[{"TitleName":"Double Take","Publisher":"Ocean Software Ltd","Author":"Denton Designs, Tim White","YearOfRelease":"1987","ZxDbId":"0001464","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 37, Feb 1987","Price":"£1","ReleaseDate":"1987-01-22","Editor":"Graeme Kidd","TotalPages":132,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Publishers: Roger Kean, Oliver Frey, Franco Frey\r\nPublishing Executive/Editor: Graeme Kidd\r\nSub Editor: Ciaran Brennan\r\nStaff Writers: Lloyd Mangram, Lee Paddon, Hannah Smith\r\nAdventure Editor: Derek Brewster\r\nStrategy Editor: Philippa Irving\r\nTech Tipster: Simon Goodwin\r\nContributing Writers: Jon Bates, Brendon Kavanagh, John Minson\r\nProduction Controller: David Western\r\nArt Director: Dick Shiner\r\nAssistant Art Director: Gordon Druce\r\nIllustrators: Ian Craig, Oliver Frey\r\nProduction: Seb Clare, Tim Croton, Mark Kendrick, Tony Lorton, Nick Orchard, Michael Parkinson, Cameron Pound, Jonathan Rignall, Matthew Uffindell\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Roger Bennett\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Nick Wild\r\nSubscriptions: Denise Roberts\r\nMail Order: Carol Kinsey\r\n\r\nEditorial and Production: [redacted]\r\n\r\nMail Order and Subscriptions: [redacted]\r\n\r\nADVERTISING\r\nBookings [redacted]\r\n\r\nPrinted in England by Carlisle Web Offset, [redacted] - member of the BPCC Group.\r\n\r\nDistributed by COMAG, [redacted]\r\n\r\nNo material may be reproduced whole or in part without written consent of the copyright holders. We cannot undertake to return any written material sent to CRASH Magazine unless accompanied by a suitably stamped addressed envelope. Unsolicited written or photo material which may be used in the magazine is paid for at our current rates.\r\n\r\n©1987 Newsfield Limited\r\n\r\nCover by Ian Craig\r\n\r\n101,483 Total\r\n92,992 UK and EIRE"},"MainText":"Producer: Ocean\r\nRetail Price: £7.95\r\nAuthor: Denton Designs\r\n\r\nOur normal, stable universe has a parallel - a universe that is under the control of a distinctly evil being by the name of Sumink. Sumink has been waiting for the opportunity to cross the dimensional divide that separates the two universes so he can begin a new program of conquest...\r\n\r\nThen, one day, a student working in an advanced physics research laboratory unwittingly provides Sumink with his chance. An experiment damages the entire space/time continuum, throwing the two parallel universes into an unstable state and creating gateways that allow objects and people to pass from one universe to the other.\r\n\r\nThe lab in which the fateful experiment was conducted contains sixteen rooms and a giant, tunnel-like particle accelerator. Suddenly it has become linked to the equivalent laboratory in Sumink's universe. Objects from locations in our universe have become unstable and changed places with their counterparts in the 'anti-universe'. The first step in restoring order involves stabilising these objects and returning them to their rightful locations.\r\n\r\nYou control the student whose experiment caused all the problems - he is represented by a flying lab coat and is equipped with a gun. Just as well, as a horde of energy-sapping monsters have been created and they lurk in every location, regenerating themselves endlessly until stability is restored.\r\n\r\nRooms in a universe are linked by whirling vortexes - the screen flips to the next location when the coat is moved down into a vortex while fire is pressed. To gain access to some rooms, the student has to travel through the cyclotron itself - which contains energy-sapping atomic particles. The status panel includes a readout that monitors your energy level: there's only one life in the game and energy must be conserved as it can't be boosted.\r\n\r\nPeriodically, the main display dissolves and reforms as the two universes interchange. A pointer indicates which universe is currently occupied - a plus sign represents our universe and a minus sign Sumink's. This pointer slides along a scale when a shift between universes is imminent. All the locations in one universe are contained in the other, but as the universes are mirror images of each other, moving left in one universe is equivalent to moving right in the other, and vice versa.\r\n\r\nSixteen electrons - one for each of the sixteen pairs of locations - move up and down in a window in the status area. Restoring order by returning all the objects that travelled between the universes to their correct places causes the dancing electrons to move in harmony and produce a sine wave on this readout.