[{"TitleName":"Close-In","Publisher":"Pulsonic","Author":"Ofer Ben-Ami, Shelly Ben-Ami","YearOfRelease":"1983","ZxDbId":"0010469","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 5, Jun 1984","Price":"£0.75","ReleaseDate":"1984-05-24","Editor":"Roger Kean","TotalPages":126,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Roger Kean\r\nConsultant Editor: Franco Frey\r\nProduction Designer: David Western\r\nArt Editor: Oliver Frey\r\nClient Liaison: John Edwards\r\nStaff Writer: Lloyd Mangram\r\nContributing Writers: Matthew Uffindel, Chris Passey\r\nSubscription Manager: Denise Roberts\r\n\r\nTelephone numbers\r\nEditorial/office [redacted]\r\nAdvertising [redacted]\r\nHot Line [redacted]\r\n\r\n©1984 Newsfield Ltd.\r\nCrash Micro is published monthly by Newsfield Ltd. [redacted]\r\n\r\nNo material may be reproduced in whole or in part without written consent from the copyright holders.\r\n\r\nPhotosetting by SIOS [redacted]\r\nColour origination by Scan Studio, [redacted]\r\nPrinted in England by Carlisle Web Offset Ltd, [redacted].\r\nDistribution by Comag, [redacted]\r\n\r\nSubscriptions: 12 issues £9.00 UK Mainland (post free)\r\nEurope: 12 issues £15 (post free).\r\n\r\nWe cannot undertake to return any written or photographic material sent to CRASH MICRO unless accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope.\r\n\r\nCover by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"Producer: Pulsonic\r\nMemory Required: 48K\r\nRetail Price: £2.99\r\nLanguage: Machine code & BASIC\r\nAuthor: Shelly & Ofer Ben-Ami\r\n\r\nThis offering is a throwback to the 'Tron' style light cycle grid game where you must force your opponent's light trail off the screen. If either trail hits another, its own or the edge of the screen the other player wins. The game may be played against another human or against the spectrum itself.\r\n\r\nThere are 10 speeds and the computer may be made to be intelligent in a ratio of 0 to 9. One element which distinguishes this from other similar games is the hyperspace facility. When the key is pressed, play is frozen for a second and then your trail starts off somewhere else on the screen.\r\n\r\nCOMMENTS\r\n\r\nControl keys: E/X up/down, S/D left/right, W/R up-left/up-right, Z/C left-down, right-down, A= hyperspace (keys for left player only)\r\nJoystick: you must be joking!\r\nKeyboard play: responsive but almost impossible to use sensibly\r\nUse of colour: extremely limited\r\nGraphics: very simple\r\nSound: poor\r\nSkill levels: 10 speeds, 10 levels of computer intelligence and five different mazes, some with extra hazards\r\nFeatures: 1 or 2 player games or one v the computer","ReviewerComments":["Pulsonic really seem to have got themselves in a tangle. With the few really playable games in this collection, there always seems to be something to ruin them. What programmer in their right mind would provide such a fistful of badly laid out keys as these to play such a fast game? Eight keys! Each 'go' auto-starts after a few seconds unless you kick it off yourself, and if you're playing the computer you are at a serious disadvantage with eight keys to use. Concentrating on only the four main directions is no good, since the computer uses all eight directions quite happily. It also keeps on hyperspacing. There are much better, more playable versions than this one around.\r\r\nUnknown","The graphics are very simple, as usual in this sort of game, but I thought that having a very thin red line and blue line on stark white was poor planning and hard on the eyes. There are also some colour problems even with this simple arrangement. Not only do the lines cloud the black edge, but they will also turn each other into blue or red depending on how you seem to hit. This becomes very confusing. When that's all said, the game is quite impossible to play with the key arrangement given and no joystick will cope.\r\r\nUnknown","I'm sometimes driven to wondering whether some games programmers ever play the things themselves, or just sit around having \"good\" ideas for games. If the programmers of this one had tried it out they might have concluded that it was a bit hard to play. It's a fairly typical version of the \"Tron\" style game. The addition of the hyperspace facility is useful for getting out of tight spots occasionally. But I didn't like the keys at all. The price of £2.99 is not really tempting at all - I would prefer to pay more and get a better program.\r\nUnknown"],"OverallSummary":"General Rating: A game which ought to be reasonable and has scope for addictivity, totally ruined by thoughtless key layout.","Page":"82,83","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Unknown","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""},{"Name":"Unknown","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""},{"Name":"Unknown","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"A game for a person with sixteen nimble fingers - Close-In."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Use of Computer","Score":"5%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"30%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"35%","Text":""},{"Header":"Getting Started","Score":"48%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictive Qualities","Score":"35%","Text":""},{"Header":"Value For Money","Score":"35%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"31%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]