Power Plays

Sinclair User

Overall 4/10

Chris Jenkins 4/10

Label: Power House Author: Various Price: £9.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Chris Jenkins There's a good deal of variety in these eight back-catalogue Power House titles, but precious little in the way of quality. Worst of the lot is Cyrox, so full of bugs that at one stage all the backgrounds disappear completely. How's this for an intro: "A valueable (sic) shipment of crystals has been stolen... there (sic) whereabouts has (sic) been traced to Cyrox... headquarters for public enermy (sic) number one... " The game's as good as the grammar. Time Flight is a fair Time Pilot rip-off. Sword and Shield (the best thing on the tape) is a neat Kingdom-style strategy game. Tomb of Syrinx, an average arcade-adventure. Hercules decent platforms-and-ladders. Sqij, a shooting and collecting scenario. Slingshot, a Star Trek-type space zapper, and Oddball, a battle to push radioactive blocks into a disintegrator. Only worth bothering with if you don't have any of these titles already.

Crash

Paul Sumner

ALL TOGETHER NOW Paul Sumner reviews the latest compilations - there's gold in them thar software shelves, if you know where to look. Ever since the Spectrum stormed into the homes of young innocent children, compilations of previously released games have been lurking on the software shelves. From the outset compilations were purchased for quantity more than quality - the largest collections seemed to give more value for money, more games per pound. But as buyers became more prudent software houses found themselves having to be more selective in what they put on their cassettes. No longer are compilations just collections of rejected old games. With the growing importance of budget software in the sales charts (see our feature on page 45), most compilations are now slickly-presented and well-advertised packages proclaiming value for money. Most software houses have even setup departments which scour the market for games to go on compilations. With the supposed summer software slump now past, a whole plethora of compilations is about to be released to satisfy our appetite in the dull time between The PCW Show and Christmas. This collection of compilations shows the dilemma facing the buyer on the high street. Should you go for a great big bundle of software that you've never heard of? Or is it better to play safe with compilations of well-established oldies? My advice is to stick with well-known titles; at least that way you won't buy a package with any really rancid games. And whatever you do don't discard a compilation just because it contains a few golden oldies - they're often more playable than new games for which more time has been spent on presentation than on content. If you're going out to buy a particular game, it's worth looking around on the compilations first. Most full-price games reach their peak sales within a few weeks, so within a few months they can be on compilations, where their sales will b e steadier. If you're really shrewd you could give up buying individual games altogether, and just get the hits all in one package - though this way you tend to be about six months behind the rest of the software scene. Have a good look around, there's bound to be a compilation for you somewhere. Note: the information boxes on this page give each game's original CRASH Overall percentage and then the issue in which it was reviewed, N/A means the game was not reviewed in CRASH. The budget market has just got into compilations, with two distinct approaches. On the one hand you have The Power House throwing together most of their £1.99 releases, past and present. In a bundle of budget fun - Powerplays, eight games for £9.99. None of the games are very impressive, the point being quantity rather than quality. On the other hand you have Tynesoft looking at the budget problem from a completely different angle: in the Micro Value Pack you only get four (very old and not very good) games, but for the extremely cheap compilation price of £3.99. You might think summer is all over now, but in attempt to brighten up everyones lives US Gold has released Summer Gold. In true US Gold style this latest bundle of fun offers a wide range of games, from old favourites like Bruce (How many times did you complete it?) Lee and Beach Head II to recent simulations: Tenth Frame and Dambusters. And, like The Edge, US Gold throws in an adventure, Rebel Planet, to counter the aggressive bashing and blasting of the arcade games. There's nothing really bad in Summer Gold - what you've got is six respectable full-price games for £8.99. Following in the path & Soft