[{"TitleName":"Strider II","Publisher":"U.S. Gold Ltd","Author":"Mark Tait","YearOfRelease":"1990","ZxDbId":"0004944","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 83, Dec 1990","Price":"£1.85","ReleaseDate":"1990-11-15","Editor":"Oliver Frey","TotalPages":76,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"EDITORIAL\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nEditor: Oliver Frey\r\nFeatures Editor: Richard Eddy\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: George Keenan\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 CRSH will be edited as seen fit and payment wil 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 1989 A Newsfield Publication. ISSN 0954-8661. Cover Design by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"US Gold\r\n£10.99\r\n\r\nMagenta - a far-off planet in the future is the setting for this, the sequel to the arcade giant Strider. What is our friend Strider Hiryu up to this time, then? Well, he's off to rescue a female world leader from the slimy grips of a band of dastardly aliens. In this light for freedom the only weapons around to help him in his quest are his sword and a new Gyro laser gun, just right for squishing all those nasties.\r\n\r\nThe levels are packed full of platforms and lifts, and there are now ropes and chains for our hero to climb to get out of reach of death. Strider's adventures take him through the forest where his space ship lands, underground caverns leading to a power station and the Earth spacecraft where the girl is held captive.\r\n\r\nKilling the kidnappers would be a doddle if it weren't for the inconvenience that your gun only fires when Strider is stationary. Still, the sword has a pretty impressive slicing action that should save your bacon.\r\n\r\nStrider's objective is to collect the icons situated in each level. Once they've all been found he'll have the ability to transform into a robot to help him defeat the massive end-of-level opponents.\r\n\r\nStrider didn't appeal to me, and his return doesn't cut the mustard. All that bounding around with a silly looking sword. One thing this game has which the original lacked is colour. No more 100% monochrome: you now have coloured trees and platforms. This, of course, brings our old friend Miss Colourclash onto the scene. Whenever Strider jumps or walks over the background he changes to its colour; can't be helped really. Strider II is a little better than the original: arcade freaks might find it more playable.\r\n\r\nNICK 68%","ReviewerComments":["I loved the original Strider in the arcades, though the computer version appeared in Issue 69 and received a mixed reception. Now Strider II is here and is as controversial as its predecessor. Nick disliked the original and is a misery guts about this sequel. I love it! The main character sprite is still as atheletic as ever and as a bonus now carries an extra weapon (yippee!). Another great addition is Strider's ability to don a huge armoured suit to tackle the end of level bad guy. US Gold have come up trumps again; in fact coin-oppers Capcom like it so much Strider 2 will be in your local arcade before you know it!\r\nMark Caswell\r\n88%"],"OverallSummary":"Tough but playable - a treat for arcade addicts!","Page":"71","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Nick Roberts","Score":"68","ScoreSuffix":"%"},{"Name":"Mark Caswell","Score":"88","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Presentation","Score":"72%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"74%","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"65%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"71%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictivity","Score":"75%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"78%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 61, Jan 1991","Price":"£1.85","ReleaseDate":"1990-12-06","Editor":"Matt Bielby","TotalPages":108,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Matt Bielby\r\nArt Editor: Sal Meddings\r\nProduction Editor: Andy Ide\r\nStaff Writer: Linda Barker\r\nDesign Assistant: Andy Ounsted\r\nContributors: Robin Alway, Marcus Berkmann, Jonathan Davies, Cathy Fryett, Mike Gerrard, Kati Hamza, Paul Lakin, Jon North, Rich Pelley, Keith Pomfret, David Wilson\r\nAdvertising Manager: Simon Moss\r\nPublisher: Greg Ingham\r\nAssistant Publisher: Jane Richardson\r\nPublishing Assistant: Michele Harris\r\nCirculation Director: Sue Hartley\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 1990. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission."},"MainText":"US Gold\r\n£10.99 cass\r\nReviewer: Matt Bielby\r\n\r\nI reviewed the original of this way back in November '89, so I should actually know what I'm talking about here (for once!). In a nutshell, Strider II is more colourful than its predecessor, its bigger (there are the same number of levels, but each one is a lot longer), it's got more baddies and the leading character can do more things (including climbing ropes and firing a gun).\r\n\r\nOtherwise, though, the new game is more or less exactly the same as the old one - a superior platform-and-ladders shoot-'em-up thingie, distinguished by an incredibly athletic lead character who cartwheels and bounces all over the place. And there you have it, the complete review in two paragraphs. I think I'll go home now.\r\n\r\nOh, what? You want more? Well, okay then (but just because it's you). You know the story behind Strider II, of course. In brief, Tiertex (the programming guys behind Black Tiger, Dynasty Wars and loads of other hits for US Gold) were slightly disappointed with their conversion of the original Strider. Not that it wasn't any good, you understand (after all, it earned a YS Megagame), but they couldn't use all the new ideas they came up with to improve it because of they needed to be as faithful as possible to the arcade.