[{"TitleName":"The Winning Team","Publisher":"Domark Ltd","Author":"","YearOfRelease":"1991","ZxDbId":"0012230","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 89, Jun 1991","Price":"£2.99","ReleaseDate":"1991-05-23","Editor":"Richard Eddy","TotalPages":52,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"EDITORIAL\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nEditor: Richard Eddy\r\nSub Editor: Warren Lapworth\r\nStaff Writers: Mark Caswell, Nick Roberts, Lloyd Mangram\r\nArt Editor: Mark Kendrick\r\nPhotography: Michael Parkinson\r\nProduction and Circulation Director: Jonathan Rignall\r\nSystems Operator: Paul (Charlie) Chubb\r\nReprographics: Matthew Uffindell (Supervisor), Robert Millichamp, Robb Hamilton, Tim Morris, Jenny Reddard\r\nGroup Advertisement Manager: Judith Bamford\r\nAdvertisement Sales Executive: Christine Moore\r\nAdvertisement Production: Jackie Morris (Supervisor), Joanne Lewis\r\nMail Order: Carol Kinsey\r\nSubscriptions: Caroline Edwards [redacted]\r\n\r\nTypesetting Apple Macintosh Computers using Quark Express and Bitstream Fonts.\r\n\r\nSystems Manager: Ian Chubb\r\n\r\nColour origination Scan Studios [redacted]. Printed in England by BPCC Business Magazines (Carlisle) Ltd, [redacted].\r\n\r\nDistributor COMAG, [redacted]\r\n\r\nYearly subscription rates: UK £17.20 Europe £24.00, Air Mail overseas £37. US/Canada subscriptions and back issues enquiries Barry Hatcher, British Magazine Distributors Ltd [redacted]. Yearly subscription rates US$47.00, Canada CAN$57.00 Back Issues US$5.20, Canada CAN$6.20 (inclusive of postage). \r\n\r\nCOMPETITION RULES\r\nThe Editor's decision is final in all matters relating to adjudication and while we offer prizes in good faith, believing them to be available; If something untoward happens we reserve the right to substitute prizes of comparable value. We'll do our very best to despatch prizes as soon as possible after the published closing date. Winners names will appear in a later issue of CRASH. No correspondence can be entered into regarding the competitions (unless we've written to you stating that you have won a prize and it doesn't turn up, in which case drop us a line). No person who is related, no matter how remotely, to anyone who works for either Newsfield or any of the companies offering prizes, may enter one of our competitions.\r\n\r\nNo material may be reproduced whole or in part without the written consent of the copyright holders. We cannot undertake to return anything sent into CRASH - including written and photographic material, software and hardware - unless it is accompanied by a suitably stamped addressed envelope. Unsolicited written or photo material on 35mm transparencies is welcome, and if used in the magazine is paid for at our current rates. Copy published in CRASH will be edited as seen fit and payment will be calculated according to the current printed word rate. The views expressed in CRASH are not necessarily those of the publishers.\r\n\r\nCopyright CRASH Ltd 1991 A Newsfield Publication. ISSN 0954-8661. Cover design and illustration by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"Domark\r\n£14.99/£19.99\r\n\r\nVariety abounds in The Winning Team from Domark. The five games offer different gameplay and graphic styles so it's pretty unlikely boredom will come knocking at your door. In the pack are Klax, APB, Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters, Cyberball and Vindicators - all coin-op greats!\r\n\r\nKlax is for puzzle wizards. You have to catch tiles as they roll towards you and flip the correct colours into the bins at the bottom of the screen. In true puzzle game style, things are simple to begin with but soon hot up as tiles get faster and more frequent.\r\n\r\nOne of my favourite games from the arcade has to be All Points Bulletin, or APB to its friends. Full of speeding police cars, miles of roads and donut shops, you just can't help but get addicted. The action's viewed from above and the landscapes scroll by as you drive the squad car, arresting a quota of criminals to succeed. Great fun.\r\n\r\nEscape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters is an absolute corker of a 3D arcade adventure. Playing a one- or two-player game you have to free the captives and destroy all the robot scum. Nice, eh?