New Cylon Attack

Your Spectrum

Dave Nicholls 3/5 HIT

Roger Willis 1/5 MISS

Ross Holman 2/5 MISS

JOYSTICK JURY From their bench on high, our regular panel of jurors - Ross Holman, Dave Nicholls and Roger Willis - pass judgement on the latest games software! You're probably getting used to our joystick jockeys by now but, for the record, there's gamester supremo Ross Holman; the hairiest of hackers, Dave Nicholls; and the fastest reviewer on two wheels, Roger Willis. WARNING! Just in case you find our scoring system too confusing, here's what it's all about. The score out of five at the end of each person's review is based on their own experience of the game. But that's pretty subjective... so they also use the HIT and MISS system to indicate its potential as a commercial success. NEW CYLON ATTACK A 'n' F Software £5.75 Roger: Having always thought that 'Cylon' was something they made cheap shirts out of, I was disagreeably surprised to find it cropping up as yet another alien life form. Here we go again, striving to protect the wholesomeness of one's mother ship. Launch and landing sequences, and onscreen instrumentation (including radar and cockpit sights) complement protective screens and lasers that gradually expire from over-exposure to malevolent cheap shirts. As one would expect, these garments are cleverly disguised as spacecraft, getting bigger as they get nearer. That, more or less, explains the pretension towards 3D graphics, in which case I can only wish there were more - dimensions, that is. Such a facility would at least allow me to exploit the space/time continuum and slip off for a swift half whilst Spectrum and Cylons play 'shootie-bangs'. Computers have no feelings. Neither have shirts.

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

ZX Computing

Instructions 95%

Presentation 100%

Addictability 95%

Value For Money 90%

ZXC Factor 9/10

David Harwood 9/10

A&F Software Ltd [redacted] PRICE: TBA A and F software (using the motto 'Nulli Secundus', which for you non-classicists stands for 'Second To None') have produced a 3D Space Battle for the 48K Spectrum called New Cyclon Attack. The claim that it has insometric perspective in 3D is perhaps questionable, but the game is played in 3-Dimensional graphics and is of the Star Wars standard. The Cyclons are sending wave after wave of attacking fleets. Each time a new wave appears, you are launched from your Mother ship and after each wave has been destroyed, you need to dock in order to refuel. There are various instruments positioned at the top of the screen, detailed as follows. A radar, giving full information about the approaching wave attack, a shield strength gauge (there is an automatic safety shield should you come under fire, but this obviously deteriorates in strength depending on use), laser status and fuel status. There is a sight in the centre of the screen with climb and turn indicators, enabling you to position the laser beam to any position on the screen in the attempt to clear each Cyclon wave. Some nice added touches, the ability to save/load the high score table, the ability to redefine the keys and detailed screens with satellites, planets, shooting stars etc. all go forward to make Cyclon Attack a first class arcade game with excellent graphics and realistic sound.

Your Computer

Overall 2/5

Spectrum 48K £5.75 Shoot-'em-up A'n'F Software In isometric perspective - 3-D to you, mate. This is what it says on the inlay, but I'm not convinced. No swopping through cosmos like Codename MAT. Vou just stooge about left and right, up and down, peppering the oncoming hordes with laser bolts. Not very colourful, not very 3-D.

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 5/10

Clare Edgeley 5/10

SPACE, THE FINAL..? Memory: 48K Price: £5.75 Joystick: Kempston The age old game of Star Trek has been resurrected to bring to your screens New Cylon Attack, from A'N'F Software. Following the successful BBC version of the game, New Cylon Attack now boasts improved graphics and playability. The storyline is familiar and brings to mind scenes of a portly Captain Kirk at the helm of the Starship Enterprise. You are pilot on board a supply ship carrying reinforcements to a distant planet in a war-torn galaxy. The game portrays the sights of your laser gun in the middle of the screen with moving crosshairs. By moving these you are able to pinpoint the Cylons as they fly at the mothership. As well as the radar scanner there are a few other instruments which need constant monitoring including fuel situation, the state of your lasers and shield strength. Your tanks may be refuelled during the game, which involves wandering round space looking for the mothership to dock on to. No fun with empty tanks and as often as not your fuel will run out just as she is in sight. The graphics aren't astounding and the sound fairly average. New Cylon Attack is not the most original game but it is by no means the worst.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Crash

Use of Computer 80%

Graphics 79%

Playability 77%

Getting Started 78%

Addictive Qualities 73%

Value For Money 78%

Overall 78%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: A & F Software Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £5.75 Language: Machine code A & F are probably most famous in Spectrum games for their hi-scorer platform game Chuckie Egg which still sits in the CRASH than even now. It's been quite a while since that came out and the latest release, New Cylon Attack is a conversion from the BBC and Electron micros. The game was said to have set new standards for space games on the Beeb, and one critic went as far as to say that the only problem with it was that there was nothing to criticise (thereby reinforcing the fallacy that criticism implies bad comments). New Cylon Attack is a 3D space battle in which you must defend civilisation from the attacking Cylon ships. The aliens have discovered the route of your mother ship and are out to destroy it. As an interceptor pilot you are launched from the mother ship to fight them with your laser guns. The screen display is largely filled with the 3D view of space. Centred in the view is a squared gun sight with vertical and lateral moving bars for fine sighting. The sights move with ship movement. Laser bolts are seen as round blobs hurtling out from either side of the screen towards the large and solid aliens. Other screen information shown indicates status of shields, lasers and fuel. The lasers use energy and take time to recharge, failing to fire until replenished. Fuel and shields are replenished by docking with the yellow coloured mothership - an automatic process if you line the sights on it. Although fuel may be replenished by docking during an attack wave, shields are only replenished when a wave is defeated. But during the docking aliens may attack the mother ship. Apart from the multifarious alien craft there are other celestial bodies about, planets with moons, signposts pointing to Mars, comets and many stars. A radar above the viewscreen indicates the positions of attacking aliens which are just out of visual range, while the mother ship is a yellow flashing dot. Well they thought it was great on the Beeb - how about the Spectrum? COMMENTS Control keys: user definable, needs four directional and one for fire Joystick: Kempston catered for, others via UDK Keyboard play: responsive - watch out for 'inertia' effect Use of colour: playing area is black and white, simple usage around Graphics: good, fast moving, large and work well in perspective Sound: very good Skill levels: 1 Lives: 3 fuel lives and percentage of shield damage Screens: many attack waves Special features:

Personal Computer News

Overall 3/10

Mike Gerrard 3/10

PRICE: £5.75 PUBLISHER: A & F Software [redacted] If this is the new one, I'm glad I didn't have to play the old Cylon Attack, which would have been so dated as to make Space Invaders look like a mega-game. After launch, it's you against the Cylons, with most of the screen taken up by the view through your cockpit screen. Above this is a long-range scanner showing any Cylons just out of view - or at least it's supposed to, but as there's no indication in the scanner as to where your own ship is situated this proves a little tricky. In the centre of the main screen is a sight which indicates by crossed lines whether you're climbing or turning, but these tend to be confusing as they move the opposite way to you. The other features include a Kempston joystick option, muss, a saveable high-score table and the chance to define your own keys. There's also a demo mode which shows off the excellent sound effects, but regrettably the sound is the best thing about New Cylon Attack. The enemy ships, which are extra-large Invaders-style shapes, lurch out of the screen at you and disintegrate into little squares when hit. Repetition can be exciting, but simply going through wave after wave of Cylons certainly isn't - whether you end up defeating them, or they wipe the floor of the universe with you.