[{"TitleName":"Aquasquad","Publisher":"Atlantis Software Ltd","Author":"Adrian R. Shaw, David A. Shaw, Graham D. Shaw","YearOfRelease":"1988","ZxDbId":"0000230","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 39, Mar 1989","Price":"£1.6","ReleaseDate":"1989-02-16","Editor":"Teresa Maughan","TotalPages":100,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Teresa Maughan\r\nArt Editor: Catherine Higgs\r\nDeputy Editor: Matt Bielby\r\nProduction Editor: Jackie Ryan\r\nStaff Writer: Duncan MacDonald\r\nDesigner: Thor Goodall\r\nEditorial Assistant: David Wilson\r\nTechnical Consultant: David McCandless\r\nContributors: Marcus Berkmann, Richard Blaine, Ciaran Brennan, Jonathan Davies, Mike Gerrard, Sean Kelly, Catherine Peters, Rachael Smith, Phil South\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Simon Stansfield\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Stephen Bloy\r\nAdvertisement Director: Alistair Ramsay\r\nProduction Manager: Judith Middleton\r\nAdvertisement Production: Katherine Balchin\r\nMarketing Manager: Bryan Denyer\r\nPublisher: Terry Grimwood\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 ©1989 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":"AQUASQUAD\r\nAtlantis\r\n£1.99\r\nReviewer: Marcus Berkmann\r\n\r\nThis one's by the same geezer who wrote Gunfighter and Tank Command, which should warn anyone who was expecting a decent game. Aquasquad's a sort of arcade adventure-cum-shoot 'em up, neither one thing nor the other, and profoundly less than gripping. You guide your little ship through an undersea maze of heavily armed caverns, avoiding jagged rocks, deadly undersea creatures and anything that looks remotely like a missile. The idea is to destroy the whole installation, and to do this you need to collect four nuclear containers - but you'll long since have got completely bored and given up before you get that far in this lifeless and derivative game.\r\n\r\nIt's not been that badly programmed - few things are, these days - but there's no spark of originality, nothing to make you want desperately to see the next screen, or even the screen you're on in most cases. Of minimal interest.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"41","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Marcus Berkmann","Score":"4","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"4/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 83, Feb 1989","Price":"£1.6","ReleaseDate":"1989-01-18","Editor":"Graham Taylor","TotalPages":100,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Graham 'phew' Taylor\r\nDeputy Editor: Jim 'shiny shoes' Douglas\r\nProduction Editor: Alison 'get lunky' Skeat\r\nArt Editor: Tim 'diced carrots' Noonan\r\nAdventure: The Sorceress\r\nZapchat: Jon Riglar\r\nTechnical: Andrew Hewson, Rupert Goodwins\r\nContributors: Tony 'ratty' Dillon, Chris 'snivel' Jenkins\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Martha 'eejit' Moloughney\r\nAd Production: Emma Ward\r\nPublisher's Assistant: Debbie Pearson\r\nPublisher: Terry 'serene' Pratt\r\nMarketing: Clive 'it's alright I'm here now' Pembridge\r\n\r\nPhone: [redacted]\r\nFax: [redacted]\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]\r\n\r\nThis Month's Cover: Jerry 'fluffy bunny' Parks\r\n\r\nPrinted by Nene River Press, [redacted]\r\nDistributed by EMAP Publications Ltd.\r\n\r\n©Copyright 1989 Sinclair User ISSN No 0262-5458\r\n\r\nSubscription Enquiries: [redacted]\r\n24 Hour Order Line: [redacted]\r\nBack Issues: Back Issues Department (SU), [redacted]"},"MainText":"Label: Atlantis\r\nAuthor: In-house\r\nPrice: £1.99\r\nMemory: 48K/128K\r\nJoystick: various\r\nReviewer: Tony Dillon\r\n\r\nMariiinaaa. Aqua Mariiiinaaa! Yes folks, it's return of the Stingray-esque game and this is the most Stingray-ish game I've ever played. This Stingray feel is produced because: i) It's under water, ii) The animation is dreadful, iii) It somehow manages to look quite good, iv) It gets tedious after you've seen it once.\r\n\r\nYour mission is to find four somethings before storming the installation where the evil what'stheirnames are leading their domination of the world's air and shipping lanes. Nothing original there eh? So, you set off in your NATO designed Aquaslashkickmain kill-a-tron, and what do your find? Well, no Aquaphibians for a start, which shattered illusions about Stingray, but to make it worse, the graphics are badly handled so the game quickly becomes uninteresting.\r\n\r\nThe sprites for all the enemies are very slow to get anywhere near you, but considering that you also move around at around 1 mile every zillion years, and your torpedoes also move at roughly half the speed of Sylvester Stallone's brain (we are talking SLOW here) there is not much in the way of eyeball dangling action. The sound coming over the hydrophones - no! speakers (sorry it's just another attack of the Stingrays) is wimpish beyond belief. Beeps and farts don't come into it here, are talking clicks, and nothing else. You have to your ship very, very precisely or you'll just end up dead on the first few screens every time, just like me.\r\n\r\nAtlantis have a knack of producing good looking games (remember The Sceptre of Bhagdad) but should include more interesting features in this game. A few different weapons wouldn't go amiss.\r\n\r\nBelow average even for a budget game, I personally wouldn't recommend it, but some people quite like simple games (even if they are mind bogglingly boring).","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"Poor underwater blast, don't be fooled by the nice graphics.","Page":"45","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Tony Dillon","Score":"40","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"73%","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"55%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"30%","Text":""},{"Header":"Lastability","Score":"35%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"40%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]