\r\n\r\nWhen the student enters a room a pair of lights under the electron display show red if the room is unstable and green if it is stable. One item can be carried at a time, and picking up an object causes it to appear in a window on the status area. The indicator lights then remain red until the student takes the object to the room in which it belongs. If the lights turn red again when the object is dropped, it has been placed incorrectly and must be gathered up and repositioned.\r\n\r\nThe colour of the object held changes to indicate its stability, moving through the spectrum from magenta to flashing white. Stability can be increased gradually shooting monsters or instantly by touching the sparkling cloud that wanders through each universe - these clouds also act as portals between the two worlds. A stable object is retained when the universes interchange, but the moment it is dropped it becomes unstable again unless it is placed in its proper position. It's no use lust picking up an object and waiting for the universes to change - if the flip happens while an unstable object is held it is automatically swapped for its counterpart.\r\n\r\nRestoring stability is only the first part of the game. Once everything is ship-shape it's time to deal with the threat posed by Sumink himself. Entering the negative universe you must do battle with the evil warlord...\r\n\r\nCOMMENTS\r\n\r\nControl keys: redefinable - up, down, left, right, fire; SPACE to pause\r\nJoystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2\r\nUse of colour: attractive, and carefully done\r\nGraphics: impressive: the usual DENTON's flair\r\nSound: cute tune at the beginning with spot effects throughout\r\nSkill levels: one\r\nScreens: around sixty","ReviewerComments":["I was impressed when I first saw this - it is based on a really good Idea. However, after quite a lot of play I realised that Double Take didn't really grab me in the right places. The gameplay isn't really compulsive, so you can find yourself getting very bored after a short time. On screen everything is excellently done. All of the characters are perfectly animated (especially your jacket), and the backdrops are colourful and very detailed. The sound is also good, but not outstanding. This game isn't quite my cup of tea - I found it got monotonous.\r\nBen Stone","DENTON DESIGNS seem to have got their act together again and up come up with a really good product... I think! The graphics are well above average - colourful and detailed. The sound is good but only plays once on the title screen, which you never see again after you've chosen your options. The animation is very smooth and fast, and thankfully the collision detection is accurate. Unfortunately, I found the game lacked the sparkle that could keep me addicted to it for long. I can see that Double Take will appeal to the graphically minded among you, but I found the actual game boring to play.\r\nPaul Sumner","It certainty looks as though DENTON DESIGNS have got things together again! The graphics on Double Take are excellent, with loads of colour used (and most of the clashes are fairly discreet!). The instructions and gameplay are quite complicated, but if you take time to digest everything the game underneath is both playable and addictive. The place where Double Take most surprised me was in the effects. Congratulations to DENTON 'S for the spinning vortexes, the screen changing, and the ever so neat animation.\r\nMike Dunn"],"OverallSummary":"General Rating: A very classy and original game that looks good but could get a bit monotonous after a while.","Page":"118","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Ben Stone","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""},{"Name":"Paul Sumner","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""},{"Name":"Mike Dunn","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"A dank and dreary location in Sumink's universe."},{"Text":"In the kitchen of our own universe - a fiendish monster is just materialising above the right-hand vortex."