[{"TitleName":"Roundheads","Publisher":"Argus Press Software Ltd","Author":"MC Lothlorien Ltd","YearOfRelease":"1987","ZxDbId":"0004249","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 45, Oct 1987","Price":"£1.5","ReleaseDate":"1987-09-24","Editor":"Barnaby Page","TotalPages":148,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Managing Editor: Barnaby Page\r\nStaff Writers: Richard Eddy, Lloyd Mangram, Ian Phillipson, Ben Stone\r\nPhotographers: Cameron Pound, Michael Parkinson\r\nTechnical Writers: Simon N Goodwin, Jon Bates\r\nAdventure Column: Derek Brewster\r\nPBM Column: Brendon Kavanagh\r\nStrategy Column: Philippa Irving\r\nEducation Column: Rosetta McLeod\r\nLondon Correspondent: John Minson\r\nContributors: Robin Candy, Mike Dunn, Paul Evans, Dominic Handy, Nick Roberts, Mark Rothwell, Paul Sumner\r\nEditorial Director: Roger Kean\r\nProduction Controller: David Western\r\nArt Director: Gordon Druce\r\nIllustrator: Oliver Frey\r\nDesign: Tony Lorton, Markie Kendrick, Wayne Allen\r\nProcess and Planning: Matthew Uffindell, Jonathan Rignall, Nick Orchard\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Roger Bennett\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Andrew Smales\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\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nTypesetting by The Tortoise Shell Press, Ludlow\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 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 Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"FRONTLINE\r\n\r\nWith Philippa Irving\r\n\r\nREAD ALL ABOUT IT\r\n\r\nThere's been an alarming slump in the number of wargames finding their way to my garret in north Oxford. Either all those brave people who write wargames and expose themselves to my sarcasm have decided to go on holiday, or the Post Office has eaten the parcel containing them A couple of months ago I explained my ratings system in detail in Manoeuvres, my column in Crash's Commodore sister ZZAP! 64, and it seems fair that I should do the same in Frontline.\r\n\r\nRatings very artificial, and quite unscientific; but they are the accepted way of summing up impressions in the world of computer-game reviews, and a percentage breakdown system such as Crash uses is a lot more accurate and interesting than just giving single figures. This is the way I think about each rating:\r\n\r\nPresentation is sometimes difficult to disentangle from Graphics, but in theory it covers every aspect of the game except the game. The packaging, the ease with which orders can be given, and the general aesthetic impression the screen display gives are all considered. Presentation isn't everything in a strategy game, but just as an exam candidate with neat handwriting is more likely to get a sympathetic marker than an illegible scrawler, a tidy and professional appearance makes an immediate impression on consumers and reviewers.\r\n\r\nGraphics in wargames are always a compromise. They can rarely do as much to conjure up an atmosphere as arcade graphics can, and have to be content with being representational. But this doesn't mean that well-drawn and clearly-set-out graphics can't improve a wargame.\r\n\r\nRules are extremely important in a wargame, particularly a historical one. It isn't so much the case with Spectrum wargames, but some Commodore games are virtually rulebooks with a bit of computer animation. I always commend historical material and complain about its absence. It's important that if the game structure is complex it should be explained in sequential and idiot-proof detail, and personally I like to see the game mechanics exposed - though other people don't.\r\n\r\nAuthenticity: taken with any literalness, no wargame is particularly authentic. If you think about it, you wouldn't really want it to be - all the blood and dead bodies and deafening shells and gunfire would not be entertaining. But games can create their own atmosphere, and the player can feel involved in the world the game reflects. It's the equivalent of our willing suspension of disbelief when watching drama, and it helps, of course, if there are no obvious factual blunders or intrusive bits of gameplay.\r\n\r\nPlayability all computer garners know what playability is. It's the quality that stops you pressing the reset switch, or pulling out the power lead if you're still running a rubber model. It's the quality that can have you zapping or collecting or assault-breaking into the early hours. Though wargames, like adventures, are more sedate and detached than arcade shoot-'em-ups, you can still find seven hours slipping by undetected if you get involved in a really playable game. Playability can be disrupted by the smallest things, such as computer-opponent turns which take just a little too long and or scrolling menus which are just slightly too complex to work. A lot of shallow and dead-end games can be quite playable at first, and I comment on that honestly.\r\n\r\nOverall: a game can be greater than the sum of its parts, and I don't feel that the Overall percentage rating has to be a cocktail of the preceding ratings. Beautiful graphics or badly-produced rules may be irrelevant if the game itself is a turkey or a classic.