[{"TitleName":"Big Ben Strikes Again","Publisher":"Artic Computing Ltd","Author":"John Prince","YearOfRelease":"1985","ZxDbId":"0000517","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 23, Dec 1985","Price":"£0.95","ReleaseDate":"1985-11-21","Editor":"Graeme Kidd","TotalPages":172,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Publishing Executive: Roger Kean\r\nEditor: Graeme Kidd\r\nTechnical Editor: Franco Frey\r\nArt Editor: Oliver Frey\r\nProduction Designer: David Western\r\nProduction Assistants: Gordon Druce, Matthew Uffindell\r\nSoftware Editor: Jeremy Spencer\r\nAdventure Editor: Derek Brewster\r\nSub Editor: Sean Masterson\r\nStaff Writer: Lloyd Mangram\r\nContributing Writers: Chris Passey, Robin Candy, Ben Stone, John Minson, Mark Hamer, Gary Liddon, Julian Rignall, Gary Penn\r\nClient Liaison: John Edwards\r\nSubscription Manager: Denise Roberts\r\nMail Order: Carol Kinsey\r\n\r\n©1985 Newsfield Limited.\r\nCrash Magazine is published monthly by Newsfield Ltd. [redacted]\r\n\r\nSubscriptions [redacted]\r\nEditorial/studio [redacted]\r\nAdvertising [redacted]\r\n\r\nColour origination by Scan Studios, [redacted]; Printed in England by Carlisle Web Offset Ltd (Member of the BPCC Group), [redacted].\r\nDistribution by COMAG, [redacted]\r\n\r\nSubscriptions: 12 issues £14.50 post included (UK Mainland); Europe: 12 issues £21.50 post included. Outside Europe by arrangement in writing.\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 Magazine 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. The opinions and views of correspondents are their own and not necessarily in accord with those of the publishers.\r\n\r\nMICRONET:\r\nYou can talk to CRASH via Micronet. Our MBX is 105845851\r\n\r\nCover by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"Producer: Artic\r\nRetail Price: £6.95\r\nLanguage: Machine code\r\nAuthor: John Prince\r\n\r\nHere's your chance to meet some of the big names in politics! With the release of Big Ben Strikes Again Artic have brought the caricatured faces of some of the most well known Members of Parliament to your Spectrum. The game is basically a platform arcade affair with nasties being the members of Mrs Thatcher's government, assorted notes of varying currency, bouncing barrels and helicopters! All the mobile nasties patrol an area of the screen rather can seeking out Ben, but are deadly if he blunders into them. Ben (he of the title) is in fact a reporter looking for an exclusive about the government, for his paper, rather than the famous clock-tower.\r\n\r\nBen is on a mission his nose for news has caught a whiff of a potential scoop, and he's travelling round the Houses of Parliament trying to piece together the big story he's sure is about to break. Ben has to collect gifts for the various political figures in the game, and present them in exchange for leaked items of news. All kinds of bits and pieces can be picked up on the way around the screens and added to Ben's inventory by simply walking over them.\r\n\r\nTo get the rather portly character you control from one screen to another, you use doorways which may be anywhere on the screens. You don't have to complete one screen before moving on to the next, so it's fairly easy to go exploring straight away. Jumping and falling gets you to different levels (though falling too far is fatal), and there's the odd ladder to scamper up and down tool.\r\n\r\nThe game comes with a fairly comprehensive screen editor which is menu driven and allows you to tinker with the contents of individual rooms or completely redesign them if you so wish. Once a screen has been modified or designed from scratch you can save it to tape and play it again whenever you like. Indeed you can fine tune selected screens in the game as supplied, making them harder or more difficult according to your taste. Alternatively, there's no reason why you couldn't assemble a completely new game to amuse yourself with - but you are stuck with the library of mobile characters and can't design new nasties of your own.