Convoy Raider

Your Sinclair

Graphics 8/10

Playability 8/10

Value For Money 7/10

Addictiveness 4/10

Overall 6/10

Gwyn Hughes 6/10

Gremlin £7.99 Reviewer: Gwyn Hughes So what does wargame mean to you? Lots of flashing squares and tartan terrain as you command forces to sweep a cursor around a map, issuing orders? That's the traditional way the armchair generals get their jollies, learning the problems of strategy and tactics as they go. But wargame means cult to most software houses, which is why companies better known for their arcade games issue attempted cross-overs like this. Now there's no need to repeat that Gremlin's action titles are great, but when it trys to popularise a genre it obviously doesn't understand, the result is a real mish-mash - something like lighting Waterloo with lasers! Forget any real strategic decisions - this is about as taxing as Beach Head. It's really three mini-arcade games, all linked by a map sequence in which you set the course of your ship and patrol the coast, seeking out the enemy or returning to base for repairs. Try to avoid the shore, too, or you'll end up with a dent in your bright new battleship. Your first encounter could be a submarine, in which case you switch to the helicopter and depth-charge game. Just in case you can't get your head round this strategy, an icon flashes to help you. You steer the tiny chopper above a slice of sea (at least thats what it looks like, with its contoured base) avoiding missiles and dropping charges. Aircraft have to be handled by your deck guns, which duplicates the Beach head tracking and elevation of shot sequences. Luckily you can put up such heavy blanket chelling that not too many planes get through. For battleships you have a stock of Exocets, which have to be stabilised as they roar to the area then visually targetted with the video screen. So there you have your three mini-games. They're fun the first couple of times round, but there's nothing to justify the strategy tag - and little to please the arcade freak for long either. And games about Exocets may be fun if you've got a Sun-reader's mentality, but I reckon they're just plain tacky!

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

Sinclair User

Overall 7/10

Tamara Howard 7/10

STRATEGY IS BACK!! Yes, folks, strategy is back! Bigger, better and now fashionable too!! With so much coverage in the news of the Reagan-Gorbachev arms limitation talks - you can't move these days without hearing or reading something about it - quite a number of the new titles deal with world power struggles. We review Armageddon Man from Martech and preview Power Struggle from PSS and High Frontier from Activision. Convoy Raider - which is reviewed - is all sea warfare and Exocets and Guadal Canal - here previewed - follows the fortunes of the US and Japanese forces in WWII. CONVOY RAIDER Label: Gremlin Price: £7.95 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Tamara Howard In contrast, Convoy Raider is down to earth with a bump. Despite the fact that you don't know Port from Starboard, or an Exocet from a Seawolf, you've been given a hulking great ship and told to get on with it, scouring the coastline for enemy invaders. From the map screen, you'll see your ship (which bears more than a striking resemblance to a pair of handlebars on a rubber ring) sailing across the ocean, bits of land, and a scaled-down version of the whole area. Plot your course according to the little map, using the compass at the top of the screen, select a suitable speed, and off yer go. At this point you'll either run straight into a land formation as the screen flips over to the next sector, or be indecently assaulted by a submarine. The courses of action are as follows. One. If you run into a land formation you'll have incurred a vast amount of damage to your ship. Go to the repair station, designated by a chevroned flag and get fixed. If you've been sunk, start again and try not I to be such a wally next time around. Two. If it's indecent assault, return to the main menu an launch a helicopter. Yoh, ho, ho and a bottle of rum. A helicopter. The best thing to destroy a sub is a chopper. (The best thing to damage a boat is an Exocet. an the best thing in the case of aircraft is the Seawolf, more later). Enter helicopter mode. (Press Fire). The screen changes to a sort of transparent, 3D swimming pool. Above the surface hovers a little, innocent helicopter. Below the surface lurks a mean, nasty submarine. Getting the submarine is a matter of letting off a few choice depth charges and watching bits of metal float away. But it's important to let off the charge at the right moment. Because the section is in 3D you have to be directly over the submarine, as well as in line with it. There's a depth gauge running up the side of the sector, and you have no control over it. It's vital that you let off the charge when the gauge is at the same height as the sub, because that's when it will explode. An explosion will reward you with a lot of pretty flashing lights and the disintegration of the enemy. Taking out airplanes and ships works on the same principle, picking the right weapon and following the detailed instructions. If you're lucky, you'll kill everything immediately. If you're as competent at employing missiles as I am, then you'll have to have a few goes before you work out how to use the damn thing. Convoy Raider is all controlled by a series of screens selected from a Main Menu. The menu shows three radars, one each for aircraft, ship and submarine groups. And when an enemy vessel comes within firing distance, a warning ALERT sign will flash by the appropriate radar to let you know. Aside from the rather questionable Sun 'Gotcha' thinking behind it Convoy Raider is really quite impressive game. Although the graphics of the ship and your enemies are small and totally unrecognisable for what they are (see above description of ship) there's enough of them to make the game attractive to look at. Unlike some simulations, it doesn't come chock-a-block with detailed instructions about how to fasten your seatbelt. You can plug yourself in and get straight on with the game. You learn as you go and you don't need a degree in nuclear physics to work out what the hell's going on.

