Alcatraz Harry

Your Spectrum

David Lester 2/5 MISS

Roger Willis 4/5 MISS

Ron Smith 2/5 MISS

JOYSTICK JURY Success in the charts doesn't always mean it's the best game around. Check out the thoughts of our jury this month - Ron Smith, Roger Willis and David Lester - and you'll see what we mean... ALCATRAZ HARRY Mastertronic £1.99 Ron: Imprisoned in Alcatraz, it's up to Harry to search for and steal some secret files which've been stored in an underground vault and, once found, he must escape through a hole in one of the fences. Now all this seems pretty simple until you see a grid map of the prison layout, which shows the 144 different locations in which the files could be hidden. To make sure that you visit most of them, it's necessary to search for 30 items of escape equipment as well. This done Harry must be helped back to the compound and begin his walk across the minefield to safety beyond the electrified fence. This is no easy game to complete, but with only average use of colour, flickering repetitive graphics and a fairly slow playing speed, it's unlikely anyone would want to. However, to its credit, there are some fun locations to visit; for instance; go past certain guards too many times and have your head blown off - violent stuff, but done with humour. Definitely reasonable value for the price that's being asked.

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 3/10

Chris Bourne 3/10

ESCAPE TO BOREDOM Memory: 48K Price: £1.99 Alcatraz Harry, from Mastertronic, captures the essence of prison life brilliantly - intense boredom. It is a maze game in which you must find secret files and amass equipment before escaping. The maze is a grid containing a scattered selection of revolvers, ladders, wirecutters and similar objects. There are also guards to complicate the route. The graphics are flickery, and although there are a great number of screens, there is very little detail in each one; a few simple buildings or a watchtower at best. Movement is slow, and although the scenario seems promising at first, it rapidly pails through lack of variety. For the low price, the game is adequate. But in terms of quality, the game falls way short of what is possible.

Read it at Sinclair User Magazine Online

Crash

Use of Computer 45%

Graphics 41%

Playability 31%

Getting Started 58%

Addictive Qualities 31%

Value For Money 49%

Overall 43%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Mastertronic Memory Required: 48K Retail Price: £1.99 Language: BASIC Author: B. Jones Alcatraz is the famous old American island prison in San Francisco Bay. The cover of this new game from Mastertronic - a 'unique blend of arcade, strategy and adventure'- has a cover which reinforces the belief that it is an American prison break game. So it comes as rather a surprise to discover in the onscreen instructions at the start that you are in a prison camp from which you must escape with secret files that the allies need. Sounds more like the Second World War! You start the game in a compound into which you must place 30 items of equipment. A flashing X marks the spot at the bottom centre of an 8 by 18 grid (144 squares). You collect escape equipment as you move around. At the start you are told the sector number where the secret files are to be found, once all the equipment is collected, and your present sector number is displayed whenever you want in a status report. After collecting the equipment you must make your escape via a hole in the North fence after passing through a minefield. Besides yourself in the camp there are guards who will arrest you for loitering should return to that sector again, there are tunnels which lead to other parts of the camp and cars which can be used for driving back to compound where the equipment must be deposited. Harry, if that's who he is, is moved about by four directional keys. Setting off from the compound, he can be moved to any other screen by touching the edge. The objects to be collected, which consist of six types, ropes, ladders, wire cutters etc, are usually found on the right of the screen while a blockhouse or guardhouse is on the left. The camp perimeter squares are indicated by the fencing. If Harry goes into a tunnel there is a screen showing a diagrammatic cross section of the ground with the tunnel burrowing under the imagined wall of the two connecting sectors. Should he escape with all the equipment, the minefield part of the game takes the form of Mined-Out in reverse, you are shown the positions of the mines very briefly and then have to work your way across. Help is given by the border colours which warn of the proximity of one, two or three mines a step away. COMMENTS Control keys: Q/A up/down, O/P left/right, S for status Joystick: none Keyboard play: very slow Use of colour: below average Graphics: large and ungainly Sound: poor Skill levels: 4

Alcatraz Harry - the man with the broken legs - a latter day Buster Keaton.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Getting Started 5/10

Graphics 4/10

Value 1/10

Playability 1/10

MACHINE: 48K Spectrum SUPPLIER: Mastertronic PRICE: £1.99 I don't want to alarm you but Mastertronic has just made escaping from Alcatraz about as easy as punching your way out of a paper bag. OK, so it's only a computer game, but it's just as well. For if this were all that it took to escape from the world's toughest prison then those killers wouldn't be locked up for very long. All you have to do is wander around a 20x10 grid collecting 30 items, dump them in a compound (none of the ropes, guns or ladders is used for anything), and then pick a safe route to the north wall to where a hole in the fence has been conveniently ignored by the guards for you to escape through. If you are expecting sharks, searchlights and sirens then forget it - all you get in Alcatraz Harry are a few static drawings of guards and dogs which are simple to dodge by plotting their position on a piece of graph paper. If you stumble inadvertently into a screen with a guard in it for a second time, it's curtains. They're sporting chaps, the guards in M'tronics Alcatraz, for when you walk past them for the first time they stand completely still. In order to escape, you have to take with you some secret files that are hidden at the foot of one of the many grilles scattered around the grid. This doesn't add any challenge though, as you are told which sector you are looking for at the beginning of the game. If you are completely stupid and scramble down the wrong grille, you will have your head blown off by a firing Squad. Alcatraz Harry is written in Basic and lacks both speed and smoothness of scrolling. The animation is amongst the worst I have seen in a computer game. Harry moves around the screen as if in an impersonation of one of John Cleese's silly walks. Alcatraz Harry is about one hour's fairly boring entertainment for £1.99. It runs on the 48k Spectrum and is in the shops now. If you want a decent escaping, collecting, maze-style game then get Atic Atac - it's only just over twice as dear a Alcatraz Harry but it's incomparably better.

Personal Computer Games

Graphics 4/10

Sound 3/10

Originality 6/10

Lasting Interest 3/10

Overall 4/10

Martyn Smith

Peter Walker 4/10

Robert Patrick

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K CONTROL: Keys FROM: Mastertronic, £1.99 This is another game in Mastertronic's £1.99 range, games which have so far earned a bit of a reputation for not being worth the price of the blank tape they're recorded on. So what's this one like? Well, the scenario isn't bad. You play the part of Harry, trying to escape from the prison, and you must first move around the camp collecting escape equipment such as ladders, ropes, as well as something which looks remarkably like an apple. You search also for some secret files, whose location you are told at the start of the game. Having done all this you then negotiate a minefield which has sprouted up from apparently nowhere and slip through a hole in the fence to freedom. You move from place to place a la Atic Atac and each location is quite nicely drawn, depicting guard towers and cell blocks. Harry's animation however, is fairly jerky and he looks more like he's performing a song and dance act than walking. Movement is not particularly fast either, and waiting for him to cross a screen gets pretty tedious. Nor is the sound anything to write home about, the tinny beepings being a positive annoyance at times and not adding anything to the game. Alcatraz Harry has four skill levels which all appear remarkably similar, and after a few games the appeal wears pretty thin. Its a pretty simplistic game and there's really not a lot to tell you about, which isn't too surprising when you remember the price. You get what you pay for - not an awful lot.

Your Computer

Overall 3/5

48K Spectrum Graphic Adventure £1.99 Mastertronic Alcatraz Harry is bent on escape, and so travels around Alcatraz picking up escape gear. Once this has been accomplished you thread your way through a mine-field to a hole in the outer fence. Nothing very taxing, not bad for the money.