\r\n\r\nCOMMENTS\r\n\r\nControl keys: Q up, A down, O left, P right, BOTTOM ROW jump\r\nJoystick: Sinclair, Kempston, Cursor\r\nKeyboard play: adequate\r\nUse of colour: overdone\r\nGraphics: very poor, with odd exceptions\r\nSound: below average\r\nSkill levels: one, but you can adjust the difficulty\r\nScreens: 20","ReviewerComments":["Oh dear. Flickery sprites abound. Poor graphics and error checks riddle the game with faults. Good caricatures of some of the politicians are lost in this otherwise abysmal game. Very, very primitive. Don't buy this.\r\r\nUnknown","Apart from the slight amusement caused by the mega headed caricatures of the Tory cabinet, the overall fun got from this game was, as near as makes no odds - nothing. The sprites flicker at a horrendous rate, and the checks to see if you've hit a baddie are appallingly poor on occasions. After Mutant Monty, which I really liked, Artic have really come down in the world. Definitely not a winner.\r\r\nUnknown","At first glance this just looks like a boring platform game with a few interesting little caricatures of politicians, but little else going for it. Then you find out about the screen redesigner and things look up. In tests I couldn't change the position of the moving characters once I'd put them in a screen I was designing without scrubbing the whole lot and starting again. A bit frustrating. Lode Runner did this sort of thing much better. For the price, this game falls short and lets Artic down. They can do better.\r\nUnknown"],"OverallSummary":"General Rating: Not a wonderful offering; unattractive at £6.95.","Page":"88","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Unknown","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""},{"Name":"Unknown","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""},{"Name":"Unknown","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"BIG BEN STRIKES AGAIN from Artic, with lots of caricatures of famous figures combined with arcade action. Could that be Nigel be up there?"}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Use of Computer","Score":"40%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"39%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"39%","Text":""},{"Header":"Getting Started","Score":"69%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictive Qualities","Score":"50%","Text":""},{"Header":"Value For Money","Score":"33%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"42%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Spectrum Issue 21, Dec 1985","Price":"£0.95","ReleaseDate":"1985-11-21","Editor":"Kevin Cox","TotalPages":82,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Kevin Cox\r\nArt Editor: Martin Dixon\r\nDeputy Editor: Peter Shaw\r\nProduction Editor: Teresa Maughan\r\nEditorial Consultant: Andrew Pennell\r\nSoftware Consultant: Gavin Monk\r\nContributors: Stephen Adams, Dougie Bern, Nick Davies, Peter Freebrey, Ross Holman, Dave Janda, Max Phillips, Rick Robson, Tony Samuels, Chris Wood, Phil South\r\nAdvertisement Manager: David Baskerville\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Neil Dyson\r\nProduction Manager: Sonia Hunt\r\nGroup Advertisement Manager: Chris Talbot\r\nManaging Editor: Roger Munford\r\nArt Director: Jimmy Egerton\r\nPublisher: Stephen England\r\n\r\nPublished by Sportscene Specialist Press Ltd, [redacted] Company registered in England. Telephone (all departments): [redacted]\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 Spectrum ©1985 Felden productions, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of the publishers. Your Spectrum is a monthly publication."},"MainText":"BIG BEN STRIKES AGAIN\r\nArtic\r\n£6.95\r\n\r\nRoss: Big Ben Strikes Again, or does he? Bungling Ben, the hopeless hack from the Chronicle, has just received a report of a leak in Parliament. So off he bumbles down to Westminster for the scoop of the century - or that's the theory anyway!\r\n\r\nAs Ben you've got to chase around the House looking for the six politicians who'll help you unravel your story. There's no doubt that Spitting Image would certainly be proud of the caricatures of the leading MPs! But you can't just go charging up to them and expect them to hand you the story on a plate. Oh no siree, you have to collect gifts for them in exchange for their snippets of information. Like all politicians they just love to be pampered! Hurry though, you must have your story before Big Ben strikes twelve. Perhaps you've never seen the wrath of an editor when you hand in late copy - it starts 'em foaming at the mouth. (Grrrr! Ed).