The Siege of Fort Apache

Sinclair User

Gilbert Factor 8/10

GERONIMO'S REVENGE Fort Apache Memory: 16K Price: £3.95 Sabotage Memory: 48K Price: £4.99 City Patrol Memory: 16K Price: £4.99 With the rapid approach of school holidays, games software is in even greater demand. For those unfortunate people who are not visiting the sunny beaches there are still many games on the market for the 16K ZX-81. The Siege of Fort Apache is a strategy game in which you take the role of a general with 300 men at his disposal. You must launch an attack on a fort in an attempt to destroy its walls and gain entry. On each day of the siege you must assign your men to such tasks as building battering rams and ramps, manning cannons, collecting spare ammunition and fetching rations so that your troops can survive. You must then decide your plan of attack. You can move in on the gate, try to bring down the walls or burrow your way underground. At the end of a day the computer will give you a status report on your situation, which includes how many casualties you have suffered and how many rations have been stolen. If you lose more than half your troops during an encounter with the enemy you are outnumbered and lose the game. Your should keep an eye on the positioning of your soldiers, as you must leave sufficient men at your base camp to protect it from the enemy which may invade at any time. Another reason for keeping an eye on the troops is to make sure nobody deserts. If they have insufficient supplies your valiant men might do that. Fort Apache has a simple presentation and lacks graphics. The range options and the results of the decisions you make in the game make it an absorbing strategy game, original and inventive in its use of subject. The siege can be continued for several days if you keep your food supplies stocked and your men happy. You might also like to try to increase the life span of your armies through a series of games by trying various battle tactics. The Siege of Fort Apache is produced by Contrast Software, [redacted]. It costs £4.95. Sinclair Research is retaining its collection of ZX-81 games tapes, the most recent of which are Sabotage and City Patrol. Sabotage is a novel game in which you take the role of one of two people, either a saboteur or the guard protecting some highly-explosive material. If you choose to be the guard you must corner the saboteur before he can plant his bomb in a secret place. If you take the part of the saboteur you must plant your bomb without being caught. Your score is determined depending on which role you take. The guard's points decrease the longer he takes to reach the bomber. The saboteur scores his points by being destructive. City Patrol is another destructive game, but in 3D. You take the part of a policeman moving round a city trying to destroy the alien invaders who try to raze tower blocks to the ground. At the very least you must prevent the destruction of as many skyscrapers as possible. The 3D representation of the city is impressive, since producing 3D effects on the ZX-81 is difficult. Many hours of thought went into the screen display and, although the plot is a little weak, people who like out-of-the-ordinary games should be satisfied. Sabotage and City Patrol can be obtained from Sinclair Research or from some W H Smith and Boots.

Sinclair Programs

June Mortimer

SOFT FOCUS New this month. Softfocus will be a regular feature, providing short reviews of the newest software for the Sinclair Computers. This month the focus is on the way ahead for software. Late last year, programs produced for the Spectrum Christmas market pointed the way for software in 1984. Ant Attack by Quicksilva and Android 2 by Vortex both included stunning animated graphics routines, setting a new standard for other programmers. Artic Computing has now produced Bear Bovver for the 48K Spectrum, a shining example of animated graphics, which are used in an arcade-style game. Satan's Pendulum by Minatron Computing (48K) also includes animated sequences and, for keen programmers, gives a guide to how they were produced in the accompanying booklet. While such excellent original software is being produced, software houses which cling to versions of Space Invaders and Pac-man are looking more and more outdated. The Romik Galactic Trooper and 3D Monster Chase are competent and bug-free games but do not have sufficient new ideas to make them attractive in 1984. Realistic screen displays are becoming more and more common. Wheelie, from Microsphere for the 48K Spectrum, sends the player hurtling past obstacles and through caverns in search of the ghost rider. In the program, crash sequences are very graphic and tend towards the tasteless, while in Deathchase from Micromega - 16K Spectrum - the view from a motorcycle is shown in realistic detail but the death of another rider is not depicted at all. Problems as to how players should be made to suffer for the misdeeds of their on-screen persona, whether they should watch deaths in graphic detail or miss them completely, are resolved in the new Automata game for the 48K Spectrum, Pi-Eyed. The hero, the Pi-man, wanders from pub to pub, drinking beer and avoiding obstacles. Wandering into other buildings for safety results in the telling of very bad jokes, a fate far worse for the player than any graphics representation could be. With programs such as the Legend Valhalla (48K) and Melbourne House Hobbit (48K) on sale, other adventures fade into insignificance. The Island, produced by Virgin Games for the 48K Spectrum, is an enjoyable adventure, with added sound effects and short games contained in it. Demon Lord by Javlin Software is an enormous adventure, made up of four 48K adventures on two separate cassettes. Pictures are given, in painstaking detail, of each location, but the vocabulary is small, making it extremely difficult and very frustrating to play. Computer magazines receive a constant stream of letters enquiring about software other than games for computers. Mansfield Park and Nineteenth Century England, both by Sussex Software for the 48K Spectrum, act as secondary-school-level revision aids. Their subjects are those suggested by the titles and each subject is divided into different areas, for which questions and detailed answers are given on which the user can be tested. New ZX-81 games, so plentiful a year ago, are becoming rarer and rarer. Contrast Software has produced Fort Apache, a 16K strategy game, in which the player takes the part of a general with 300 men to command, laying siege to an Apache fort. It is a game involving thought and forward planning rather than fast reactions. Cyborg Wars, by Stratagem Cybernetics, is a more complex 16K strategy game involving up to four players in an imaginary galactic conflict between four nations of androids. The game relies more strongly on the instruction booklet than could be expected from a computer program but it is a carefully-thought-out and exciting game. Three games for the ZX-81 are included on the cassette accompanying the book ZX-81/TS-1000 Programming for Young Programmers, published by McGraw Hill. Bomb Run, written in machine code for the 1K ZX-81, is a version of the popular City Lander type of program in which the player must bomb buildings from an aircraft to avoid running into them. Mazer, also for the 1K ZX-81, is a simple maze game in which the aim is to avoid the ghost for as long as possible. More complicated is Golems, on the same cassette, for the 16K ZX-81, a strategy and fantasy adventure in which the aim is to outwit the Lord of the Black Tower. More detailed reviews of all these games, together with their respective Gilbert Factors, can be found in Sinclair User.

Sinclair User

SIEGE TACTICS WIN AT THE END OF THE DAY If you have ever fancied yourself as a military strategist, you should enjoy Fort Apache for the 16K ZX-81. In it you assume the role of a general with 300 men in his command. Your aim is to attack a fort and destroy its walls and, for each day of your siege, you must assign men to such tasks as building ramps, ladders and battering rams, manning cannons, collecting ammunition and fetching rations. You then decide whether to attack the gate of the fort, scale its walls, or tunnel beneath them. At the end of the day, the computer will tell you the result of the engagement, including how many men you have lost and how many rations have been stolen. If you lose more than half of your troops you have lost the game. You must remember that if you do not leave sufficient men at your base camp, the fort defenders might sally forth and attack you; if you do not feed your troops adequately, they may desert. In spite of the fact that battering rams and ramps seem inappropriate weapons for attacking an Apache fort, the options and results of your decisions are reasonably realistic, making it an absorbing game, despite its simple presentation and lack of graphics. Provided you do not suffer a particularly disastrous defeat, you can continue your siege for days, keeping any supplies of food and weapons you have accumulated from one day to the next. You can also try different tactics to see if you can outwit the defenders. The siege of Fort Apache is produced by Contrast Software, [redacted]. It costs £4.95