Aid and Off The Hook, which raised £350,000 and £75,000 for their respective charities, a new label called Backpack releases Kidsplay in midautumn and looks set to follow its predecessors. The worthy charity this time is the National Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Children, which will use the profits to combat child abuse (see the news piece in CRASH issue 43). The contents range from the 1984 Ultimate success Lunar Jetman to hits of 1987 like Xeno, Deactivators and Mailstrom. Nine of the ten games scored over 85% in CRASH - so Kidsplay gives you excellent value for money while helping a deserving cause. After the success of Star Games, Gremlin Graphics has quickly hit the streets with Star Games II. Now part of the US Gold conglomerate, Gremlin offers old favourites such as the very popular Highway Encounter (originally from Vortex) along with another CRASH Smash, Ultimate's Cyberun. On the same tape, in the shadow of these two giants, can be found a couple of Lucasfilm games Ballblazer and The Eidolon. Of course Gremlin also gets a look-in with the underrated and very playable Trailblazer and their Gauntlet clone Avenger. Activision is also getting in on the bundle bonanza with a Lucasfilm Prestige Compilation (see the CRASH offer on page 62...) Out of all four game The Eidolon (on yet another compilation) is probably the best piece; the other three suffer badly from conversionitis caught from the Commodore. If you like life on The Edge, you'd better not miss Classix 1. This 'collector's edition' brings together all Softek's and The Edge's hits since they first entered the Spectrum software scene to 1984. The star of the package is without a doubt Bobby Bearing, in this 3D Marble Madness-type game the eponymous cute little ball of fun has to rescue his mates. This little wonder picked up nearly every computer award available and makes the package immense value for money. Also hidden away on Classix 1 is The Edge's first adventure, That's The Spirit. It's not often we see adventures on compilations, but maybe Classix 1 has something for everyone... Ocean's big release for autumn looks set to start a completely new trend in theme compilations. Covering nearly every conceivable sport, Game Set And Match brings together ten of the most popuLar recreational simulations released in the Spectrum's lifetime (in fact, 23 if you count the subgames in Daley Thompson's Supertest and Hyper Sports. The only surprise is the inclusion of Super Soccer over the far superior Match Day (because so many of you have already got the latter, I'm told). The package includes three CRASH Smashes and two which were very near misses. So whatever you fancy (in the way of sport!) Ocean seems to have got it covered. This lavish package of four cassettes should be at your local sports centre... umm computer shop now at the reasonable price of £12.95. And if you've got a +3 you can get a two-disk package for £17.95 (much less than a season ticket to Leeds). KIDSPLAY Backpack Xeno - 86% Issue 35 Deactivators - 85% Issue 34 Night Gunner - 91% Issue 3 Marsport - 95% Issue 22 Monty On The Run - 94% Issue 20 Starion - 94% Issue 16 Mailstrom - 59% Issue 35 Starstrike - 93% Issue 11 Bounty Bob - 85% Issue 21 Lunar Jetman - 95% Issue 1 £9.99 STAR GAMES II Gremlin Highway Encounter - 95% Issue 20 Cyberun - 90% Issue 28 Trailblazer - 88% Issue 34 Avenger - 85% Issue 36 Ballblazer - 71% Issue 28 Eidolon - 76% Issue 36 £9.99 GAME SET AND MATCH Ocean GBA Basketball - 37% Issue 44 Konami's Tennis - 60% Issue 33 Super Soccer - 56% Issue 37 Daley Thomnpson's Supertest - 76% Issue 22 Barry McGuigan's Boxing - 88% Issue 25 CDS Pool - 77% Issue 6 Ping Pong - 90% Issue 28 World Series Baseball - 91% Issue 16 Jonah Barrington's Squash - 87% Issue 17 Hyper Sports - 92% Issue 19 box of four cassettes £12.95 two Spectrum +3 disks £17.95 POWERPLAYS The Power House Hercules - N/R Slingshot - N/R Time Fight - 29% Issue 40 Cyrox - 46% Issue 40 Squidge - N/R Odd Ball - N/R Sword & Shield - N/R Tomb Of Syrinx - 26% Issue 40 £9.99 MICRO VALUE PACK Tynesoft Panzadrome - 77% Issue 24 Tidy Tony - N/R BB Strikes Back - 42% Issue 23 Steelyard Blues - N/R £3.99 CLASSIX 1 The Edge Bobby Bearing - 94% Issue 31 Brian Bloodaxe - 86% Issue 14 Starbike - 77% Issue 10 Psytraxx - 69% Issue 10 That's The Spirit - N/R £8.95 SUMMER GOLD US Gold Tenth Frame - 55% Issue 38 Impossible Mission - 76% Issue 22 Rebel Planet - 85% Issue 31 Dambusters - 75% Issue 21 Bruce Lee - 91% Issue 16 Beach Head II - 74% Issue 24 LUCASFILM PRESTIGE COMPILATIONS Activision Koronis Rift - 70% Issue 40 Ballblazer - 71% Issue 28 The Eidolon - 76% Issue 36 Rescue On Fractulus - 75% Issue 33 £9.99