[{"TitleName":"Dream Warrior","Publisher":"U.S. Gold Ltd","Author":"James Hartshorn, Roger Taylor, Stefan F. Ufnowski","YearOfRelease":"1988","ZxDbId":"0001518","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 55, Aug 1988","Price":"£1.25","ReleaseDate":"1988-07-28","Editor":"Dominic Handy","TotalPages":124,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"EDITORIAL\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nEditor: Dominic Handy\r\nAssistant Editor: Katharina Hamza\r\nProduction Editor: Barnaby Page\r\nStaff Writers: Mark Caswell, Philip King, Lloyd Mangram, Nick Roberts\r\nEditorial Assistants: Frances Mable, Glenys Powell\r\nPhotography: Cameron Pound, Michael Parkinson (Assistant)\r\nContributors: Jon Bates, Raffaele Cecco, Paul Evans, Simon N Goodwin, Ian Philipson, Philippa Irving, Brendon Kavanagh, Paul Sumner, Stuart Wynne\r\n\r\nPRODUCTION\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nProduction Manager: Jonathan Rignall\r\nArt Director: Mark Kendrick\r\nAssistant Art Director: Wayne Allen\r\nProduction Team: Ian Chubb, Melvin Fisher, Robert Millichamp, Yvonne Priest, Matthew Uffindell\r\n\r\nEditorial Director: Roger Kean\r\nPublisher: Geoff Grimes\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Roger Bennett\r\nSales Executives: Andrew Smales, Sarah Chapman\r\nAssistant: Jackie Morris [redacted]\r\n\r\nMail Order: Carol Kinsey\r\nSubscriptions: Denise Roberts\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nTypeset by The Tortoise Shell Press, Ludlow. Colour origination by Scan Studios [redacted]. Printed in England by Carlisle Web Offset, [redacted] - member of the BPCC Group. Distribution by COMAG, [redacted]\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 (like a game that has been offered as a prize being scrapped) 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 Frances Mable a line at the [redacted] address). No person who has any relationship, no matter how remote, to anyone who works for either Newsfield or any of the companies offering prizes, may enter one of our competitions. No 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 is welcome, and if used in the magazine is paid for at our current rates.\r\n\r\nTotal: 96,590\r\nUK/EIRE: 90,822\r\n\r\n©CRASH Ltd, 1988\r\n\r\nCover Design & Illustration by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"Producer: US Gold\r\nRetail Price: £8.99\r\nAuthor: Tarann\r\n\r\nIn a future world, controlled by the Master Focus, war is no longer fought on the physical plane, but in people's brains; instead of their lives the victims lose their minds.\r\n\r\nThe Focus fellowships are battling for supremacy and as a result of their psychic activity, the world is slowly going mad. Three members of a resistance group have been captured. Your mission is to enter the minds of these men and destroy the Focus's most powerful weapon - Ocular, the Dream Demon.\r\n\r\nTwo of the men are imprisoned in the offices of Megabuck Inc, whilst the third is trapped in the world of Wynn, a planetoid two-headed snake. A dream hopper provides transport between dreams, provided sufficient energy is available.\r\n\r\nThroughout all areas, demi- and giant demons roam; if the player hits them, he will awaken by degrees. Shooting the demi-demons releases a variety of globes which bestow such goodies as lift passes and cards giving the player access to sleeping potions. For each two blue psy-globes collected a section of a dreamer's image is reassembled in the centre of the screen display.\r\n\r\nHaving collected all three images, you face Ocular, the prince of madness. Shooting each of his six eyes in turn destroys the evil monster and simultaneously, releases the world from its nightmare.\r\n\r\nCOMMENTS\r\n\r\nJoysticks: Kempston. Sinclair\r\nGraphics: garish backgrounds, blocky sprites and plenty of colour clash\r\nSound: none","ReviewerComments":["In my opinion Dream Warrior is dire. A splodgy main character sprite hobbles around a cluttered screen in what looks exactly like a diver's suit. Scrolling is jerky, with the meanies unconvincingly hurtling across the screen. Dream Warrior bored me to tears within the first few minutes of play. At first, I ignored the graphics and prayed that some sort of game was hidden beneath the outer layer - I was disappointed. This type of simple shoot and collect-'em-up is as old (and as interesting) as the proverbial hills.