\r\n\r\nSo what to do? The answer, of course, was a sequel, one which would keep all the good things from Strider and improve upon (ahem) the slightly ropier ones. Hence out go the not-particularly-long levels, the relative easiness and so on, and in comes the rope-climbing and all that stuff. Since there wasn't (and still isn't) an arcade sequel to the Capcom original they were free to come up with their own game design. Capcom approved it all and the rest you see here.\r\n\r\nSo what's Strider II all about, and how well does it work on the Speccy? Well, the first thing that strikes you (even more so than most sequels) is how like the original it looks. The main sprite is a bit smaller (to allow more room for movement around the screen) but otherwise it's more or less identical. There're big dollops of spot colour thrown around the place, which help improve the look of things, but without having them side-by-side you could easily confuse the two.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately this colour does nothing to ease one of the big faults of the first game - that at times the Strider character gets lost against the complicated monochrome backdrops. Most of the time things are designed so Strider's a crisp white shape against a dark screen, but his disappearing act still niggles.\r\n\r\nBut that's about as negative as I'm going to get. In all other ways Strider II is actually jolly good. Baddies are thrown at you thick and fast, and Strider's new-found ability to shoot a gun (while standing still) as well as leap about slashing his sword adds variety to the combat sequences. He can now climb ropes too (unfortunately the graphics of him doing this are as ridiculous as every piece of rope climbing ever depicted on the Speccy) and at the end of each level he transforms into a wheeled robot creature before taking on the big baddie. This doesn't really add much to the game, but it's all part of the battle to be different, I guess.\r\n\r\nWhat else is new? Well, the plot for one thing. Here at YS we quite liked the fact that originally Strider was invading a futuristic version of Moscow, but that's all gone by the board here, instead he's rescuing the leader of the world from an alien planet or something, a much more boring task which means we don't get any red stars or ballet dancers. and have to make do with (very human-looking) aliens and ED 209 lookalikes instead.\r\n\r\nThat said, Strider II's an improvement on the original in most every respect, though somehow it's missing something - the novelty has gone. Strider was brilliant in his first incarnation because he moved so differently from most podgy sprites - now there's no surprise and it all feels much more ordinary. In fact, the whole feel of the game is that of a revamped and improved version of the original, rather than of a brand new game - hence the lower mark than the original, even though this is in almost every way better.\r\n\r\nThere is a footnote to this story however. Capcom are apparently so impressed that they've plans to use this game design as the basis to their own Strider II coin-op. It's not all that often that we get something converted the other way, is it, Spec-chums?","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"Bigger, better, more colourful sequel to Strider, though perhaps a bit too similar to the original to be a Megagame.","Page":"51","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Matt Bielby","Score":"87","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"All this climbing and leaping about stuff works very well - you could as easily jump to that chain as keep going up the"},{"Text":"Here's our hero catching a lift up to a higher platform. (Oh no! That bloke with the funny boots has missed it!)"},{"Text":"Strider drops from a rope between some zappy electro-balls in Level Two. (By the way, have you noticed how the bottom panel has changed since our Megapreview?)"}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Life Expectancy","Score":"84%","Text":""},{"Header":"Instant Appeal","Score":"84%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"89%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"86%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"87%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 106, Dec 1990","Price":"£1.85","ReleaseDate":"1990-11-18","Editor":"Garth Sumpter","TotalPages":100,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Garth Sumpter\r\nDesign: Amanda Young, Craig Kennedy\r\nSundry Staff: Oz 'The Wiz' Brown\r\nSU Crew: Chris 'Hateful' Jenkins, Gary 'Oxy 10' Whitta, Rob 'Mad Dog' Swan (Woof!)\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Jim 'Bread Head' Owens\r\nAd Production: Emma 'Sloth' Ward, Jo 'Titters' Gleissner\r\nMarketing Manager: Dean 'Commestible' Barrett\r\nMarketing Assistants: Sarah Ewing, Sarah Hillard\r\nPublisher: Graham 'A.W.O.L.' Taylor\r\nManaging Director: Terry 'Helpful' Pratt\r\n\r\n(c)1990 EMAP IMAGES\r\n\r\nDISTRIBUTION; FRONTLINE\r\n\r\nTypesetting by Garthtype\r\nTypos by A.C.C. Ident\r\nColour work by Auntie Barbara and Uncle Dave at Proprint. Swearing on the phone by Yazz at Proprint.\r\n\r\nReproduction of any part of this magazine without permission will involve retaliatory violence of bone-crunching proportions, or we'll get Yazz to phone you! (Ooouch!)"},"MainText":"Label: US Gold\r\nPrice: £9.99\r\nReviewer: 'Mad Dog' Swan\r\n\r\nHe's back, and he's brought his chopper (oo-er!). After saving the Earth from the maniacal forces of the evil Red Lord, Strider's now got an even bigger job on his hands - saving the leader of the Earth (a woman, I may add!) from the clutches of an invading alien force (not Jason Donovan)!