[{"TitleName":"Games 2","Publisher":"Sinclair Research Ltd","Author":"ICL","YearOfRelease":"1982","ZxDbId":"0011268","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 15, Jan 1983","Price":"£0.75","ReleaseDate":"1982-12-16","Editor":"Terry Pratt","TotalPages":116,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Terry Pratt\r\nStaff Writer: Eugene Lacey\r\nEditorial Assistant: Susan Cameron\r\nDesigner: Linda Freeman\r\nProduction Editor: Tim Metcalfe\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Rita Lewis\r\nAdvertising Executive: Neil Wood, John Phillips, Louise Matthews\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Louise Flockhart\r\nPublisher: Tom Moloney\r\n\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]\r\n\r\nCOMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES POSTAL SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE. By using the special Postal Subscription Service, copies of COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES can be mailed direct from our offices each month to any address throughout the world. All subscription applications should be sent for processing to COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES (Subscription Department), [redacted]. All orders should include the appropriate remittance made payable to COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES. Annual subscription rates (12 issues): UK and Eire: £10.00, Overseas surface mail: £12.00, Airmail Europe: £20.00. Additional service information including individual overseas airmail rates available upon request. Circulation Department: EMAP National Publications. Published and distributed by EMAP National Publications Ltd. Printed by Eden Fisher (Southend) Ltd.\r\n\r\n© Computer & Video Games Limited ISSN 0261 3697.\r\n\r\nCover: Stuart Briers\r\nNext Issue: January 16th"},"MainText":"DEFINITELY NOT THE BEST GAMES IN THE WORLD\r\n\r\nICL Games Packs numbers one to four for the Sinclair Spectrum are proving to be consistently unpopular with the C&VG review team.\r\n\r\nGames Pack Three received a mere two out of ten for playability in these review pages together with some particularly harsh criticism of the games graphics. This month we test the playability and value for money of Packs One, Two and Four.\r\n\r\nGames Pack One features four games previously available for the ZX-81. The best of these is Racetrack a familiar steer your car around the racetrack type game.\r\n\r\nLabyrinth is a very poor maze game and can only be recommended to people who enjoy improving games.\r\n\r\nMartian Knockout is the token action space game on this pack. I say token because the game is about as playable as a Frisbee in a hurricane.\r\n\r\nSkittles is the final offering on Games Pack One and if you are inclined to think that this may be a cheaper way of playing the game then forget it.\r\n\r\nGames Pack Two kicked off with Galactic Invasion a game that is practically identical to Martian Knockout.\r\n\r\nDrop a Brick, the second game on this pack is a very poor attempt at the popular video game - Breakout.\r\n\r\nColour Doodle is a so so children's colouring game.\r\n\r\nThe saving grace of Games Pack Two is the final game, Train Race. This is a gambling game for three players with each player picking a train of a certain colour.\r\n\r\nGames Pack Four was the best of the three I tested. Docking the Space Ship is a fairly mediocre version of Lunar Lander.\r\n\r\nJourney into Danger is much better. This is a mini-Adventure complete with all the features which you would normally associate with a much larger program.\r\n\r\nInvasion from Jupiter is a pretty poor space shoot-out game.\r\n\r\nThe Great Escape is the final game on this cassette and good fun it is too.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"101","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Getting Started","Score":"9/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Value","Score":"4/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"4/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Computer Issue 1, Jan 1983","Price":"£0.6","ReleaseDate":"1982-12-16","Editor":"Toby Wolpe","TotalPages":148,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Toby Wolpe\r\nAssistant Editor: Meirion Jones\r\nStaff Writer: Simon Beesley\r\nSub-Editor: Paul Bond\r\nEditorial Secretary: Lynn Cowling\r\nEditorial: [redacted]\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Philip Kirby\r\nAdvertisement Executives: Bill Ardley, Peter Rice\r\nMidlands Office: Keith Salt\r\nNorthern Office: Ron Southall\r\nAdvertisement Secretary: Jeanette Mackrell\r\nPublishing Director: Chris Hipwell\r\n\r\nYour Computer, [redacted]\r\nTypesetting: In-Step Ltd, [redacted]\r\nPrinted by Riverside Press Ltd, [redacted]\r\n\r\nSubscriptions: U.K. £8 for 12 issues.