[{"TitleName":"Protector","Publisher":"Mastertronic Plus","Author":"Richard Stevenson","YearOfRelease":"1989","ZxDbId":"0003902","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 69, Oct 1989","Price":"£1.5","ReleaseDate":"1989-09-19","Editor":"Oliver Frey","TotalPages":52,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"EDITORIAL\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nEditor: Oliver Frey\r\nFeatures Editor: Richard Eddy\r\nEditorial Assistants: Viv Vickress, Caroline Blake\r\nPhotography: Cameron Pound, Michael Parkinson (Assistant)\r\nContributors: Nick Roberts, Mike 'Skippy' Dunn, Robin Hogg\r\n\r\nPRODUCTION DEPARTMENT\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nProduction Manager: Jonathan Rignall\r\nReprographics Supervisor: Matthew Uffindell (Supervisor), Robert Millichamp, Tim Morris, Robert (the Rev) Hamilton, Jenny Reddard\r\n\r\nDESIGN\r\nRoger Kean, Mark Kendrick, Melvin Fisher\r\n\r\nSystems Operator: Ian Chubb\r\nPublisher: Geoff Grimes\r\nGroup Advertisement Manager: Neil Dyson\r\nAdvertisement Sales Executives: Lee Watkins, Wynne Morgan\r\nAssistant: Jackie Morris [redacted]\r\nGroup Promotions Executive: Richard Eddy\r\n\r\nMail Order: Carol Kinsey\r\n\r\nSubscriptions\r\n[redacted].\r\n\r\nDesigned and typeset on Apple Macintosh II computers using Quark Express and Adobe Illustrator '88, output at MBI [redacted] with systems support from Digital Reprographics [redacted]. Colour origination by Scan Studios [redacted]. Printed in England by Carlisle Web Offset, [redacted] - member of the BPCC Group.\r\n\r\nDistribution 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 the Viv Vickress 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. We regret that readers' postal enquiries cannot always be answered. Unsolicited written or photo material is welcome, and if used in the magazine is paid for at our current rates. Colour photographic material should be 35mm transparencies wherever possible. The views expressed in CRASH are not necessarily those of the publishers.\r\n\r\nCopyright CRASH Ltd 1989 A Newsfield Publication. ISSN 0954-8661. Cover Design by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"PROTECTOR\r\nMastertronic\r\n£2.99\r\n\r\nHelicopters, choppers and flying machines galore! Yes you've guessed it! The budget software industry has gone mad over these machines with rotor blades on top and Anneka Rice inside. So what has Protector got to offer that the others haven't? SPEED! Most games would give their right memory chips to have the scrolling speed of this, but unfortunately it ruins this game. You need lightning reflexes to stop and start your chopper without crashing. There is no such thing as acceleration in Protector the two speeds you have are either 0 mph or 100mph!\r\n\r\nThe idea behind the game had potential. You're at pilot training school, and to become top dog you must collect three parts of a bomb and deliver them to your cave base. Once there the bomb is assembled and can be dropped on the enemy cave to win the game.\r\n\r\nThe screen is spilt into two with your current position in the landscape in the top and the enemy's in the bottom. The two overlap occasionally, and you get double vision! Presentation is a strong point, with an excellent loading and title screen, but surprisingly no music to cheer things up. You need to be really sneaky to get on in Protector. You can steal the bomb parts and the actual bombs from your opponent's cave, the only trouble is that they can do the same to you! if you live life in the fast lane, by all means get Protector.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"47","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Nick Roberts","Score":"47","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"47%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 47, Nov 1989","Price":"£1.6","ReleaseDate":"1989-10-16","Editor":"Matt Bielby","TotalPages":100,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Matt Bielby\r\nArt Editor: Catherine Higgs\r\nDeputy Editor: Jackie Ryan\r\nProduction Editor: Andy Ide\r\nStaff Writer: David Wilson\r\nDesigner: Catherine Peters\r\nTechnical Consultant: Jonathan Davies\r\nContributors: Marcus Berkmann, Jonathan Davies, Mike Gerrard, Sean Kelly, Duncan MacDonald, David McCandless, Phil South\r\nGroup Advertisement Manager: Lynda Elliott\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Alison Morton\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Chris Skinner\r\nAdvertisement Director: Alistair Ramsay\r\nProduction Manager: Judith Middleton\r\nAdvertisement Production: Claire Baker\r\nMarketing Manager: Bryan Denyer\r\nNewstrade Circulation Manager: Stephen Ward\r\nSubscription Manager: June Smith\r\nPublisher: Teresa Maughan\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: Point Five [redacted]\r\nReproduction: Graphic Ideas, London\r\nPrinted By: Riverside Press [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":"PROTECTOR\r\nMastertronic\r\n£2.99\r\nReviewer: Jonathan Davies\r\n\r\nAh ha! A helicopter game - time to dust down the age-old 'chopper' jokes. But then again, space is short, and I really can't be bothered, so let's dive straight into The Review.\r\n\r\nThis three-quid's-worth places you in the driver's seat of a helicopter at a training school in the Nevada desert. Unsurprisingly you are a trainee chopper pilot. Your mission? To fly around and collect supplies that are dotted around the landscape and deposit them back at your base. Player two, or the computer if you're a bit lacking friend-wise, does the same. Once all the supplies have been collected a bomb will appear which can then be dropped on your opponent's base. End of game. The 'competitive edge' is provided by the ability to nick supply cases from the other guy's base for one's own use (while he's not looking, of course), and to shoot him, causing him to drop whatever he's carrying.