\r\nMark Caswell\r\n29%","The main character is detailed and so are the backgrounds - it's just a pity they're both in the same game because they look terrible together. The controls are awkward - you can't go in any direction without bumping into something. The character recognition is clumsy and gives the game an overall feel of untidiness. When a couple of aliens come on to the screen it looks as if the game has crashed rather than progressed - they're just a mass of pixels, the same colour as everything else. Dream Warrior looks like one big mistake.\r\nNick Roberts\r\n38%","The use of colour in Dream Warrior is terrible. Variously coloured demi-demons move over garish two-coloured backdrops with terrible colour clash. I thought the blue and cyan colour scheme of the first level was bad, but on another level it's even worse: red and white - it's enough to make you throw up! As if that isn't bad enough, the main character is clumsily drawn and even the scrolling is very jerky. The whole game looks such a mess! Trundling around, shooting demons and collecting their pods is so boring and repetitive. The whole exercise seems totally tedious and pointless - enough to send you to sleep! I could never have dreamed of such a monotonous, badly programmed game - even in my worst nightmares.\r\nPhil King\r\n27%"],"OverallSummary":"General Rating: Keep hoping you'll never have a dream as bad as this.","Page":"21","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Mark Caswell","Score":"29","ScoreSuffix":"%"},{"Name":"Nick Roberts","Score":"38","ScoreSuffix":"%"},{"Name":"Phil King","Score":"27","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"Chronicle of an epic clash between the warrior and his backdrops."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Presentation","Score":"36%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"27%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"31%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictive Qualities","Score":"30%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"31%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 33, Sep 1988","Price":"£1.5","ReleaseDate":"1988-08-11","Editor":"Teresa Maughan","TotalPages":116,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Teresa Maughan\r\nDeputy Editor: Ciaran Brennan\r\nArt Editor: Darrell King\r\nTechnical Editor: Phil South\r\nProduction Editor: Jackie Ryan\r\nDesigner: Catherine Higgs\r\nContributors: Guy Bennington, Marcus Berkmann, Owen & Audrey Bishop, Richard Blaine, Jonathan Davies, Mike 'Skippy' Dunn, Mike Gerrard, Graeme Kidd, David McCandless, Duncan McDonald, Nat Pryce, Peter Shaw, Rachael Smith, Ben Stone\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Mark Salmon\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Simon Stansfield\r\nAdvertisement Director: Alistair Ramsay\r\nProduction Manager: Judith Middleton\r\nMarketing Manager: Bryan Denyer\r\nArt Director: Hazel Bennington\r\nPublisher: Kevin Cox\r\nPublishing Director: Roger Munford\r\nFinance Director: Colin Crawford\r\nManaging Director: Stephen England\r\nChairman: Felix Dennis\r\n\r\nPublished by Dennis Publishing 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 ©1988 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":"US Gold\r\n£8.99\r\nReviewer: Jonathan Davies\r\n\r\nNow I've read some pretty naff plots in my time, but this one has to take the biscuit. It's probably the most contorted, contrived, badly-written piece of fiction I've ever had to wade through since reading my last school report! Still, here goes...\r\n\r\nAn evil organisation called Focus is sending Dream Demons to attack people in their sleep. Four astral scientists called Asmen (with just the one \"S\") find out how to combat them with pulsar neutrons, but before they can do so, three of them are captured by Ocular, the greatest dream demon of them all. You are the one who isn't of course, and now you've got to reclaim the other three.