\r\n\r\n©IPC Business Press Ltd 1983\r\n\r\nPublished by IPC Electrical-Electronic Press Ltd, [redacted]\r\nISSN 0263-0885"},"MainText":"SPECTRUM SOFTWARE\r\r\n\r\r\nSimon Beesley brave attacks by trolls, bombardment by meteoroids, alien invasions and even English literature to bring you up to date with Spectrum software.\r\r\n\r\r\nThe quality of Spectrum software has improved since our last survey but originality remains in short supply. Most of the programs looked at are games programs and the bulk of these are modelled on the arcade classics, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Defender and Asteroids. Perhaps this is because the games-buying public is only interested in games that fall into a recognisable category.\r\r\n\r\r\nSome of the programs are written entirely in Basic. This need not count against them unless the program displays moving graphics.\r\r\n\r\r\nThe Spectrum's keyboard is not very suitable for fast-moving games although Quicksilva and Softek offer a joystick option on some games.\r\r\n\r\r\nSinclair has released a large range of programs written for them by ICL and Psion. By and large the ICL programs compare badly with those from Psion and have a rather amateurish look to them.\r\r\n\r\r\nEach of the tapes in the ICL games series, Games 1 to 4, contains four short Basic programs with titles such as Galactic Invasion, Skittles and Train Race. These are the sort of programs a reader might like to key in from a listing in a magazine. They are fairly simple and afford a limited entertainment for a short period. In view of their variety each package represents reasonable value although they are perhaps more suitable for young people.\r\r\n\r\r\nICL has also produced five titles in a Fun to Learn series covering Music, History, English Literature, Geography and Inventions. They present a variety of quizzes on their respective subjects. Players can compete against each other in a race in which correct answers send them further along the track.\r\r\n\r\r\nIt is difficult to know who these programs are aimed at. One soon runs through the stock of questions and the same names appear in different types of question. Some of the information presented is too obscure or eccentric to make the programs suitable for schools. In the English Literature quiz, for example, Ian Fleming rubs shoulders with Shakespeare and little-known seventeenth century playwrights.\r\r\n\r\r\nPsion's collection of programs is far more satisfactory. Hungry Horace is loosely related to Pac-Man but has a number of original features. Horace has to eat the flowers in a park while avoiding the park guards. Sinclair gives a fair description of Horace as a subtle and amusing cartoon-style game.\r\r\n\r\r\nPsion's 48K chess program was written in conjunction with Microgen. It plays a remarkably strong game even at the lower levels. As an averagely competent player I found it quite hard to beat at level two, although its play seemed to come adrift under pressure. The program's response time is quick and the pieces are quite easily distinguished.\r\r\n\r\r\nSpace Raiders and Planetoids are Psion's versions of the arcade games Invaders and Asteroids. Anyone who still has an appetite for these games will find the Psion products more than adequate. With Vu-Calc, Psion has scaled down a Visi Calc-type program to the dimensions of the home micro. These programs, which are commonly used on business micros, are usually described as providing a financial spreadsheet.\r\r\n\r\r\nThey enable the user to lay out financial data in rows and columns and enter formulae to run calculations on parts or all of the table. Vu-Calc supplies a range of commands for entering data, text or formulae and performing calculations.\r\r\n\r\r\nBasic programs which have been compiled by Softek's compiler, Super C, run - typically - 10 times faster. The compiler sits at the top of memory above RAMtop and is unaffected by a New command. It leaves room for a Basic program of up to 8K and a further 10K for data. The present version cannot cope with decimals, arrays or string variables. These limitations need not be too constricting. Strings, at least, can be stored in the data areas as ASCII codes and accessed through Peeks.\r\r\n\r\r\nAt £14.95 this is good value; particularly since it enables people to write commercially respectable programs without having to master machine code. However Softek insists that anyone planning to sell programs created with the compiler should negotiate for the rights. Softek claims that trace elements have been included to detect code written with Super C.