\r\n\r\nCyberball is a look into the future of American Football. You may have thought it was a tough game now, but played against giant robots things soon start to hot up even further.\r\n\r\nFinally, Vindicators puts you in control of an armoured tank. Battle it out with the enemy for points; a frenzy of shoot-'em-up action.\r\n\r\nThe Winning Team is a fantastic compilation. Get your hands on five addictive games for only around £3 each! What a complete and utter barg!\r\n\r\nKlax: 18/20\r\nAPB: 19/20\r\nRobot Monsters: 18/20\r\nCyberball: 15/20\r\nVindicators: 16/20","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"33","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Nick Roberts","Score":"86","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"86%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 66, Jun 1991","Price":"£1.95","ReleaseDate":"1991-05-02","Editor":"Andy Ide","TotalPages":84,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Andy Ide\r\nArt Editor: Sal Meddings\r\nGames Editor: James Leach\r\nStaff Writer: Linda Barker\r\nDesign Assistant: Andy Ounsted\r\nAdvertising Manager: Simon Moss\r\nDeputy Advertising Manager: Philip Davenport\r\nProduction Coordinator: Melissa Parkinson\r\nPublisher: Jane Richardson\r\nPublishing Assistant: Michele Harris\r\nGroup Publisher: Greg Ingham\r\nCirculation Director: Sue Hartley\r\n\r\nYour Sinclair, Future Publishing [redacted]\r\n\r\nSubscriptions: Computer Posting [redacted]\r\nDistribution: MMC [redacted]\r\n\r\nCover Illustration: Robert Bliss\r\nISSN 0269 6983\r\nABC July-Dec 1990 60,368\r\n\r\nYS comes to you from the same folks who 'knock out' Commodore Format, ST Format, Amiga Format, New Computer Express, Amstrad Action, MacPublishing, Classic CD, PC Plus, 8000 Plus & Sega Power, Amiga Power, Amiga Shopper & Needlecraft"},"MainText":"Domark\r\n£14.99 cass/£19.99 disk\r\nReviewer: Rich Pelley\r\n\r\nA compilation called The Winning Team, eh? That might be pre-empting things a bit. Let's have a look.\r\n\r\nESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE ROBOT MONSTERS\r\n\r\nHere we have a 3D isometric shoot-'em-up, with the welcome addition of a simultaneous 2-player mode so you and a chum can work together blasting baddies and rescuing hostages. At first, it seems like a bit of a laff The 3D view and crisp clear graphics work a treat, and the play area appears vast as each level is divided up into platforms. The only snag is that nothing much changes - I think 'samey' is the word I'm looking for because you're bound to find it pretty tedious after a while. But it's still fun while it lasts.\r\n1991 Verdict: 80°\r\n\r\nAPB\r\n\r\nThe coin-op version of this was a bit of a hit (at least I saw someone playing it at a service station once) and rather surprisingly it converted quite well to the Speccy. You're Officer Bob, and you have to drive around in your car (in an annoying large-chunk-scrolling sort of way) arresting naughty people. The trouble is that the original arcade was a tad dull, so unfortunately this is a bit too.\r\n1991 Verdict: 69°\r\n\r\nVINDICATORS\r\n\r\nNot to confused with The Vindicator, of course, which was this rather good multiparter beat/shoot/drive-'em-up. This one's a scroll-around-in-a-tank-'em-up with the unfortunate problem that it's crap. It's just all so slow and unexciting that. well, you just won't want to play it.\r\n1991 Verdict: 40°\r\n\r\nKLAX\r\n\r\nAh, this is more like it. Klax is a member of the completely simple yet fiendishly addictive puzzle game club, and was simply corkeroony on all formats. Lots of coloured bricks come at you (with a nice tumbling sort of effect) and you have to catch them in this thingy and drop them to this other thingy, forming specific patterns to score certain points (and cause the respective bricks to vanish). That's it really - simple but brilliant, and although it's not quite up to Tetris standards, it still comes pretty damn close.\r\n1991 Verdict: 85°\r\n\r\nCYBERBALL\r\nLet's face it, nobody has the slightest idea how American football works, no matter how much they boast about it. So Cyberball, a futuristic variation of the game (featuring robots instead) is unsurprisingly, rather tricky to play. Add to that the fact that it's jerky with manky graphics and you've probably got it sussed. The 2-player option adds some excitement but it's still all a bit confusing for its own good.