\r\n\r\nEverything happens extremely quickly, making the controls rather tricky to get to grips with and giving the computer a definite advantage. This is the kind of simple idea which so often makes a really fab, addictive game. In this particular case, though, Protector turns out to be a distinctly unfab, unaddictive game.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"46,47","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Jonathan Davies","Score":"57","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"57%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 91, Oct 1989","Price":"£1.6","ReleaseDate":"1989-09-18","Editor":"Jim Douglas","TotalPages":100,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Meet the super hard-working SU team!\r\n\r\nJIM \"Editor\" DOUGLAS\r\nAs Sinclair User;s pioneer of New Technolog,. Jim is completely at home with thousansd of pounds worth of high quality laser equipment. On top of deciding what goes where in the mag, Jim can explain to the simplest of simpletons the pica/point conversion system on a Mac hard drive DTP 123 system. And not once has he sat and stared and sworn at a blank screen for a whole afternoon. Not many.\r\n\r\nALISON \"Production Editor\" SKEAT\r\nAl loves her PC to PIECES (arf). With its special ergonomic vertical keyboard and - rather expensive - blank-o-screen Alison's Cray XMP Wysiwig can spell check, delete lines, write extra copy and even sample the current text and suggest a witty headline. Never again will you find a typographical error in Sinclair User. For example, the Cray has written the next piece.\r\nXyndfi31 \"f hthecat\" I:LK\r\nSJ:Jmnr23jouo >54t,6 > . 6tgv nonsytemdiskretryerror .....\r\n\r\nTIM \"Art Editor\" NOONAN\r\n'Nah. Vis new tech's a load of donkey's bums' muses Mr Philosophy. Tim has always preferred the traditional way of doing things. Descended from 11th century monks. Tim continues to keep some of their practices alive in his design work. Every letter that appears in all of the 120,000 issues printed each month is carefully printed onto each page by Tim using an ivory stencil. Here Tim can be seen working on his 53,000th \"E\". As you can see, it's fascinating work.\r\n\r\nGARTH \"Staff Writer\" Sumpter\r\nA hard man to track down, staffer Garth managed to elude the camera's eye once more. You see, if he's not writing something at his desk, he's looking at a new game, and if he's not looking at a new game he's trying to get hold of a new game, and if he's not trying to get hold of a new game then he's driving thousands of miles to research some information on a new game that may be coming out. And if he's not doing any of that, he's probably completing his work for the CIA. Alright for some eh?\r\n\r\nAdventure: The Sorceress\r\nDirty Tricks: Jon Riglar\r\nHow The Hell: Andrew Hewson\r\nI've Got This Problem: Rupert Goodwins\r\nExtra Stuff: John \"Payments overdue\" Cook, Chris \"Payments very overdue\" Jenkins\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Nigel \"Two jobs?\" Taylor\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Martha 'Is he not?' Moloughney\r\nAd Production: Emma Ward\r\nMarketing Manager: Dean 'Jiggy jiggy' Barrett\r\nMarketing Assistant: Sarah 'Where's my film?' Ewing\r\nPublisher: Terry 'The big man' Pratt\r\n\r\nOur Address: [redacted]\r\nOur Phone Number: [redacted]\r\nOur Fax No: [redacted]\r\n\r\nThis Month's Cover: Cabal from Ocean\r\nCover Artist: Jerry Paris\r\n\r\nPrinted by Nene River Press, [redacted]\r\nTypeset by Professional Reprographics Services [redacted]\r\nDistributed by EMAP Frontline.\r\n\r\nSubscription Enquiries: [redacted]\r\n24 Hour Order Line: [redacted]\r\nBack Issues: Back Issues Department (SU), [redacted]\r\n\r\n©Copyright 1989 Sinclair User ISSN No 0262-5458"},"MainText":"Label: Mastertronic Plus\r\nAuthor: P.A.L. Developments\r\nPrice: £2.99\r\nMemory: 48K/128K\r\nJoystick: various\r\nReviewer: Chris Jenkins\r\n\r\nApart from the fact that it has the worst graphics in the world Protector has a lot going for it. It's certainly fast - so fast, in fact, that when you're playing against a computer opponent, it's all over before you've got your chopper off the landing pad.\r\n\r\nIn fact, despite the shooty-shooty cover artwork, there's more than a teeny element of strategy to this one. The split screen shows a desert landscape featuring a mountain base and your helicopter landing pad. In the bottom half is your opponent's chopper. The aim is to pick up supplies from the desert, return them to your base, then assemble a bomb from them and nuke your enemy. Nice!\r\n\r\nThe graphics are frankly weedy, with the worst-designed helicopters I've ever seen - they look more like soap-bubbles, and the monochrome backgrounds are similarly sparse. Still, you can't say that things don't move quickly; the screen scrolls so fast that it's difficult to bring your chopper to rest exactly over a crater, and lower yourself onto it. Your computer opponent doesn't have any difficulty, which makes it much more fair if you play against a second human.\r\n\r\nThe most annoying aspect of the game is the way you have to wait on your landing pad as your chopper is refueled and re-armed after each crash. You can lose a life by crashing into a mountain, but you can't collide with your opponent. You can shoot each other with your 30mm Gatling canon (which goes 'blip blip') ) but this just causes you to drop the load you're carrying. The best part of the game is dipping into your enemy's fortress and pinching his goodies - but he can do the same to you, remember.\r\n\r\nWorth £1.99, certainly. Pity it's £2.99, really, but that's life.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"Shocking graphics, fair old gameplay. Not entirely awful.","Page":"45","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Chris Jenkins","Score":"50","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"30%","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"40%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"60%","Text":""},{"Header":"Lastability","Score":"50%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"50%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]