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Presentation","Score":"83%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"90%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"71%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictive Qualities","Score":"69%","Text":""},{"Header":"Value For Money","Score":"72%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"74%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 15, Mar 1987","Price":"£1","ReleaseDate":"1987-02-12","Editor":"Teresa Maughan","TotalPages":98,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Teresa Maughan\r\nArt Editor: Caroline Clayton\r\nProduction Editor: Sara Biggs\r\nAssistant Editor: Phil South\r\nStaff Writer: Markus Berkmann\r\nDesigner: Darrell King\r\nContributors: Luke C, Mike Gerrard, Ian Hoare, Gwyn Hughes, ZZKJ, Tommy Nash, Max Phillips, Rick Robson, Rachael Smith\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Mark Salmon\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Julian Harriott\r\nProduction Manager: Sonia Hunt\r\nManaging Editor: Kevin Cox\r\nPublisher: Roger Munford\r\nPublishing Director: Stephen England\r\n\r\nPublished by Sportscene Specialist Press Ltd, [redacted] Company registered in England.\r\nTypesetters: Carlinpoint [redacted]\r\nReproduction: Graphic Ideas, London\r\nPrinters: Chase Web Offset [redacted]\r\nDistribution: Seymour Press [redacted]\r\n\r\nAll material in Your Sinclair ©1987 Felden Productions, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of the publishers. Your Sinclair is a monthly publication."},"MainText":"Ocean\n£7.95\nReviewer: Marcus Berkmann\n\nWhat the deuce is this, Carruthers? A game of two universes, co-existing side by side (by Sondheim). How very singular, or possibly pural. What am I talking about? Ocean's latest game, Double Take, that's simply chock full of new ideas, that's what.\n\nYou play a research assistant left to look after the hyper-important \"Physical Particle Investigahon Unit\" while everyone else goes down the pub. As you settle down to a cup of tea and the latest copy of YS, sumink dreadful happens in the shape of sumink from the parallel universe called Sumink. Thanks to him, the two universes momentarily collide, causing all sorts of odd effects.\n\nPossibly the most startling is that you're transformed into a hyper-energetic lab assistants coat with a particularly bad case of the shakes. Yes, I did say a coat! Meanwhile, doors turn into whirlwinds, and aliens appear everywhere.\n\nMore importantly, it seems, objects from each universe have swopped places with each other, rendering the rooms in which they lie unstable. It's your job to change them back again.\n\nAnd this is certainly no mean feat. Although you regularly cross between the universes, what you're carrying won't come with you until you've made it stable. This you do either by shooting loads of aliens or by finding the 'sparkling cloud', a sort of gleaming blob that floats around the base, looking as much like a sparkling cloud as I do Tom Cruise.\n\nBut here's where it gets complicated. Though the objects are the same in both universes, it's not their precise equivalents that get swopped. Instead you find that the saw, for instance, is changed for the syringe. And to make it even more confusing, not all objects are swopped, so the other saw may remain in the correct room. And why not? A room only becomes stable when the right object is put there, and then only if it's stable. I hope you got all that, not sure I did.\n\nWhen you've returned all the right things to the right places and are thinking about that cup of tea you deserve, you must prepare yourself instead for the final confrontation with the evil Sumink. I haven't clapped eyes yet on this little lovely, but if the rest of the graphics are anything to go by, he should be worth waiting for.\n\nTrue, you need a PhD to work out how the game is played. The inlay notes certainly won't help you. And the joystick control takes a bit of mastering, especially when you're trying to negotiate the whirlwind doors. Sainsbury's on a Saturday morning has nothing on the effect those doors will have on you.\n\nAt least, though, there's a game in there to be played, and one that should satisfy both hardened zappers and more thoughtful herberts among you. It's not really a mapper's paradise - there are only 16 rooms - but it's the action that counts, and there's enough of that. And the graphics are great - as big, bouncy and fast as the Editor rushing to the bank with her cheque on payday. Attribute problems are kept to a minimum and, those doors apart (if only they were). Double Take's a treat.