[{"TitleName":"Special Operations","Publisher":"MC Lothlorien Ltd","Author":"Keith Hunt","YearOfRelease":"1984","ZxDbId":"0004701","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 9, Oct 1984","Price":"£0.85","ReleaseDate":"1984-09-27","Editor":"Roger Kean","TotalPages":128,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Roger Kean\r\nConsultant Editor: Franco Frey\r\nProduction Designer: David Western\r\nArt Editor: Oliver Frey\r\nAdventure Editor: Derek Brewster\r\nStaff Writer: Lloyd Mangram\r\nContributing Writers: Matthew Uffindel, Chris Passey\r\nClient Liaison: John Edwards\r\nSubscription Manager: Denise Roberts\r\nCirculation Manager: Tom Hamilton\r\nAll circulation enquiries should ring [redacted]\r\n\r\n©1984 Newsfield Limited.\r\nCrash Micro is published monthly by Newsfield Ltd. [redacted]\r\n\r\nGeneral correspondence to: [redacted]\r\n\r\nTelephone numbers\r\nGeneral office [redacted]\r\nEditorial/studio [redacted]\r\nAdvertising [redacted]\r\nHot Line [redacted]\r\n\r\nNo material may be reproduced in whole or in part without written consent from the copyright holders.\r\n\r\nPhotosetting by SIOS [redacted]\r\nColour origination by Scan Studios, [redacted]\r\nPrinted in England by Carlisle Web Offset Ltd (Member of the BPCC Group), [redacted].\r\nDistribution by COMAG, [redacted]\r\n\r\nSubscriptions: 12 issues £10.50 (UK Mainland post free)\r\nEurope: 12 issues £17.50 (post free).\r\n\r\nWe cannot undertake to return any written or photographic material sent to CRASH Magazine unless accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope.\r\n\r\nCover by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"SPECIAL OPERATIONS\r\n\r\nProducer: M.C. Lothlorien\r\nRetail Price: £5.95\r\nAuthor: K. Hunt\r\n\r\nThis adventure wargame set in the latter days of World War II has you searching a vast complex beneath an enemy compound where a new and highly secret weapon is nearing completion. Intelligence reports suggest the weapon carries a bacteriological virus and it may well prove necessary to destroy it - lets hope it's a 99% household germ.\r\n\r\nEarly on you set a time limit for one of the objectives (there's a whole string of them) - say 60 hours - which becomes the rendezvous time for your pickup transport plane. The time elapsed since the start of the mission is constantly displayed in hours and minutes. Different actions and skills consume differing amounts of time; moving through the forest is more arduous than moving through the complex. The instructions suggest you create excitement by giving yourself a more limited time than the maximum allowed.\r\n\r\nThere are 30 skills to choose from including for example Biologist, Electronics, Explosives, Midget and Acrobat. The Leader is assumed proficient in all skills but the strain of the mission limits their use. All other characters have just two skills with their main skill used to describe the character, e.g., Chemist. At any one time in the mission you only have the use of three skills so choosing the four members of your team and when to make use of each skill is important to the success of the mission. To help you make a wise selection of team members you have time for eight interviews which reveal secondary skills, e.g., the Physicist might also be a Doctor, after which process you must select your team and set off. Your final choice is between the seven different objectives of varying difficulty.\r\n\r\nOnce you've finally finished selecting time, team and objective you then have a curious one minute wait while the computer frantically assembles a game good enough to justify all the hard work you've done.\r\n\r\nMuch of the play is centred around the three main scenarios of forest, compound and complex.\r\n\r\nYou are parachuted into the centre of the forest close to the target area and your position is denoted with a flashing square. A key to the forest features can be summoned up onto the bottom of the screen while you try to distinguish between the similar looking blobs in squares. To move you might type in ms to move south and it wouldn't be long before you found yourself up against an enemy patrol.\r\n\r\nDuring combat your men are shown at the bottom of the skirmish zone map as numbers 1 (the Leader) to 5 and the enemy are represented by varying numbers at the top. Each of your men selects a target and can then move two squares to either get into a better firing position or take cover. In order to hit a target there must be a dear line of sight unobstructed by trees or men. You can actually see your projectile pass across the screen but its path appears erratic due to character block movement - this looks primitive in these days of sprite graphics.\r\n\r\nYou possess an aerial photograph of the compound but your position on the map only shows as much as you can see on the ground. The entrance to the underground complex lies in the centre of the compound and is heavily guarded. The photograph you have obtained only succeeds in convincing you of the foolishness of the mission.\r\n\r\nSpecial Operations is a dauntingly complex wargame with simple character block graphics. The instructions do little to make the game any easier to play and so it takes quite some time before you can achieve any degree of success.\r\n\r\nDifficulty: Difficult to complete\r\nGraphics: Yes\r\nPresentation: Good\r\nInput Facility: Very limited\r\nResponse: Good\r\nSpecial Features: This is an unusual adventure/wargame","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"General Rating: Average.","Page":"69","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Derek Brewster","Score":"6","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Atmosphere","Score":"6/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Vocabulary","Score":"2/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Logic","Score":"5/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Debugging","Score":"9/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall Value","Score":"6/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Big K Issue 8, Nov 1984","Price":"£0.85","ReleaseDate":"1984-10-20","Editor":"Tony Tyler","TotalPages":124,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Tony Tyler\r\nAssisted By: Richard Burton\r\nArt Editor: Ian Stead\r\nFeatures: Nicky Xikluna\r\nContributors: