Don't Panic

ZX Computing

Firebird, the BT company who made such an impact with their first collection of SW have added to their range with the introduction of seven new programs in their Silver, £2.50, series. DON'T PANIC is a variation of the Jet Pac/Astronut game where you have to load a spaceship with items found on various levels of the playing screen. I found this one quite addictive and very playable (So did I - Ed's Assistant).

Your Spectrum

Dave Nicholls 2/5 MISS

Roger Willis 3/5 MISS

Ross Holman 3/5 HIT

JOYSTICK JURY Our three-ring circus of Roger Willis, Ross Holman and Dave Nicholls is back in town. Watch 'em put all the latest arcade games through the hoops - and have a laugh at the clowning around. What's the score? Well, the marks out of five at the end of each review is a shorthand way of summing up what each reviewer thought of the game. But will it be a commercial success? For that you'll have to check out the HIT and MISS system. Simple, eh? DON'T PANIC Firebird £2.50 Dave: How many games seem to be centred around the goings-on of a loading bay? Are they really such interesting places? Probably not ... but then again, the games they inspire aren't that interesting either! Don't Panic has you controlling a droid working in the loading bay, and it's your job to get it zooming around the screen loading odd bits and pieces in a rocket; you do this by purifying the screen with your laser and then pushing them into the hold with further blasts from your laser. Which all sounds easy, until someone mentions the indestructible alien that's hanging around to spoil all your fun. The goods you've to pack on to the rocket are all good fun, such as poisonous Teddy Bears and so on, but overall the game is quite frustrating. The fact that the alien can not only move faster than you, but also manage to deal out death with astonishing accuracy, just made the whole affair rather boring after a while. Arcade aces will probably find it a reasonable challenge, but there isn't enough variety here to make it a classic.

Read it at Your Spectrum Unofficial Archive

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Graphics 6/10

Sound 3/10

Value 9/10

Playability 8/10

MACHINE: Spectrum SUPPLIER: Firebird PRICE: £2.50 Load a space cargo vessel with items scattered around a multi-level loading bay using a droid. An easy task until it comes face to face with the monster of the bay who happens to feel a little peckish. To complicate matters some of the cargo has been contaminated with a deadly toxin. But don't panic! You can beat these deadly foes with your decontamination laser.

THE PRICE IS RIGHT Buying computer games can be an expensive business. Some can cost anything up to £14. To buy all the latest titles as they come onto the market would cost a small fortune. And that's beyond the pocket of most people. So it's no wonder that software companies have started producing a range of games costing no more than a couple of pounds. Unfortunately, besides being cheap, some were very nasty and a waste of money. It seemed far better to save up and buy a top price game. But such is the potential of the market that the quality of the games has improved while the prices have been kept low. So Computer & Video Games thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at some of the current budget games on the market from software houses. Firebird, British Telecom's software company, is now in the process of updating its Silver catalogue which was launched in October 1984 with great success, with all the games selling for £2.50. Star of the original 20 titles was undoubtedly Booty on the Spectrum 48k and Commodore 64 which, claims Firebird, has sales now in excess of 100,000. It's now being converted to the Amstrad and should be available by late summer. In Booty, Jim the cabin boy faces death by drowning or at the hands of the Ghost Pirate as he searches through the hold of the Black Galleon in search of treasure. Another favourite is Gogo the Ghost on the Commodore 64 which has, believe it or not, 150 frames of haunted happenings. New games shortly to be introduced into the Silver range are Microcosm for the BBC B, Subsunk for the Commodore 64 and Don't Panic for the 16k and 48k Spectrum. Mastertronic, formed in April 1984, now claims to be the brand leader in budget games - its extensive range sells for just £1.99 each. In its first 12 months of trading, Mastertronic says it has audited figures of sales for two million games. New developments for 1985 in the £1.99 range include two semi-educational games in its Mistertronic titles - Make Music with Mistertronic and Type Rope - aimed at the six to 11 age range. Earlier this year, Atlantis Software launched three games under its new Atlantis Gold label, selling at £2.99 each. They were the Dungeons and Dragons-style Adventure Velnor's Lair for the Commodore 64 and Nicotine Nightmare and Self Destruct, both on the Spectrum 48k. The last two have proved so popular that Atlantis is in the process of converting them for the Amstrad - a move which again points to the growing popularity of the machine. Mike Cole, of Atlantis, says: "We believe in the Amstrad as the next thing to come. It's a lovely machine. We will be supporting it." Being launched this spring is The Sparkler range of games from Creative Sparks at £2.50. Sandy Mackenzie, of Creative Sparks, says: "There is a a need to supply good quality software at prices affordable to kids". The company's decision to produce cheap software was prompted to a great extent by the large number of excellent games sent in by amateur writers. "By promoting games in the budget range," says Sandy, "we are opening the industry to new talent, and also serving the interest of games buyers by publishing good games at reasonable prices. After all, low prices doesn't have to mean low quality." Soit seems that pocket-money power is being recognised at last and computer star wars could soon become computer price wars. About time, too!

Crash

Use of Computer 75%

Graphics 70%

Playability 71%

Getting Started 68%

Addictive Qualities 78%

Value For Money 80%

Overall 70%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Firebird Memory Required: 16K Retail Price: £2.50 Language: Machine code Author: M Rogers, M Craig Now here's a very simple little task for you. You are in control of a droid stranded in some far and distant alien cargo hold which is littered with Teddy bears. The cuddlies are desperately needed on Earth to satisfy the world Teddy bear shortage. The game is played over four platforms, one above the other, each of which would be continuous but for the gap that your spaceship fits into. Elevators are placed at regular intervals allowing movement up or down between the platforms. The droid moves the bears along the plat - form by firing his blaster at them, so making them chunter along until they fall over the edge into the spaceship's hold. All pretty simple so far... one little problem is that the bears are contaminated and must be purified with a burst of blaster before the droid can touch them. Easy if you remember to administer a quick blast before passing them. The droid can only manage to move two bears at a time otherwise forward progress will be very slow indeed and speed is important because of a little green alien which bears more than a passing resemblance to Tyrannosaurus Rex (the prehistoric version, not the seventies glam group). This chap seems to have all the cards stacked in his favour, well it is his planet after all. You can't shoot or outrun him, the only advantage being that you can change platforms by more than one level at a time (if you're near the lift) and the alien can only hop up or down one level at a time, but even so staying out of the monster's way while trying to load the ship is far from easy. When a batch of Teddies have been loaded into your space craft it will rise up a level. The craft will take off for the next screen after it has received a load from each platform. The following screens are progressively harder with the introduction of more monsters but these additional monsters can be disposed of by knocking them off the edge. COMMENTS Control keys: redefinable Joystick: any Keyboard play: no problems Use of colour: limited Graphics: better than average Sound: limited but at least average Skill levels: 1 Lives: 5 Screens:

Blast the teddies before the monster gets you.