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"66,67","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Marcus Berkmann","Score":"8","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"9/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Value For Money","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"8/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 58, Jan 1987","Price":"£1","ReleaseDate":"1986-12-18","Editor":"David Kelly","TotalPages":132,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: David Kelly\r\nDeputy Editor: John Gilbert\r\nSenior Staff Writer: Graham Taylor\r\nStaff Writer: Jim Douglas\r\nDesigner: Gareth Jones\r\nAdventure Help: Gordo Greatbelly\r\nZapchat: Jon Riglar\r\nHelpline: Andrew Hewson\r\nContributors: Richard Price, Andy Moss, Gary Rook\r\nHardware Correspondent: Rupert Goodwins\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Louise Fanthorpe\r\nSenior Sales Executive: Jacqui Pope\r\nProduction Assistant: Alison Morton\r\nAdvertisement Secretary: Linda Everest\r\nSubscriptions Manager: Carl Dunne\r\nPublisher: Terry Pratt\r\n\r\nTelephone [redacted]\r\n\r\nSinclair User is published monthly by EMAP Business & Computer Publications\r\n\r\nCover Illustration: Courtesy of 2000AD magazine\r\n\r\nIf you would like to contribute to Sinclair User please send programs or articles to:\r\nSinclair User\r\nEMAP Business & Computer Publications\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nOriginal programs should be on cassette and articles should be typed. Please write Program Printout on the envelopes of all cassettes submitted. We cannot undertake to return cassettes unless an SAE is enclosed. We pay £20 for each program printed and £50 for star programs.\r\n\r\nTypeset by PRS Ltd, [redacted]\r\nPrinted by Nene River Press, [redacted]\r\nDistributed by EMAP Publications Ltd.\r\n\r\n©Copyright 1986 Sinclair User ISSN No 0262-5458\r\n\r\nABC 90,215 July-Dec 1985"},"MainText":"Label: Ocean\r\nAuthor: Denton Designs\r\nPrice: £7.95\r\nJoystick: various\r\nMemory: 48K/128K\r\nReviewer: Graham Taylor\r\n\r\nFrankie goes to Hollywood was not a successful game. I mention this in the context of Double Take because Frankie got rave reviews and was regarded as incredibly inventive and imaginative.\r\n\r\nDouble Take is incredibly inventive and imaginative and if the same fate befalls it the game - buying public deserves all the appalling licencing deals based on terrible films it gets.\r\n\r\nActually reading the Double Take blurb boggles the mind. You get the sinking feeling the game is going to be absolutely impossible to understand. It isn't. At one level it's a straight zap-em-up, well, not straight exactly more multi-dimensional. At another level its a leap (quantum) into a surreal world where realities mix and the familiar is odd. Double Take is strange.\r\n\r\nThe idea is this: due to unforeseen circumstances matter and anti-matter have met, two universes have collided and as a result things are pretty unstable. You have to get everything back to normal. The way you do this is to explore what could, in other circumstances, be the rooms of a Wally game (big graphics, household objects, a smidgen of attribute problems).\r\n\r\nWhat you are looking for is, simply, things that are 'wrong' - objects that are out of place and must therefore properly belong to the 'other' universe. You have to get such objects and, return them to the other universe.\r\n\r\nCuriously enough (a sign that there are limits to how many new ideas you can actually get in a computer game) one way you can get the object back to the right universe is just to zap aliens. I forgot to mention the aliens, they are of marginally original design but appear in the tried and tested Ultimate style. You don't have to do anything other than kill them.\r\n\r\nThere are other ways of getting an object from one universe to another - the deeply mysterious 'sparking cloud' is created which provides a tunnel.\r\n\r\nSo here's how it goes. You (a disembodied overcoat - and why not?) travel around entering and leaving a variety of rooms (via whirlwinds rather than doors). Some rooms look like caverns, other rooms look like laboratories. As it happens I had my first success in the game in a room which was simultaneously an operating theatre and a woodwork room. Having spotted an object that looks somehow odd or out of context you pick it up and 'stabilise' it - sort of get its matter state back to normal - and then wait for the universe state to swing again (or cross universes via the sparkling cloud). Get the picture.\r\n\r\nAfter playing the game for a little while, you realise that actually what we have here is not, despite all evidence to the contrary, some horrendously complicated strategy-cum-adventure-cum-sub-atomic-physics game but actually is just a damn fine arcade game, with more inventiveness than half a dozen other titles.\r\n\r\nThe graphics are good with effective use of a particularly neat 'dissolve' when the universe switches from one to the other - a process which gathers pace as time passes.