\r\n\r\nThe ratings are only my personal assessment. In the main body of the reviews I try to be as descriptive as possible so you can decide, irrespective of what final percentage it gets, whether you want to buy the game or not.\r\n\r\nROUNDHEADS\r\n\r\nProducer: Lothlorien\r\nRetail Price: £9.95\r\n\r\nThis is the first wargame I've seen based on the English Civil War of the 1640's, which seems odd when you consider how popular a subject this is with 'live' wargamers; battles between the Roundheads and Cavaliers are re-enacted every summer by enthusiasts who delight to dress up in period military and fight it out in the name of a long-dead cause. Roundheads is an attempt to condense the entire period into a Spectrum.\r\n\r\nIn October 1642, the English Civil War broke out between the Cavalier forces of King Charles I and the parliamentary army led by the Earl Of Essex. My history is usually abysmal (an essential qualification for a wargame reviewer, for at least I can tell if a game has taught me anything…) but I do know that Oxford was the Royalist capital during the war and that King Charles lodged in Christchurch college.\r\n\r\nAll the major cities in England had been forced to choose sides, and the very brief scene-setting paragraph in the Roundheads rulebook says that as the game starts the Parliamentary forces - known as Roundheads - have their greatest support in the south and east. They are also negotiating for Scottish support, which they appear to get. Up and down the country peasants have been turning their pitchforks into weapons, leaving their fields, and rallying behind one cause or the other. This has not done much for the country's agricultural stability, and food supplies are restricted to what the passing troops can forage.\r\n\r\nRoundheads ambitiously attempts to recreate the entire war at both tactical and strategic levels. You can move whole armies up and down the country cutting down cornfields on the way; or you can fight single battles with small forces. The two phases of the game demonstrate how different reality scales affect wargaming, and it's interesting to see a combination of the grand and the detailed. This feature distinguishes an otherwise unremarkable game.\r\n\r\nOn the strategic level, the screen presents a map of England which is featureless apart from the noughts and crosses of the opposing armies. In the one-player game you have to be on the side of the King, which gives you a slight advantage at first; the Cavalier armies are better-trained and slightly stronger than the Roundheads. But the Scots soon come marching south to aid the enemy, so the rules advise the player to make the most of his superiority.\r\n\r\nIncidentally, the lack of choice of sides in the one-player game makes the title Roundheads seem a little inappropriate, and because Roundheads And Cavaliers appears on the bottom of the screen I suspect there was a last minute title change.\r\n\r\nThe player has command of two types of armies at the strategic level; real armies and 'trained bands'. These latter Consist of the peasants-turned-warriors and other loyal or rebellious citizens from the towns, rounded up into some sort of fighting force. They can be used in battle, but they're not particularly reliable and tend to desert if they're moved too far from home or think the odds against them are too great.\r\n\r\nThe rulebook illustrates what the Roundhead armies and trained bands look like, but neglect to make the distinction between their Royalist equivalents. One has to guess. My guess was that the large round blobs were the armies, and the smaller squares the trained bands. Confusingly, the instructions refer to the units as 'icons'. This may be a strictly correct use of the word, but it's certainly incorrect in the context of a computer game where 'icon' is always used to mean a control symbol. Here, the control system is a simple cursor-selection, which allows the player to move armies speedily. As the armies move they gather food points, which doesn't make sense; after all, wargamers are more accustomed to armies consuming food and resource points by moving. A food riot can therefore be quelled by sending the troops on a quick back-and-forth trip across the countryside.\r\n\r\nAs the cursor is moved around the main map a window at the side of the screen scrolls neatly, showing a blow-up of the area currently under the cursor. The side window also displays more attractive versions of the army counters, with the Royalist army represented as crowned heads and the Roundheads looking like genially smiling grandfathers. This seems more useful than it is.\r\n\r\nThe close-up map doesn't actually show any extra detail apart from mysterious little houses, invisible on the main map, which may be intended to indicate cities. It's difficult to tell, for the rules make no mention of them. There is no way of telling which towns and cities are where, something I regard as very unatmospheric. If there was no room on the screen display there ought to have been a map in the rules to give a bit of colour and structure to the landscape...