\r\n\r\nOnce again, our Soviet hero in long johns has his trusty energy sword, complemented now by a gyro-pistol for blasting the bad guys with, and the ability to transform into a honkin' great robot with loadsa firepower! Problem is, the aliens' ain't going to let this guy just walk all over 'em, no siree. Not only have they got masses of fiendish beasties out for human blood, they've placed massive guardians at the end of each level, waiting to turn the somersaulting sword-slinger into Strider Kievs!\r\n\r\nWell, that's the story, what's the game like? Very much like the original, in fact, insofar as the platform action is involved, but the overall impression is that this is a large improvement over its predecessor. The main character leaps and bounds about at a great rate of knots, looking a whole lot healthier than before. The backgrounds and graphics in general look a lot more detailed, too. And what with the additional weapons, you've got a much better chance of getting further into the game.\r\n\r\nOverall, an excellent sequel, and a blinkin' good game in its own right. If slicing and shooting's your thang, or if you're a fan of the original, take a look. You won't be disappointed.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"A rip-snortingly great sequel to a triff game. Don't delay... Get it today!","Page":"33","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Rob Swan","Score":"85","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"'And you can have this Russian turbo sports car, in any colour as long as it's white.\" Well, do you know what it is?"},{"Text":"Going up. Strider's on his way up in the world. Let's just hope that's an express lift otherwise he going to get it in the back!"},{"Text":"Here's our hero's mode of transport. It's very nippy around the galaxy and parking problems are solved by the angled thrusters."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"86%","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"78%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"88%","Text":""},{"Header":"Lastability","Score":"84%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"85%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 109, Dec 1990","Price":"£1.3","ReleaseDate":"1990-11-16","Editor":"Julian Rignall","TotalPages":180,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Managing Editor: Julian Rignall\r\nAssociate Editor: Paul Glancey\r\nArt Editor: Angela Walker\r\nStaff Writers: Robert Swan, Richard Leadbetter\r\nAdvertising Manager: Nigel Taylor\r\nDep Ad Manager: Martha Moloughney\r\nProduction Assistant: Glenys Powell\r\nPublisher: Graham Taylor\r\nCover Artist: Jerry Paris\r\n\r\nSubscription Enquiries: C+VG Subscriptions, [redacted]\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]\r\n\r\nPrinted By: Kingfisher Web, [redacted]\r\nColour By: Proprint, [redacted]\r\nTypeset By: PG's Romulan Printer Fleet\r\nDistributed By: BBC Frontline\r\n\r\n©C+VG 1990\r\nISSN No: 0261-3697"},"MainText":"US Gold\r\nSpectrum £10.99, ST £24.99\r\n\r\nJust when Strider was considering quitting the inter-planetary peace force, the leader of Earth was kidnapped by a bunch of power-hungry aliens! So, pausing only to pick up his trusty titanium blade and his new laser gun, Strider sets off to the first of five alien territories that he will need to destroy in order to rescue the leader of Earth (who is, incidentally, a woman).\r\n\r\nThe journey to the final confrontation takes Strider through an alien-infested forest, and from then it's on to the two towers which form the outer defences of the alien world. When these defences have been well and truly breached, Strider then has to make his way through underground caverns to the generating station - destroying the enemy power-stations before finally rescuing the girl being held captive in the Earth Spacecraft.\r\n\r\nBut Strider has one more lethal trick tucked into his striding trousers. The power-up icons which are lying around endow Strider with the power to change into a robot, just the ticket for Creaming enemy guardians - and there's plenty of 'em!","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"I must've been the only person in the civilised world who thought that all versions of the original Strider were rather lacking. It came as a big surprise to find that Strider is a completely different kettle of fish. Although it's pretty far removed from the arcade original, Strider II is a whole barrel of excitement from the word go. The playability's pretty good, and Strider is really responsive. The graphics are very colourful (although the clash at times is a bit heavy on the eyes), and the scrolling is fast and pretty damn smooth. There's plenty of levels to keep you occupied and they're a bit on the large side, so lasting interest is guaranteed. The problem is that there's an absolute heap of classic Speccy platform game available (some at budget price) that are better. Buy it if you want a real Strider game.","Page":"121","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Richard Leadbetter","Score":"80","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"So cool... So mean... It's Strider!"},{"Text":"Strider blasts the meanies!"},{"Text":"Strider scales walls with ease..."},{"Text":"There's a smidgen of sampled sound for 128K owners!"}],"BlurbText":[{"Text":"ATARI ST SCORES\r\n\r\nOverall: 80%\r\n\r\nAn improvement on the original without doubt, but the cramped playing area is a bit of a downer. Recommended to platform addicts after a challenge."},{"Text":"UPDATE\r\n\r\nStrider 2 will be appearing on C64, the Amstrad CPCs and GX4000 console, and the Amiga. All versions will be out by the end of November."}],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"80%","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"72%","Text":""},{"Header":"Value","Score":"79%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"82%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"80%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]