild West town isn't easy. When trouble comes to town, it arrives with a bang. And trouble has just arrived in the shape of Angel Face and his notorious henchmen... The first level of this vertically scrolling Commando variant sees the player strolling along the street of his beloved town, running the gauntlet of pistol packin' hoodlums who attempt to gun him down. The baddies run towards the sheriff, guns blazing, or charge along on horseback throwing bombs which bounce across the street before exploding. The player starts the game with four lives, but shooting the stars which appear occasionally reveals an extra life, a points bonus or a stick of dynamite, contact with which proves fatal. Running over each symbol utilises these handy additions. Once the end of the landscape is reached, a shoot-out occurs between the Sheriff and the end-of-level-baddie, whose face appears on a wanted poster at the start of the section. The game continues in this fashion, through the railroad station, the canyon and across rapids on a raft, culminating in a meadow where a boomerangthrowing Angel Face is confronted in the final showdown. COMMENTS Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair Graphics: the characters are detailed but too small. Buildings are colourful and distinct Sound: pop, pop from the guns Options: definable keys