\r\n1991 Verdict: 69°\r\n\r\nAnd there we go - 2 rather poor sports sims, a pathetic shoot-'em-up, a brilliant puzzle game and the original APB. It's okay, but you could certainly buy 5 better (re-released) bargs for the price. (Any help?)","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"A not terribly inspiring compilation, with just one brilliant and one above-average game to its merit.","Page":"36,37","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Rich Pelley","Score":"66","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"Blimey, Corky graphics ahoy! (And since when did anybody asked to be arrested!?)"},{"Text":"Hur hur. Wait till I get my tentacles around you, baby! (Ahem.)"},{"Text":"Lummee. No idea what's going on here I'm afraid. Sorry!"},{"Text":"So here's how it works. The squares sort of come down from the end up there and drop into this box thingy. Simple really."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Life Expectancy","Score":"71%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"65%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"60%","Text":""},{"Header":"Instant Appeal","Score":"79%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"66%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[{"Header":"Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters","Score":"80%","Text":"Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters"},{"Header":"APB","Score":"69%","Text":"APB"},{"Header":"Vindicators","Score":"40%","Text":"Vindicators"},{"Header":"Cyberball","Score":"69%","Text":"Cyberball"},{"Header":"Klax","Score":"85%","Text":"Klax"}]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 112, Jun 1991","Price":"£1.85","ReleaseDate":"1991-05-16","Editor":"Garth Sumpter","TotalPages":52,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Garth 'baseball' Sumpter\r\nDesign Editor: Andrea 'diamond' Walker\r\nDesign: Yvette 'Slide, slide!' Nicholls\r\nStaff Writers: Steve 'Pitcher' Keen\r\nSU Crew: Tony 'Home base' Naqvi, John 'home run' Cook, Pete 'you're out!' Gerrard, Phillip 'no ball' Fisch\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Jerry 'Fatboy' Hall\r\nAd Production: Jo 'I want a change' Gleissner\r\nMarketing Dept: Sarah 'New Flat' Ewing, Sarah 'Homeless' Hillard\r\nPublisher: Graham 'let's talk' Taylor\r\nManaging Director: Terry 'Umpire' Pratt\r\n\r\n(c)1991 EMAP IMAGES\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nDISTRIBUTION: BBC FRONTLINE\r\nSU SUBSCRIPTIONS: [redacted]\r\n\r\nTypesetting by Garthtype.\r\nColour work by Proprint.\r\nBlack and White by no-one.\r\n\r\nIf you want to reproduce this magazine you can try. Budgets are tight and quite frankly, you won't make any money unless you're as streetwise as the SU team.\r\n\r\n(c)1991 EMAP - the same miserable sods that produce these healthy titles: C+VG, SU, CU, Ace, Mean Machines, PC Leisure, The One Amiga, The One ST, Smash Hits, Performance Bike, Just 17, Q, Empire, Motor Cycle News, Radio and Music, Period Homes, Gas Bills Quarterly................"},"MainText":"Label: Domark\r\nMemory: 48K/128K\r\nPrice: £14.99 Tape, £19.99 Disk\r\nReviewer: Alan Dykes\r\n\r\nTeamwork always gets the job done! A couple of dolphins will take on several sharks and drive them away in a Transit van when they work together (one of them has to steer and the other works the gears). And Domark's tried and tested games make this compilation a winning team too (but there's not one single fish in it!)\r\n\r\nThere are five titles on offer here. A.P.B, Escape from the Planet of Robot Monsters, Klax, Cyberball and last but not least, Vindicator. This compilation has to be something of a scoop.\r\n\r\nA.P.B., or All Points Bulletin, as it is known to those who watch too much telly, is a crazy, car bendin', cop caper, where you assist Officer Bob (the man on the job) in apprehending a variety of common and/or notorious criminals. This is done over sixteen one day shifts. Each day has a time limit and if Bob can't catch the assigned number of baddies, then he won't earn any bonuses and might even get fired!.