\r\r\n\r\r\nThe arcade game Asteroids crops up on almost every micro. Softek's version Meteoroids is one of the fastest for the Spectrum with good colour and sound. Softime supplies the Spectrum with a digital clock and alarm at the top of the screen which remains there while other programs are loaded and running. The last program in Softek's list is Zolan Adventure, a standard text adventure game which has the merit of fitting into 16K.\r\r\n\r\r\nQuicksilva gave Time Gate considerable advance publicity claiming it would make as great an impact on the computer games' world as had Atari's Star Raiders. As it turns out the game closely resembles Star Raiders. Given that the Atari is a rather more sophisticated computer it is not surprising that the Spectrum version of the game does not match the original.\r\r\n\r\r\nTime Gate presents a view from the cockpit of a spaceship. An instrument panel below contains a long-range scanner and a variety of other indicators giving information on the ship's position and damage incurred. Your mission is to clear 18 galactic sectors of enemy craft.\r\r\n\r\r\nThe business of locating and firing on enemy ships is not as interesting as attending to all the other procedures. The controls are not as responsive as on the Atari. Nonetheless this is an elaborate game with excellent graphics - certainly one of the best so far for the Spectrum.\r\r\n\r\r\nIn an impressive piece of synthesised speech Quicksilva's chess program announces itself at the beginning with 'this is the Chess Player'. Rather startlingly the packaging relates how the Chess Player, an Evil Being, has called for a challenger from Earth. The planet's survival hangs on your game - and you thought you were just going to have a quiet game of chess.\r\r\n\r\r\nIn the event the program plays quite a strong game with the option of six levels of play. The board is clearly displayed and the pieces are well designed. Psion's chess program, however, is probably the better player.\r\r\n\r\r\nMeteor Storm, another version of Asteroids, also announces itself but rather indistinctly. There is not much to choose between this and Planetoids or Meteoroids. The major problem for software companies writing an Asteroids-type game must be in finding an alternative title.\r\r\n\r\r\nSpectres from Bug-Bvte gives a novel twist to the Pac-Man concept. Eddie the electrician has to rewire a haunted house. Instead of eating or picking up objects in his path he lays down light bulbs. Reaching one of the four power generators enables him to illuminate the house and drive off ghosts.\r\r\n\r\r\nThe game has a highly individual flavour. The characters which glide around at a fairly leisurely pace, are engagingly different from the standard Pac-Man figures. This is one of the more original games yet to appear for the Spectrum.\r\r\n\r\r\nGulpman from Campbell Systems is also based on Pac-Man but refreshingly breaks away from the standard format. It offers a choice of 15 different mazes and allows the speed of play to be set. At the highest levels your little man dashes around the maze at quite a pace.\r\r\n\r\r\nBy contrast Jega's Specman, written in Basic, is dismally slow. Sometimes the ghosts seem to be stricken with paralysis and unwilling to take up the chase.\r\r\n\r\r\nEscape from New Generation Software is a variation on the maze theme which involves escaping from dinosaurs. The dinosaurs - brontosauri, pterodactyls and such like - pursue the player's character with considerable animation through the maze which is shown in bird's-eye view.\r\r\n\r\r\nSilversoft's games Orbiter and Ground Attack are probably the best Spectrum versions of the arcade games Defender and Scramble. Ground Attack requires the player to fly a plane through a series of caverns and avoid or destroy missile attacks from the ground. Scramble from Work Force is similar but marginally slower. Likewise Avenger - Abacus' version of Defender - is competent but not quite as accomplished as Silversoft's.\r\r\n\r\r\nMYSTERY MEETING\r\r\n\r\r\nA gold sundial worth £6,000 is the prize for the first person to solve all the clues in the adventure game Pimania. As in Kit Williams' book Masquerade, deciphering all the clues will lead the winner to a meeting at a specific time and place with representatives from the authors of the game, Automata Ltd.\r\r\n\r\r\nThe other side of the program tape contains a disco single. Automata say that the clues are scattered in the music, the program and the graphics. Although we did not proceed very far with the quest the music and opening graphics seemed to bear out Automata's claim that the world of the Pi Man is totally bizarre.\r\r\n\r\r\nMelbourne House has based The Hobbit, on the novel by Tolkien. It helps to have read the book in finding your way about.