\r\n\r\nThe armies and trained bands are defined only by their strength and the amount of food they carry. It would have improved the coherence of the game immensely if the armies had been identified, even in the most rudimentary way. As it is, there is nothing to give them character and imaginative life, and even if dire consequences do follow moving a trained band too far from its place of origin it's not easy to keep track of where each bunch of pickaxe-waving peasants ought to be.\r\n\r\nThis is a pity, because in the tactical-level battles there's a great opportunity to tie the two strands together. When you've moved your armies around an isolated, defenceless enemy unit you can choose to enter the tactical level, and the screen display changes entirely to show a battlefield. This, quite cleverly, bears a clear relationship to the landscape on the main map; though the scale is quite wrong, for you find yourself battling all the way across the westernmost tip of Cornwall. The combat is grandly entitled the Battle Of York, or the Battle Of London, or the Battle of wherever you've decided to bash a few Roundheads. That's a fine touch, but it's offset by more basic deficiencies of detail.\r\n\r\nThough the strategic-level display is reasonably polished, the battlefield is a masterpiece of primitive-style Spectrum and looks like it's been drawn in crayon. The background is a glaring blank, the infantry units are matchstick men, and the four terrain types are represented very simplistically. It is, unfortunately, strongly reminiscent of those extremely early Spectrum games like Horace Goes Skiing.\r\n\r\nThe number of red matchstick men the player finds opposing the Roundhead blue matchstick men is related to the strength and number of armies he had ranged against the enemy in the map on the strategic level, and there's something curiously satisfying about this. According to the rules the units are distributed randomly, though they always start out in clusters of their own kind.\r\n\r\nInfantry, cavalry and artillery make up the fighting force, with the unexpected addition of supply wagons. I assume that the supply wagons are intended to represent the army's food stock - that vital statistic displayed in the strategic map - but I see no reason why they should be taken onto the battlefield, unless the troops are supposed to refresh themselves with sandwiches and cups of tea during slack phases in the fighting. Really, they're there to provide something vulnerable to attack and defend, and if you see that you' re hopelessly outnumbered it's a good idea to make straight for the enemy's food wagons and destroy as many of them as you can before you get wiped out.\r\n\r\nOrders are given to individual units with a cursor, in an unsophisticated fashion. It is difficult to extract from the rules a clear understanding of how the combat really works. It seems you can give each unit a single order to attack and then watch as it carries out the order, following the target if it moves.\r\n\r\nThis doesn't seem to work in practice. I found the only sure way to make an attack was to specify each one individually, and because this is a game played in real time the old problems arise: you can only deal with one unit at one time. To be fair, the number of units involved are small enough to be manageable, though this style of frantic, cursor-hopping play - does destroy the atmosphere. As each attack is made, the 'before and after' strength of each unit is flashed at the bottom of the screen.\r\n\r\nStrength units tend to be chipped off at the rate of one per unit, with only minor and not very predictable variations. Even artillery units firing at long range lose a strength point when they make an attack, and this seems illogical to me. I was disconcerted to discover that my food wagons made pretty invincible fighting machines when I tried to attack with them; either the rock buns are pretty old, or there's a bug in the program. The enemy's food wagons are easy to destroy.\r\n\r\nThere is some variety in the play of the battle scenes. The 'defensible area' type of terrain allows infantry to shelter from attack, and though the woods and hills seem to have no effect on combat it's impossible to move across rivers. And, like all simplistic games, Roundheads has a degree of tacky addictiveness.\r\n\r\nThe battle lasts as long as it takes for one side to eliminate the other, or till you choose to exit from it. The instructions claim that you can only do this after 15 minutes, but this is incorrect; maybe it's a misprint for '5 minutes'. When you're returned to the strategic screen the appropriate army counter has disappeared and the attacking forces are depleted according to the losses suffered. This is where I feel a sense of involvement could be generated by giving the units names, names carried over to the individual divisions in the battle scenes. It would be satisfying to know which divisions belong to which army, which are trained soldiers and which are volunteer rabble. The distinction vanishes into anonymity at the tactical level.\r\n\r\nThere are several irritating points of presentation. The rules are vague and confusing. The instructions on giving orders are ambiguous, the Cavalier unit symbols aren't shown, and there's no warning that the game has to be reloaded if you want to start again. The game is artificially slowed down by the rule which insists that three minutes must separate each entry to tactical battle, a restraint which seems to be designed to make the two-player game fairer. In the one-player version it's simply irritating.