\r\n\r\nOne of the best features of this game is the screen editor and designer that's included in the program. It's strides ahead of some of the game designer packages I've seen. It lets you completely re-design and add new features to any of the twenty screens, so you never have to play the same game twice. Give it a go if you're into designing your own games.","ReviewerComments":["It's worth taking a look at this one if only for the cracking caricatures of our illustrious (ho hum) leaders. Whether it's worth playing is another matter.\r\nRick Robson\r\n5/10","Hmm, the age of flickering graphics isn't dead - thanks to a comeback in this game.\r\nDougie Bern\r\n4/10"],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"50","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Ross Holman","Score":"5","ScoreSuffix":"/10"},{"Name":"Rick Robson","Score":"5","ScoreSuffix":"/10"},{"Name":"Dougie Bern","Score":"4","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 45, Dec 1985","Price":"£0.95","ReleaseDate":"1985-11-18","Editor":"Bill Scolding","TotalPages":156,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"EDITORIAL\r\nEditor: Bill Scolding\r\nDeputy Editor: John Gilbert\r\nStaff Writers: Chris Bourne, Clare Edgeley\r\nDesigner: Gareth Jones\r\nEditorial Secretary: Norisah Fenn\r\nPublisher: Neil Wood\r\n\r\nADVERTISING\r\nAdvertising Manager: Louise Fanthorpe\r\nDeputy Advertisement Manager: Shahid Nizam\r\nAdvertisement Sales Executive: Kathy McLennan\r\nProduction Assistant: Jim McClure\r\nAdvertisement Secretary: Linda Everest\r\n\r\nMAGAZINE SERVICES\r\nSubscriptions Manager: Carl Dunne\r\n\r\nTELEPHONE\r\nAll departments [redacted]\r\n\r\nSinclair User is published monthly by EMAP Business & Computer Publications\r\n\r\nCover Photograph: Spitting Image Productions Ltd.\r\n\r\nIf you would like to contribute to Sinclair User please send programs or articles to:\r\nSinclair User\r\nEMAP Business & Computer Publications\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nOriginal programs should be on cassette and articles should be typed. We cannot undertake to return them unless a stamped-addressed envelope is included. Please write 'Program Printout' on the envelopes of all cassettes submitted.\r\n\r\nWe pay £20 for each program printed and £50 for star programs.\r\n\r\nTypeset by Saffron Graphics Ltd, [redacted]\r\nPrinted by Peterboro' Web, [redacted]\r\nDistributed by EMAP Publications Ltd.\r\n\r\n©Copyright 1985 Sinclair User ISSN No 0262-5458\r\n\r\n102,023 Jan-Jun 1985"},"MainText":"Publisher: Artic\r\nPrice: £6.95\r\nMemory: 48K\r\nJoystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Cursor\r\n\r\nTop Tory ministers were last night revealed in a leaks-for-favours scandal which seems set to shake the very core of Mrs Thatcher's Government.\r\n\r\nChronical reporter Big Ben claims that while in pursuit of a major scoop he discovered senior cabinet ministers flickering through the sprite-ridden corridors of power, prepared to accept gifts in return for portions of his story.\r\n\r\nBen, tired and emotional after his ordeal, described the interior of the Palace of Westminster as \"a crazy world of levels and ladders. Some of the rooms are extremely difficult to negotiate, others a simple matter. And there's the most awful music coming from somewhere, it drives me potty.\"\r\n\r\nNew revelations include allowing the public to redesign the Houses of Parliament, positioning walkways and stairs where it wants.\r\n\r\nWhen asked to respond to criticism of the colour clashes involved in the new decoration scheme, the Prime Minister replied: \"Of course we care about the quality of the graphics. Of course we do. But There is No Alternative. Why don't you moaning minnies talk about the good points of the game, such as... (cont page 94).","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"32","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Chris Bourne","Score":"3","ScoreSuffix":"/5"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"3/5","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]