PROGRAMMER John Jarvis wrote Convoy Raider as his first game program to published commercially. He has previously worked producing a number of educational software packages.

Crash

Presentation 60%

Graphics 69%

Playability 56%

Addictive Qualities 54%

Overall 56%

Ben Stone

Nick Roberts

Paul Sumner

Producer: Gremlin Graphics Retail Price: £7.99 The seas are awash with enemy ships and submarines, asking to be wiped out so that the world's waters can be free once more - and in command of a powerfully armed ship, that's your task. A map screen displays your ship's position - a flashing white circle - and that of the enemy in the area. A compass and speed readout act as navigational aids and help in directing the ship by joystick. A highlighted section of a smaller inset provides an overview of sea and land. Three radar screens show the position of enemy aircraft and missiles, surface shipping and submarines. An on screen alert indicates the dangerous proximity of enemy forces. An enemy base on the map is indicated by a flag of the Rising Sun, and from here waves of attacking aircraft can be launched to threaten you. Your ship is equipped with three defensive or retaliatory weapons systems, Seawolf and Exocet missiles and submarine destroying helicopters. Steerable Seawolf missiles destroy give gyro or radar readouts, the approaching aircraft and anti-ship missiles, whilst Exocets can be flown low over the sea to take out surface ships. In this weapons mode, four video screens appear, the largest showing a view from the missile's nose, whilst others missile's remaining flight time and height above the sea. If flown too high, signals from the Exocet can be jammed and its transmitted picture lost. Deployment and activation of Exocets takes place in two phases. First, the missile, using the gyro compass is flown to the enemy's last known position. Once there a target silhouette on the horizon can be chosen. Missiles must be fired and reach their target before their flight time expires. To attack underwater, an antisubmarine helicopter can be used by stationing it above the sea's surface, seen as a 3-D map showing the seabed beneath. The chopper drops depth charges, which explode at a depth determined by the position of a moving arrow at the moment the charge was dropped. Submarines fire missiles upwards, and should too many strike the helicopter it's destroyed. Any damage to your own vessel is indicated by a red section of the ship's silhouette on the map screen. This damage can be rectified by docking with a repair ship. A flag symbol on the map screen indicates its position which is changed when repairs have been undertaken. COMMENTS Control keys: Z/X left/right, L/. up/down, Enter to fire Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair Use of colour: varied, sensible and generally attractive Graphics: good detail and of reasonable size Sound: a few spot FX Skill levels: one Screens: five

The enemy below - and the sub just escapes a lethal depth charge attack.

The map screen from Convoy Raider.