\r\n\r\nBut let's play along: to rescue your chums you'll have to get into their dreams using the dream hopper, which is charged up with hopper energy. This is collected by shooting demi-demons, which flit around the place, obviously trying to hitch a lift back to Manic Miner.\r\n\r\nOther demons give you bits of the scientists' Psychic Images, which need to be collected to complete the game. The remaining ones give you credit cards which can be swopped for increased Sleep Depth (oh yeah, run out of this and the game's over) of lift-passes to move between levels.\r\n\r\nTo be honest, after a few minutes of playing this I was quite ready to write it off as a no-hoper. I'd even got a great selection of dismissive phrases lined up for it. But (sniff) you'll have to wait for the next offender that comes my way, 'cos after a while Dream Warrior really began to grow on me.\r\n\r\nIf it's action you're after, Dream Warrior is hardly going to get the adrenaline pumping, but it plods along at its own pace and for those who are prepared to accept its little idiosyncracies, it should give plenty of hours per pound.\r\n\r\nIf only I could work out why US Gold keep putting words in capital letters for no APPARENT reason in THE middle OF the instructions. P'raps it's GOT a sticky caps-lock KEY?","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"The pros more than make up for the cons, and it's even vaguely original. Good stuff.","Page":"34","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Jonathan Davies","Score":"8","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"Behind me's a safe, within which lurks extra Sleep Depth, but I'll need a card to access it. Just visible on the right there is a door, and I'll have to flip two of those switches on the floor to open it."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Value For Money","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"8/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment) Issue 12, Sep 1988","Price":"£1.5","ReleaseDate":"1988-08-04","Editor":"Steve Cooke","TotalPages":124,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Future Publishing [redacted]\r\nTelephone [redacted], Fax [redacted], Telecom Gold 84:TXT152\r\n\r\nEditor: Steve Cooke\r\nReviews Editor: Bob Wade\r\nFeatures Editor: Andy Wilton\r\nProduction Editor: Rod Lawton\r\nStaff Writer: Andy Smith\r\nConsultant Editors: Mark Jenkins (Music and Midi), Brian Larkin (Graphics)\r\nArt Editor: Trevor Gilham\r\nAdditional Design: Angela Neale\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Jonathan Beales\r\nAdvertising Sales Executive: Jennie Evans\r\nPublisher: Chris Anderson\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIPTIONS\r\nAvon Direct Mail [redacted]\r\n\r\nSPECIAL OFFERS\r\n(Christine Stacey) [redacted]\r\n\r\nCOLOUR ORIGINATION\r\nWessex Reproduction [redacted]\r\n\r\nDISTRIBUTION\r\nSM Distribution [redacted]\r\n\r\nPRINTING\r\nChase Web Offset [redacted]\r\n\r\nCopyright - FUTURE PUBLISHING LTD 1988 - No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without our permission."},"MainText":"US Gold send you to sleep.\r\n\r\nPsychological warfare's what this game's all about. Set in the world of the future when physical wars no longer exist, you play the part of a Dream Warrior who's out to rescue his chums who've been captured by a weird being called Ocular.\r\n\r\nOcular's a Dream Demon, an evil secret weapon devised by the powers of Mega Corporation, who control pretty much everything. Ocular has linked the dreams of your three trapped friends and imprisoned their psychic images.\r\n\r\nYou start the game at the offices of Megabuck Inc, and the idea is to destroy the demons that roam the offices, some of whom carry small portions of your friends' psychic images. Collect the images of all three and you then come face to face with Ocular for the fined showdown.\r\n\r\nDream Warrior's less than involving because the game task is so repetitive, and it soon becomes a chore to play.