\r\n\r\nEscape From the Planet of the Robot Monsters, is a fast paced Shoot 'em up that'll scare the pants off anyone who hasn't seen every single one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's action movies. There are so many tasks to carry out, so many robots to destroy and lovely ladles to rescue that it's just as well this game is adapted for two player mode.\r\n\r\nKlax is as good here as it is on any other format, though it does depend on individual taste. If you are not a fan of puzzle type games it might be more frustrating than mum switching off the computer before eleven. Gameplay is better under keyboard control as this is far more precise - like a well-aimed swipe from mum - and although the colours can get a little confusing, Klax is a classic puzzler and definitely a worthy addition to the Team.\r\n\r\nI must admit I'm not crazy on Cyberball - it's basically American Football with a futuristic storyline, and although I'm a big A.F. fan there's just a bit too much technology here and not enough gameplay. There are an amazing amount of options for offensive and defensive plays and what with players and balls exploding (ooo-er) all over the place it's a pity the game isn't a bit faster. However despite this, Cyberball is still one of the best American Football clone games available on the Spectrum.\r\n\r\nIt's truly amazing, give a man a tank and he thinks he can take on the world!. In Vindicator you get a chance to do precisely that. Your job is to repel invaders from space in an amazing tank called the SR-88. The game's an entertaining vertically scrolling shoot 'em up with simple control procedures and lots of opportunity to have big gun duels with Enemy tanks. Wham, bang, ptoosh, git that alien invader before he gits you - that's why they call you the Vindicator.","ReviewerComments":["I suppose APB is O.K. The rest of the Winning Team is as hot as the tyres on my Ford Capri just after I've skidded through the local shopping centre, and I really fancy those chicks in Robot Monster. Beat up your brother for it if you can but if not, £14.99 isn't bad for a good collection of games.\r\nPhillip Fisch"],"OverallSummary":"The Winning Team is a winner because Domark have given us five good games. Definitely one for the collection if you don't already own more than one of these titles.","Page":"31","Denied":false,"Award":"Sinclair User Silver","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Alan Dykes","Score":"85","ScoreSuffix":"%"},{"Name":"Phillip Fisch","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"85%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 115, Jun 1991","Price":"£1.35","ReleaseDate":"1991-05-11","Editor":"Julian Rignall","TotalPages":132,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Managing Editor: Julian Rignall\r\nAssociate Editor: Paul Glancey\r\nArt Editor: Jon Billington\r\nStaff Writers: Richard Leadbetter, Robert \"Song\" Swan\r\nAdvertisement Manager: James \"The Man\" Owens\r\nDeputy Advertisement Manager: Martha \"The Woman\" Moloughney\r\nSales Exec: Greg \"The Lad\" Watson\r\nProduction Assistant: Emma \"The Sexy\" Sadler\r\nPublisher: Graham \"The Kingpin\" Taylor\r\n\r\nSubscription Enquiries: C+VG Subscriptions, [redacted]\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]\r\n\r\nPrinted By: Kingfisher Web, [redacted]\r\nColour By: Proprint, [redacted] and Colour Connection\r\nTypeset By: Me (and him)\r\nDistributed By: BBC Frontline\r\n\r\n©Computer And Video Games 1991\r\nISSN No: 0261-3697"},"MainText":"Domark/Tengen\r\nSpectrum £14.99\r\n\r\nA compilation of five of the first releases on the Tengen label - the okay Vindicators and APB, the excellent Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters and Cyberball, and the totally brilliant Klax. For the asking price, this set is tops in the VFM tables, and if you haven't got any of these as yet, you couldn't do better to rush down to your local softshop right now and part with the shekels!","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"83","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Robert Swan","Score":"90","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"90%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]