\r\r\n\r\r\nThe Hobbit is claimed to be an advance on other adventure games because it introduces other characters from the book who react to the player in the role of Bilbo with an independent life of their own. It also allows you - in a limited fashion to enter sentences rather than single words as commands.\r\r\n\r\r\nIn practice these extra features do not amount to much and give the program greater scope for the sort of inconsistencies adventure programs are prone to. Thorin, for example, repeatedly enters the scene and tells you to hurry up. This is irritating because you were unaware that he had left and he seems to be totally devoid of constructive ideas. It is not a good idea, however, to kill him off since he sometimes proves too strong for your attack. Furthermore the manual suggests that you should stay on good terms with the other members of your party if you are to succeed in your quest.\r\r\n\r\r\nMany of the locations in the adventure are illustrated by some excellent graphics. We only managed to complete 7.5 percent of the game during which the text was accompanied by six different pictures. The graphics coupled with a more varied plot than usual make The Hobbit superior to any other adventure games available for the Spectrum.\r\r\n\r\r\nBoth the assemblers tested, from ACS and PI software, require Z-80 mnemonics to be entered in Rem statements and both allow addresses to be replaced by labels. The ACS assembler, Ultraviolet, costs twice as much at £7.50 but offers several extra features. It allows multiple statement lines and provides five pseudo-instructions such as DEFS, which inserts a string of ASCII characters at the current assembly position.\r\r\n\r\r\nACS also supplies a disassembler, infrared. Like the assembler this has two different versions for 16K or 48K machines. The program is easy to use and docs all you might expect from it.\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SN\r\r\nProgram Name: Games 1-4\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £4.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SN\r\r\nProgram Name: Hungry Horace\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £5.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SN\r\r\nProgram Name: Fun to Learn\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £6.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SN\r\r\nProgram Name: Chess\r\r\nMemory Required: 48K\r\r\nPrice: £7.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SN\r\r\nProgram Name: Vu-Calc\r\r\nMemory Required: 48K\r\r\nPrice: £8.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SN\r\r\nProgram Name: Space Raiders\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £4.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SN\r\r\nProgram Name: Planetoids\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £4.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: QS\r\r\nProgram Name: The Chess Player\r\r\nMemory Required: 48K\r\r\nPrice: £6.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: QS\r\r\nProgram Name: Time Gate\r\r\nMemory Required: 48K\r\r\nPrice: £6.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: QS\r\r\nProgram Name: Meteor Storm\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £4.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SF\r\r\nProgram Name: Super C\r\r\nMemory Required: 48K\r\r\nPrice: £14.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SF\r\r\nProgram Name: Meteoroids\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £4.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SF\r\r\nProgram Name: Softime\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £3.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SF\r\r\nProgram Name: Zolan Adventure\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £4.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SS\r\r\nProgram Name: Orbiter\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £5.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: SS\r\r\nProgram Name: Ground Attack\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £5.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: MH\r\r\nProgram Name: The Hobbit\r\r\nMemory Required: 48K\r\r\nPrice: £14.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: AU\r\r\nProgram Name: Pimania\r\r\nMemory Required: 48K\r\r\nPrice: £10\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: WF\r\r\nProgram Name: Scramble\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £4.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: AB\r\r\nProgram Name: Avenger\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £4.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: CS\r\r\nProgram Name: Gulpman\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £5.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: JS\r\r\nProgram Name: Specman\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £5.