\r\n\r\nReviewer: Andy Smith\r\n\r\nRELEASE BOX\r\nIBM PC, £19.99dk, Out Now\r\nSpec, £8.99cs, £12.99dk, Out Now\r\nC64/128, £9.99cs, £11.99dk, Out Now\r\nAmstrad, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Imminent\r\n\r\nPredicted Interest Curve\r\n\r\n1 min: 70/100\r\n1 hour: 75/100\r\n1 day: 50/100\r\n1 week: 30/100\r\n1 month: 20/100\r\n1 year: 0/100","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"68","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Andy Smith","Score":"503","ScoreSuffix":"/1000"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Ace Rating","Score":"503/1000","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"The Games Machine Issue 10, Sep 1988","Price":"£1.25","ReleaseDate":"1988-08-18","Editor":"Jon Rose","TotalPages":124,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"EDITORIAL\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nEditor: Jon Rose\r\nAssistant Editor: Nik Wild\r\nSoftware Co-ordinator: Richard Eddy\r\nNews Editor: Barnaby Page\r\nStaff Writer: Robin Hogg, Stewart Wynne\r\nEditorial Assistant: Frances Mable\r\nPhotography: Cameron Pound, Michael Parkinson (Assistant)\r\nContributors: Jon Bates, Robin Candy, Mark Caswell, Mel Croucher, Robin Evans, Roger Kean, Warren Lapworth, Nick Roberts, John Woods\r\n\r\nPRODUCTION\r\n[redacted]\r\nProduction Manager: Jonathan Rignall\r\nArt Director: Markie Kendrick\r\nAssistant Art Director: Wayne Allen\r\nProduction Team: Matthew Uffindell, Ian Chubb, Yvonne Priest, Melvin Fisher, Robert Millichamp, Robert Hamilton, Tim Morris\r\nEditorial Director: Roger Kean\r\nPublisher: Geoff Grimes\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Roger Bennett\r\nAdvertisement Sales Executive: Andrew Smales, Sarah Chapman\r\nAssistant: Jackie Morris [redacted]\r\n\r\nMAIL ORDER\r\nCarol Kinsey\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIPTIONS\r\nDenise Roberts\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nTypeset by the Tortoise Shell Press, Ludlow. Colour origination by Scan Studios [redacted]. Printed in England by Carlisle Web Offset [redacted] - a member of the BPCC Group. Distribution effected by COMAG, [redacted].\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 (like a game that has been offered as a prize being scrapped) 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 THE GAMES MACHINE. 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 Fran Mable a line at the PO Box 10 address). No person who has any relationship, no matter how remote, to anyone who works for Newsfield or any of the companies offering prizes, may enter one of our competitions.\r\n\r\nNo material may be reproduced in part or in whole without the written consent of the copyright holders. We cannot undertake to return anything sent into THE GAMES MACHINE - including written and photographic material, hardware or software - unless it's accompanied by a suitably stamped, addressed envelope. Unsolicited written or photographic material is welcome, and if used in the magazine is paid for at our current rates.\r\n\r\n©Newsfield Ltd, 1988\r\n\r\nCover Design & Illustration by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"Spectrum 48/128 £8.99\r\nPC £19.99\r\n\r\nFuture wars are not fought physically, but in dreams. World power belongs to the sinister Focus fellowship although resistance groups exist. One such group consists of four scientists - called Asmen - who find a way to defeat Focus's most powerful weapon, the Dream Demon. Unfortunately three of the team have been discovered.\r\n\r\nIn Dream Warrior (reviewed in TGM009, CBM 64 51%), you take the role of the fourth Asman and must free your colleagues by recovering the pieces of their psychic images. Play starts in the offices of Megabuck, inhabited by psy-globes which release pods when shot. These, when collected, give access cards to lifts or safes, energy or a section of the psychic image. You travel to various dreams via the dream hopper and to succeed you must complete the three images before the captured scientists wake.\r\n\r\nBoth Spectrum and PC games are similar graphically and in gameplay. Backdrops are garish - particularly on the Spectrum - animation is not smooth and repetition abounds. Sound is functional. Neither version compares favourably to the Commodore 64/128 game.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"44","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"Dream Warrior on the Spectrum is more like a nightmare!"}],"BlurbText":[{"Text":"PC\r\n\r\nOverall: 29%"}],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"27%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]