Andy Green; Kim Aldis (Features); Steve Keaton; Richard Cook; Richard Taylor; Bernard Turner; David Rimmer; John Conquest; Nigel Farrier, Duncan Gamble; Tony Benyon; Fin Fahey\r\nPublisher: Barry Leverett\r\nPublishing Director: John Purdie\r\nGroup Advertising Controller: Luis Bartlett\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Robin Johnson [redacted]\r\n\r\nEditorial Address: [redacted]\r\nTelephone: [redacted]\r\n\r\nPublished approximately on the 20th of each month by IPC Magazines Ltd. [redacted]. Monotone and colour origination by G.M. Litho Ltd [redacted]. Printed in England by Chase Web Offset, Cornwall. Sole Agents: Australia and New Zealand, Gordon& Gotch (A/sia) Ltd.; South Africa, Central News Agency Ltd. BIG K is sold subject to the following conditions, namely that it shall not, without the written consent of the Publishers first given, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade at more than the recommended selling price shown on the cover, and that it shall not be lent, resold or hired out or otherwise disposed of in a mutilated constitute or any unauthorised cover by way of trade or affixed to as part of any publication or advertising, literary or pictorial matter whatsoever. IPC MAGAZINES 1984."},"MainText":"MAKER: Lothlorien\r\nFORMAT: cassette\r\nPRICE: £5.95\r\n\r\nAnother of those Lothlorien strategy things where poor graphics (matchstick men, wobbly bullets, squiggly forests etc) and sluggish responses make play a bore. You handpick a commando team according to individual skills and then set about one of seven increasingly difficult objectives - from locating the enemy compound, through getting stuff out of it, to destroying it altogether.\r\n\r\nPlay takes place on two screens: one a map of the area, the other for individual locations and combat. Apart from moving, you have only about a dozen options. Frankly, since I discovered Lords Of Midnight, strategy games like this just seem pathetic. But then I never liked them very much anyway.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"14","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Dave Rimmer","Score":"0","ScoreSuffix":"/3"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"0/3","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"1/3","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"0/3","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"0/3","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Micro Adventurer Issue 9, Jul 1984","Price":"£0.75","ReleaseDate":"1984-06-21","Editor":"Graham Cunningham","TotalPages":48,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Graham Cunningham\r\nAssistant Editor: Martin Croft\r\nSoftware Editor: Graham Taylor\r\nMaster Adventurers: Tony Bridge, Mike Grace\r\nEditorial Secretary: Cleo Cherry\r\nAdvertisement Manager: David Lake\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Simon Langston\r\nAdministration: Theresa Lacy\r\nManaging Editor: Brendon Gore\r\nPublishing Director: Jenny Ireland\r\nTelephone number (all departments): [redacted]\r\nUK Address: [redacted]\r\nUS Address: [redacted]\r\nSubscriptions: UK £10.00 for 12 issues, overseas surface (excluding US and Canada) £16 for 12 issues, US and Canada air-lifted US$33.95 for 12 issues.\r\n\r\nMicro Adventurer is published monthly by Sunshine Books, Scot Press Ltd. Typesetting by In-Step Ltd, [redacted]. Printed by Eden Fisher (Southend) Ltd, [redacted]. Distributed by SM Distribution, [redacted].\r\n\r\nISSN 0265-4156\r\n\r\nRegistered at the Post Office as a newspaper.\r\n\r\n© Sunshine Books 1984"},"MainText":"SOME THING SPECIAL\r\n\r\nMICRO: Spectrum 48K\r\nPRICE: £5.95\r\nFORMAT: Cassette\r\nSUPPLIER: MC Lothlorien, [redacted]\r\n\r\nIs this a wargame or is it an adventure I ask myself. And quick as a flash the answer comes back: \"Yes it is!\"\r\n\r\nI cannot classify Special Operations. It has many of the elements of a quest-type adventure but is set in World War II, involves a fair number of squad level tactical decisions and includes a small graphic combat game for those tricky encounters with enemy patrols.\r\n\r\nIt is really an adventure because the essence of the game is discovering one or several items. In the first scenario you must find the secret compound and report to base, having been parachuted into an enemy forest. In later scenarios you must find your way into the compound or the even more secret complex, take photographs or find secret plans or commit acts of sabotage. You have to wander through the forest exploring caves and pits, sometimes finding useful treasures like books of cyphers, sometimes falling foul of a German patrol.\r\n\r\nThis game is really too full to give a fair description. It uses an excellent input system, once you get used to it, requiring two-letter combinations to carry out instructions but no pressing of the <ENTER> key. So it is almost as friendly as single key input but allows 26 * 26 possible commands. The screen is split into three - a constant left-hand display of the forest, a constant three-line space at the bottom for commands and messages, and a right-hand graphic area for showing various tactical displays, such as the cave maps for exploring and the combat maps for dallying with enemy patrols. However, when you find the compound a full screen map of this is given, so you can see that graphically it is well thought out and interesting.\r\n\r\nThe special operations group that you command consists of five people chosen for their skills (with a range of 30 possible skills ranging from acrobat to linguist to pilot). Only by experience do you learn which combinations of skills work best in which scenario and one of the difficulties of playing the game is the fact that the most important people seem to be killed first. So the combat section is not an irrelevant decoration but an important aspect of the game.\r\n\r\nIn fact the whole game plays very much like a commando raid on a foreign territory and I heartily recommend it. One small piece of advice - don't order your sniper to use his skill when there is nothing to shoot at; you won't be pleased by the results.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"20","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Noel Williams","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]