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: AC\r\r\nProgram Name: Ultraviolet\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £7.50\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: AC\r\r\nProgram Name: Infrared\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £6.75\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: PI\r\r\nProgram Name: Assembler\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £3.75\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: NG\r\r\nProgram Name: Escape\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £4.95\r\r\n\r\r\nCompany: BB\r\r\nProgram Name: Spectres\r\r\nMemory Required: 16K\r\r\nPrice: £8","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"50,51,52","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Simon Beesley","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 9, Dec 1982","Price":"£0.6","ReleaseDate":"1982-11-18","Editor":"Nigel Clark","TotalPages":84,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editorial Director: Nigel Clark\r\nConsultant Editor: Mike Johnston\r\nProduction Editor: Harold Mayes MBE\r\nStaff Writer: John Gilbert\r\nDesign: William Scolding\r\nEditorial Director: John Sterlicchi\r\nAdvertisement Director: Simon Horgan\r\nAdvertisement Manager: John Ross\r\nStates Executive: Annette Burrows\r\nEditorial/Production Assistant: Margaret Hawkins\r\nManaging Director: Terry Cartwright\r\nChairman: Richard Hease\r\n\r\nSinclair User is published monthly by ECC Publications Ltd. it is not in anyway connected with Sinclair Research Ltd.\r\n\r\nTelephone\r\nAll departments\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nIf you would like to contribute to any of the Sinclair User group of publications please send programs, articles or ideas for hardware projects to:\r\nSinclair User\r\nECC Publications.\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nPrograms should be on cassette and articles should be typed. We cannot undertake to return them unless a stamped-addressed envelope is included.\r\n\r\nWe will pay £10 for each program published and £50 per 1,000 words for each article used.\r\n\r\n©Copyright 1982\r\nSinclair User\r\nISSN NO. 0262-5458\r\n\r\nOrigination by Outline Graphics.\r\nPrinted Eden Fisher (Southend) Ltd\r\n\r\nDistributed by Spotlight Magazine Distribution Ltd, [redacted]"},"MainText":"SINCLAIR RESEARCH OPENS ITS SPECTRUM SOFTWARE LIBRARY\r\n\r\nJohn Gilbert assesses the new major range of cassettes and finds they do not compare to the machine's qualities.\r\n\r\nWhen the Spectrum was launched, Sinclair stressed that a software library containing business, household and games cassettes would be released soon.\r\n\r\nThe first batch of tapes was launched at the Personal Computer World Show in September. The launch was billed as one of the great attractions of the show. Spectrum owners were looking forward to putting their machines to good use. Unfortunately, unlike the Spectrum computer, the new tapes are disappointing.\r\n\r\nThe Spectrum library, with a few exceptions, seems to be a repeat of the ZX-81 range of tapes launched in early 1982. The new software library comprises several sections which include the Fun to Learn series, Pastimes and Games. There are also several cassettes, such as Bio-rhythms and Vu-calc, which stand alone.\r\n\r\nThere is a set of five games cassettes. Each contains four 16K games which have been written for Sinclair by ICL.\r\n\r\nThe games are very simple and it is easy to lose interest in them in a very short time. Several of them, such as Martian Knockout, Invasion from Jupiter, and Galactic invasion, are all based on the same principle - guessing the velocity at which you have to fire a laser cannon at a group of marauding aliens.\r\n\r\nThe game consists of entering the guessed velocity and pressing NEW LINE. That becomes incredibly tedious after the first 10 minutes' play. The rest of the games are either of the Invader, Mastermind or maze types.\r\n\r\nDaylight Robbery is not only the phrase which might be used to describe some of the new software but is also on the Games Three Cassette, although it has slightly more depth to it than some of the others. The player moves around a maze full of safes. For every safe which can be cracked the player will have the amount of money in it added to the total score.\r\n\r\nThe only danger encountered with entering the safes is that the player must dodge the guards in the maze. The game is enjoyable for a short time but it plays rather like Pacman and is much less addictive.\r\n\r\nOf the five games tapes in the series so far, Games One seems to be the best value. It contains one of the few games which will last longer than five minutes. Labyrinth is an adventure maze game in which the player must fight monsters to find hidden gold in the maze.