\r\n\r\nThe last section of the game after you have stabilised the universe concerns a battle with a cosmic being called Sumink (a joke I imagine). This involves first finding him/her/it in the anti-matter world using a series of sensor lights and then blasting - it feels a little like an afterthought but who cares?","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"Incredibly imaginative arcade game, with cartloads of fresh ideas professionally implemented - deserves to be big.","Page":"32,33","Denied":false,"Award":"Sinclair User Classic","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Graham Taylor","Score":"5","ScoreSuffix":"/5"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"5/5","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 66, Apr 1987","Price":"£1","ReleaseDate":"1987-03-16","Editor":"Tim Metcalfe","TotalPages":116,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Tim Metcalfe\r\nDeputy Editor: Paul Boughton\r\nEditorial Assistant: Lesly Walker\r\nSub-Editor: Seamus St. John\r\nDesign: Craig Kennedy\r\nAdventure Writers: Keith Campbell, Steve Donoghue, Matthew Woodley\r\nAmerican Correspondent: Marshall M. Rosenthal\r\nArcades: Clare Edgeley\r\nSoftware Consultant: Tony Takoushi\r\nPublicity: Clive Pembridge\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Garry Williams\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Katherine Lee\r\nAd Production: Debbie Pearson\r\nPublisher: Rita Lewis\r\nCover: Mark Bromey\r\n\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]\r\n\r\nJuly-December 98,258"},"MainText":"MACHINES: Spectrum 48/128K/CBM64\r\nSUPPLIER: Ocean\r\nPRICE: £7.95 (Spectrum)/£8.95 (CBM 64)\r\nVERSION TESTED: Spectrum\r\n\r\nTwo worlds - the mirror image of each other, touched in space through a time-warp.\r\n\r\nOne is positive, good, familiar - our world. The other is negative, evil - yet unnervingly familiar.\r\n\r\nTheir interface is a time window through which objects and being can pass; contact has resulted in the beginning of exchange.\r\n\r\nRestore our world - stop the invasion, but do it now, for as the exchange accelerates, the time windows grow larger, domination is at hand!\r\n\r\nThis is the story line which accompanies the game's advert which has been causing quite a stir lately. It also states \"Startling action: Innovative Game Play: State of the Art Graphics.\" I have to agree with all of these, especially the graphics. This game must include some of the best graphics seen on a Spectrum.\r\n\r\nYou take control of an overcoat that someone forgot to wear. Your objective is to travel around the numerous locations, and find object's in the wrong place and return them to where they should be. On the lower half of the screen a red light will turn green if the object you are carrying belongs in the room that you are in. To travel to different rooms whirlwinds are used (these act as doors), but to travel to the other world to replace or find an object you will have to use the sparkling cloud. When using the cloud the object you are carrying will stay in the same state, whereas if you wait for the worlds to change on their own, the object's state will be altered. The cloud only travels along the central complex, so this means using the whirlwinds a lot to find it.\r\n\r\nIf you do not manage to find the cloud in time and the object is altered, then do not worry as all is not lost. You are able to change the objects state by shooting the aliens that sap your energy. The aliens appear in the now well used Ultimate style, but adds to the atmosphere of the game. Due to the use of a lot of colours, the old Spectrum problem of attributes creep into the program. Sound may be limited but is once again another old Spectrum problem. The sound that there is has been used to very good effect.\r\n\r\nOverall the game turns out to be one of Ocean's best releases ever on the Spectrum, and will probably be the most imaginative and innovative game of the year. This is certainly worth considering if you want a game that strays away from mindless shooting, and will keep all the arcade adventurers happy for some time. Full marks to Ocean on this one and hope they can produce the same quality for Short Circuit and other future releases.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"28","Denied":false,"Award":"C+VG Hit","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Brian Webber","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"9/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"6/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Value","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"8/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]