\r\n\r\nRoundheads isn't as bad as it looks; I enjoyed it up to a point, and see the potential of some of the things it tries to do. But there's a lack of detail, depth, atmosphere and - somehow - solidity, deficiencies which are all too common in Spectrum wargames.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"103,104,105","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Philippa Irving","Score":"59","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"Horace Goes Skiing in the 17th century?"},{"Text":"Rough edges spoil an imaginative concept in Roundheads."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Presentation","Score":"70%","Text":"It's reasonably poilished in places, and the orders system is so simplistic that it would be hard to make it cumbersome."},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"60%","Text":"The strategic-level map is presentable if unimaginative. The tactical map, though serving its functions, is in the Horace Goes Skiing school of Spectrum art."},{"Header":"Rules","Score":"50%","Text":"Hardly voluminous, considering the potential of the historical subject, and bordering on the inadequate."},{"Header":"Authenticity","Score":"55%","Text":"Real-time setting destroys the atmosphere, and lack of geographical information and unit names doesn't help."},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"70%","Text":"Certainly easy to get into, and smoothly-flowing."},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"59%","Text":"Some interesting features, but missable."}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 20, Aug 1987","Price":"£1.5","ReleaseDate":"1987-07-09","Editor":"Teresa Maughan","TotalPages":98,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Teresa Maughan\r\nArt Editor: Peter George\r\nProduction Editor: Sara Biggs\r\nTechnical Editor: Phil South\r\nSoftware Editor: Marcus Berkmann\r\nDesigner: Darrell King\r\nEditorial Assistant: Angela Eager\r\nContributors: Audrey Bishop, Owen Bishop, Richard Blaine, Chris Donald, Mike Gerrard, Ian Hoare, Gwyn Hughes, ZZKJ, Cliff Joseph, Tony Lee, John O'Molly, Rick Robson, Peter Shaw, 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 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 ©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":"FAX BOX\nTitle: Roundheads\nPublisher: Lothlorien\nPrice: £9.95\nReviewer: Owen Bishop, Audrey Bishop\n\nIt's 1642, and the Royalists are fighting against the Round-heads. Troops rush around the country commandeering food, and are likely to change sides when they're too tar from home. You need a well contented, well-fed force before you can even think shout challenging the enemy. This is strategy! Alternating with this, you deploy men on the battlefield. There's varied terrain and three types of fighting unit, which is where your tactical ingenuity comes in.\n\nAt strategic level the screen shows a map of Britain, with armies frenziedly mobilizing. You need to be nippy on the keyboard as you prepare your forces for conflict. As you move your cursor, a close-up view scrolls in a window on the left of the screen. When you're ready to fight, move your cursor on to the enemy unit and press the challenge key. The challenge may or may not be taken up, though we never discovered why or why not. If it is, the game proceeds to the tactical level. The display changes to a map of the battlefield with the troops already in position. Now follows a rapid shoot-out between opposing forces. All good fun, if you like to play your wargames at breakneck speed. The more contemplative player can press the pause key when the going gets too hot.\n\nThe battles are based on historical engagements and vary in type from disorganised affrays to copy-book confrontations (infantry and artillery in the centre, cavalry on the flanks), and include a few sieges. There's plenty of variety to test your tactical skills. When you've had enough you can abandon the battle. After it's over, you return to strategic level again, preparing once more to fight. The game alternates between strategy and tactics until one side wins (the instructions say nothing precise about victory conditions.)\n\nIn short, the instruction leaflet is appalling. Lothlorien has been really mean. It took us ages to work out the mechanics of the game and what the map symbols represent. And were still in the dark on several important aspects of play. Strategically boring, tactically interesting and exciting, though too fast for well-planned and executed manoeuvres. Quirky at times. Buy it if you like a good, fast zap!","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"74","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Owen Bishop","Score":"6","ScoreSuffix":"/10"},{"Name":"Audrey Bishop","Score":"6","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"6/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"6/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Value For Money","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Strategy","Score":"5/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"6/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]