\r\n\r\nEach of the games cassettes costs £4.95, which is somewhat expensive for what they contain. It would have been better to have sacrificed quantity for quality on this occasion. The illustrations on the insert cards are of good quality but people expect better games for the price.\r\n\r\nTwo of the cassettes in the library mysteriously are labelled Pastimes but would have been better-placed in the Games series. They include a Mastermind game called Secret Code; a memory game Kim; and a puzzle, Magic Square.\r\n\r\nMagic Square is interesting for a time but soon it becomes just another trivial observation game. The computer displays a square filled with rows of letters of the alphabet in a jumbled sequence. One space in the square is empty. Letters can be shifted around using the blank to place the alphabet in the correct sequence.\r\n\r\nKim also displays a square but with numbers in it. The numbers disappear one at a time in a random sequence and the player must guess which letter has disappeared each time. Again, the game is interesting but becomes dull and repetitive after a time.\r\n\r\nThe games on the two cassettes do not warrant the title of Pastimes as they are too repetitive and because of the lack of depth the player may soon begin to feel disappointed. Pastimes cost £4.95 each.\r\n\r\nThe Fun to Learn cassettes provide the user with a series of question-and-answer races on various subjects. With only one exception the graphics capabilities and sound facilities of the Spectrum are not used to full advantage. Neither is there a real reward at the end of the tests to induce the user to try again.\r\n\r\nThe cassette which redeems the whole Fun to Learn series is Geography. The computer displays maps labelled with numbers and the user has to guess which numbers correspond to towns and countries displayed below the map.\r\n\r\nThe idea behind the cassette is good and the map display is reasonably detailed. The cassettes in the Fun to Learn series are £6.95 each.\r\n\r\nThe Bio-rhythms cassette from ICL is also very good value. The program will plot bio-rhythms and also calculate the critical days for the intellectual, physical and emotional cycles. The graphics are fairly good but the display is confusing when all the cycles are plotted on one graph.\r\n\r\nThe best cassettes in the range have been produced by Psion. They include Vu-calc, Space Raiders, Planetoids and Hungry Horace, a new Pacman-type game.\r\n\r\nSpace Raiders is an addictive space invaders game. The only thing wrong with it is that it is too easy to achieve a high score. Scores of 10,000 have been reached in less than 10 minutes.\r\n\r\nPlanetoids is an above-average asteroids game which is very difficult to beat for any length of time. The asteroids are displayed in 3D and the players'ship is easy to move around the screen. The game is more difficult to beat, faster, and much more fun than Space Raiders.\r\n\r\nHungry Horace is an ideal game for young children. It uses the Pacman mould but is a great improvement on the popular arcade game. Horace is a large purple blob with arms and legs. He wanders up and down the maze-like park eating everything in his path and avoiding the guards who try to capture him. He can scare away the guards by ringing-the alarm in the maze. If he can reach the exit he enters another sector of the maze and continues to the next exit.\r\n\r\nThe game is difficult but after a time a degree of skill can be developed in evading the guards. The mazes become more difficult as the game proceeds and we managed to reach only the third section of the maze. Hungry Horace costs £5.95 and is well worth the money.\r\n\r\nThe cassettes in the new Sinclair range can be split into programs which can be played and enjoyed again and again and those with which the user will easily become bored. There are no really outstanding cassettes in the range so far, although Planetoids, Bio-rhythms, Space Raiders and Hungry Horace can be recommended.\r\n\r\nThese games have the depth in them to be played for months, while the others may leave the Spectrum owner disappointed. All the cassettes mentioned use 16K memory. Further details about the range can be obtained from Sinclair Research, Camberley, Surrey GI15 3BR.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"48,49","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"John Gilbert","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[{"Text":"'Of the five games tapes Games One seems the best value'"},{"Text":"'There are no really outstanding tapes in the series so far'"}],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]