[{"TitleName":"Voidrunner","Publisher":"Mastertronic Added Dimension","Author":"Icon Design Ltd, Jeff Minter","YearOfRelease":"1987","ZxDbId":"0005600","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 43, Aug 1987","Price":"£1","ReleaseDate":"1987-07-30","Editor":"Roger Kean","TotalPages":116,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Roger Kean\r\nAssistant Editor: Barnaby Page\r\nStaff Writers: Lloyd Mangram, Richard Eddy, Ian Phillipson, Ben Stone\r\nPhotographers: Cameron Pound, Michael Parkinson\r\nOffice: Sally Newman\r\nTechnical Editor: Simon N Goodwin\r\nAdventure: Derek Brewster\r\nPBM: Brendon Kavanagh\r\nStrategy: Philippa Irving\r\nLondon: John Minson\r\nContributors: Gareth Adams, Jon Bates, Robin Candy, Mel Croucher, Mike Dunn, Franco Frey, Dominic Handy, Nick Roberts, Mark Rothwell, Paul Sumner\r\n\r\nPRODUCTION\r\n\r\nProduction Controller: David Western\r\nArt Director: Gordon Druce\r\nIllustrator: Oliver Frey\r\nLayout: Tony Lorton, Mark Kendrick, Tim Croton, Seb Clare\r\nProcess and Planning: Matthew Uffindell, Jonathan Rignall, Nick Orchard\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Roger Bennett\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Nick Wild\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\nColour origination by Scan Studios [redacted]\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":"Producer: M.A.D.\r\nRetail Price: £2.99\r\nAuthor: Jeff Minter\r\n\r\nThe Droid Wars are over, but the vengeful losers are intent upon attacking the Home-world with a retaliatory holocaust. They must be stopped.\r\n\r\nYou have control of a multi-directional green command craft supported by three drone fighters. At first these adopt a clustered grouping around the command ship, but on higher levels they go into symmetrical formations and move in different patterns.\r\n\r\nEach craft has a blaster that can fire independently (and in later space regions they can fire in different directions).\r\n\r\nSome aliens move predictably and others randomly; some drop bombs and others fire lasers. Some have to be blasted several times before they're destroyed, and then can spawn other aliens. There are 30 waves of attackers, and all aliens within a wave must be destroyed before the next can be tackled.\r\n\r\nA periodically pulsing 'zapper' line scans the screen from top to bottom. If the command ship is on the line when it pulses, you and your drone craft are destroyed.\r\n\r\nCOMMENTS\r\n\r\nControl keys: Q/A up/down O/P left/right, SPACE for fire\r\nJoystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface II\r\nUse of colour: lots of it\r\nGraphics: simple and plain\r\nSound: little\r\nSkill levels: one\r\nScreens: plenty to hold your interest","ReviewerComments":["Voidrunner is in the classic blast-'em-up mould. Like most of the Jeff Minter games I've seen, it's fast, colourful, and above all weird. Controlling the ships is easy, but keeping out of the way of the aliens is hard. I wasn't very impressed with the graphics - after playing the 16K Commodore version I felt more could have been done for the Spectrum. But the game isn't bad, and if you want an addictive blast you could do worse than buy this.\r\r\nMark Rothwell","It's hard to describe Voidrunner's graphics as anything but poor - small, ill-defined clusters of pixels that don't seem to represent anything. And once I got over that shock I found Voidrunner a very poor Centipede variant. The inlay suggests this is a highly innovative shoot-'em-up, but the reality is disappointing. Controlling the four ships is quite easy and the keys are very responsive, so the game is simple to get into and playable for a while, but it's hardly addictive. Centipede games can be fun if you want to wallow in an afternoon's nostalgia, but there are better ones, and I expected a bit more of a game with the brains of Jeff Minter behind it.\r\r\nRobin Candy","At first sight Voidrunner looks very drab. But playing it converted me! The speed is just right: verging on the impossible, but fast enough to encourage you to keep going. My only gripe with the gameplay is my index finger, which took quite a battering after the first level. I was a bit disappointed by the second stage, which is basically a reversal of the first; but it's no cop-out, as the reversal calls for entirely different playing techniques. This is the first of the cult Minter games I've played, and I'm waiting for more…\r\nMike Dunn"],"OverallSummary":"General Rating: Mixed opinions but generally considered above average - Minter freaks may find it more appealing.","Page":"23","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Mark Rothwell","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""},{"Name":"Robin Candy","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""},{"Name":"Mike Dunn","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"The look of yesteryear - fast pixels from Jeff Minter make for a classic shoot-'em-up."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Presentation","Score":"66%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"38%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"59%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictive Qualities","Score":"58%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"54%","Text":""}],"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":"M.A.D.