[{"TitleName":"Reaper","Publisher":"Ubi Soft Ltd","Author":"Clive Townsend","YearOfRelease":"1991","ZxDbId":"0004054","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 86, Mar 1991","Price":"£1.85","ReleaseDate":"1991-02-21","Editor":"Oliver Frey","TotalPages":60,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"EDITORIAL\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nEditor: Oliver Frey\r\nFeatures Editor: 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, Lisa McCourt\r\nGroup Advertisement Manager: Judith Bamford\r\nAdvertisement Sales Executive: Justine Pritchard\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 by Scan Studios [redacted]. Printed in England by BPCC Business Magazines (Carlisle) Ltd, [redacted] - a member of the BPCC Group.\r\n\r\nDistribution by 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 wlil 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 1990 A Newsfield Publication. ISSN 0954-8661. Cover Design by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"Ubi Soft\r\n£9.99/£14.99\r\n\r\nFancy a bit of a battle, ninja style? Then pull on your groovy black ninja gear and get down to The Reaper! Every five hundred years, a group of immortal wisemen take a look back through history at all the valiant warriors who have lived and died. They choose one of these heroes and bring his body back to life to test his abilities and make sure his reputation is not exaggerated.\r\n\r\nYou're the chosen one and your task is to save the souls of your friends from the deadly maze inhabited by their worst enemies. Should you succeed, you'll be brought back to life for good - but fail and you and your friends will be damned for all eternity.\r\n\r\nThe landscapes in The Reaper are large and packed full of ninjas, killer robots, dragons and other, similarly nasty things. Your only tasks are to kill the ninjas that crop up and save the souls of your friends. To achieve this, collecting objects is the order of the day.\r\n\r\nKeys open doors to other levels, a monitor allows you to keep track of your character's status and a cross increases health. The most important object to find is the soul trap: without it, you can't save your friends.\r\n\r\nDisposal of the undead ninjas can be achieved with well-placed kicks. Alternatively, you can collect shurikens to pop them oft. no trouble at all.\r\n\r\nVisually, The Reaper is pretty pathetic. The tiny matchstick ninjas are laughable when they dance and prance about the screeen. What's worse is the fact that (lowers voice to a whisper) there's a lot of swearing in it. You can choose a 'speech bubble' option, which arms your character with a variety of obscene language to use against his enemies. Very obscene language. Luckily, there's a clean version of the game included for the easily offended.\r\n\r\nThe Reaper is a very amateurish effort, especially with the pathetic swearing routines. There's no lastability: after a few minutes you'll get fed up with marching about saving souls.\r\n\r\nNICK 41%","ReviewerComments":["After Ubi Soft's brilliant Night Hunter and the okay-ish Pick and Pile comes the totally naff The Reaper. The game begins with a fairly decent title tune, but the whole thing slides rapidly downhill when the small stickman sprites appear on screen. If the gameplay wasn't so crude they might have been funny, but it's as shallow as my patience (ie: very shallow indeed).\r\nMark Caswell\r\n25%"],"OverallSummary":"Rude, crude and not very good at all, really.","Page":"57","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Mark Caswell","Score":"25","ScoreSuffix":"%"},{"Name":"Nick Roberts","Score":"41","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"The hunt is on for Karen in The Reaper, but what's Elvis doing at the bottom right of the screen?"}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Presentation","Score":"43%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"28%","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"43%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"48%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictivity","Score":"33%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"33%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 65, May 1991","Price":"£1.95","ReleaseDate":"1991-04-11","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\nContributors: Marcus Berkmann, Jonathan Davies, Cathy Fryett, Mike Gerrard, Jon North, Rich Pelley, John Pillar, Adam Waring, David Wilson\r\nAdvertising Manager: Simon Moss\r\nPublisher: Jane Richardson\r\nPublishing Assistant: Michele Harris\r\nCirculation Director: Sue Hartley\r\nGroup Publisher: Greg Ingham\r\nManaging Director: Chris Anderson\r\nProduction Manager: Ian Seager\r\nProduction Coordinator: Melissa Parkinson\r\nSubscriptions: Computer Posting [redacted]\r\nMail Order: The Old Barn [redacted]\r\nPrinters: Riverside Press [redacted]\r\nDistributors: MMC [redacted]\r\n\r\nYour Sinclair is published by Future Publishing Ltd [redacted]\r\n\r\n©Future Publishing 1991. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission."},"MainText":"UbiSoft\r\n£9.99 cass\r\nReviewer: Linda Barker\r\n\r\nThe world is full of wonderful things to do. There's cows to stroke, candyfloss to eat, flowers to pick and boys to kiss. So why have Ubisoft gone and published The Reaper?\r\n\r\nIt looks as though it's been made in somebody's bedroom (which it may well have been considering they're only releasing it on Speccy cassette) and, quite frankly, it's more than a bit of a rip-off at £10.99.\r\n\r\nBasically it's a punch-'n'-shoot-'em-up set in a sort of upstairs-in-the-flowery-woods and downstairs -in-the-dank-caverns world. You're a brave warrior (either Lee or Karen) who's been brought back to life to fight it out with your 'reanimated' enemies (who are called things like Simon, Phil and Mike. It's better than being at an Enid Blyton convention, isn't it, Spec-chums? Except not as spooky.). At stake are the souls of your pals, so if you mess it up then you'll all burn in hell forever. Whilst setting he souls free and bashing in your old foes you come across lots of handy little items to replace lost energy and stuff as well as a while host of spooky opponents.\r\n\r\n\"EXTERMINATE!\"\r\n\r\nAll that plot business makes it sound quite and the loading screens certainly add to the illusion - but don't be conned! It's all a load of twaddle!\r\n\r\nFor some reason the programmer's decided to have speech bubbles springing up all over the screen (which you can take out if you want) and these are filling by a choice of polite or, erm, 'impolite' (to put it politely) language. It's all pretty mindless and gratuitous to say the least.\r\n\r\nQuite frankly some of our quotes are better than The Reaper. Like them, it does have a certain, erm, 'naive charm', and I did manage to have some fun with it, but you'd be mighty peeved if your forked out a tenner on it. In fact, you'd be so upset that you'd certainly explode. And as I don't want to be held responsible I'll just take the precaution of advising you not to buy it.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"Amusing touches, not such amusing language. Poor and puerile.","Page":"77","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Linda Barker","Score":"35","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"I'm Lee (the little white chappie in the underworld) and I've run out of shurikens. Er, I haven't saved any souls either. Ho hum!"},{"Text":"Okay, so there's quite a lot going on, but it does all look a bit twee and dull, doesn't it, Spec-chums? (Apart from the dalek.)"},{"Text":"We can't make our minds up whether this is a dragon or an elephant, but either way he obviously needs to watch his breath a bit."},{"Text":"Yes, well, um, here's a fridge with a couple of sort of spacesuit people jogging about. (Ahem.)"}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Life Expectancy","Score":"34%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"32%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"33%","Text":""},{"Header":"Instant Appeal","Score":"37%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"35%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]