\n£2.99\nReviewer: Rick Robson\n\nDouble hoopy hot stuff! All you (slightly) wrinklies out there will probably remember Voidrunner as an all time Commodore classic from Jeff Minter's vivid imagination. Many eons later, here's MAD's Speccy conversion - and it's one of cosmic wonderousness!\n\nThe first thing to say is that Voidrunner is no relation, poor or otherwise, to Bladerunner. It's made up of pure violence, going back to the good old days when Speccy programs were lovely and violent and Speccy players were glad of it. Voidrunner deals in ultra-death and hyper-violence - nothing more and nothing less!\n\nAll you do is command your crack corps of ships (you start with four, flying in Red Arrows formation) against the remorseless onslaught of wave after wave of aliens. There is no firepower, time or energy limit, and the whole screen is free for gameplay. You start with five lives, but for every wave you vanquish, you gain another life, up to a total of nine.\n\nThere's nothing very sophisticated about the enemy either. They have eight basic forms, few can actually attack you, and those that can are easily avoided. Most are just cattle to the slaughter!\n\nSo, okay, where's all the fun in this? Well, Voidrunner has none of this messing about with poncy graphics and whizzy sound. What it does have is more aliens moving faster in more directions in true pyrotechnicolour than any other game of the type. And what's more, on each level you get onto, you get more ships which can fire independently at all angles until the whole screen's just one boiling mass of total death and destruction. It's one magic game.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"A simple but sensational shoot 'em up of awesome speed and multiple levels. Not for the faint-hearted or weak-wristed.","Page":"63","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Rick Robson","Score":"8","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"6/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Value For Money","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"8/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 66, Sep 1987","Price":"£1","ReleaseDate":"1987-08-18","Editor":"David Kelly","TotalPages":108,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: David Kelly\r\nDeputy Editor: Graham Taylor\r\nStaff Writer: Jim Douglas\r\nStaff Writer: Tamara Howard\r\nArt Editor: Gareth Jones\r\nAdventure Help: Gordo Greatbelly\r\nZapchat: Jon Riglar\r\nHelpline: Andrew Hewson\r\nContributors: Richard Price, Andy Moss, Gary Rook\r\nHardware Correspondent: Rupert Goodwins\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Louise Fanthorpe\r\nDeputy Advertisement Manager: Mike Corr\r\nProduction Assistant: Alison Morton\r\nAdvertisement Secretary: Linda Everest\r\nSubscriptions Manager: Carl Dunne\r\nPublisher: Terry Pratt\r\n\r\nTelephone [redacted]\r\n\r\nSubscription Enquiries [redacted]\r\n\r\nSinclair User is published monthly by EMAP Business & Computer Publications\r\n\r\nCover Illustration: Lee Sullivan, Jerry Paris, James MacDonald\r\n\r\nSinclair User\r\nEMAP Business & Computer Publications\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nTypeset by PRS Ltd, [redacted]\r\nPrinted by Nene River Press, [redacted]\r\nDistributed by EMAP Publications Ltd.\r\n\r\n©Copyright 1986 Sinclair User ISSN No 0262-5458\r\n\r\nABC 84,699 July-Dec 1986"},"MainText":"Label: Mastertronic\r\nAuthor: Icon\r\nPrice: £2.99\r\nMemory: 48K/128K\r\nJoystick: various\r\nReviewer: Tony Dillon\r\n\r\nLook into my eyes. You are getting sleepy, ever so sleepy. You are going baaack... baacckk... back to the time of mutant camels and strange colours. When I count three, you will awake and Jeff Minter will arise to rehaunt you down to your local software dealer. One, two, three.\r\n\r\nIt's true! Jeff's back with a vengeance. Icon design has lovingly converted his old C64 hit Voidrunner to Spectrum, and I think its got a hit on its hands.\r\n\r\nSo what kind of game is it? After wading through all the blurb, you eventually realise it's a basic shoot-em-up. Pure and simple. Just weaving around the screen making \"neeow doo-doo boom\" noises, destroying droids and camels alike and saving the Earth. No big deal for hardened tough guys (or tough persons, if you want to be technical).\r\n\r\nThe game has you flying vertically, blasting away at all sorts of 'orrible meanies which react in different ways - some explode while some leave pods behind which have to be shot again.\r\n\r\nYour ship, or rather, group of ships change formation as you zoom from level to level, each with an animally sort of name such as Llama, Goat, or Sheep. This insures that the amazingly cool tactics that you used to get off the last level are not necessarily going to get you through the next.\r\n\r\nVoidrunner is fast, colourful, highly playable, extremely addictive and a snip at the price. In the immortal words of Douglas Adams: \"Boffo. A good one\".","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"Minter madness comes to town - llamas, goats, sheep. What else do you want? Great fun at a great price.","Page":"52","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Tony Dillon","Score":"8","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"8/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]