[{"TitleName":"Blood Brothers","Publisher":"Gremlin Graphics Software Ltd","Author":"Ben Daglish, David Cooke, S. Leighton, Steve Marsden, Ian Naylor","YearOfRelease":"1988","ZxDbId":"0000584","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 54, Jul 1988","Price":"£1.5","ReleaseDate":"1988-06-30","Editor":"Steve Jarratt","TotalPages":116,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"EDITORIAL\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nEditor: Steven Jarratt\r\nDeputy Editor: Dominic Handy\r\nAssistant Editor: Katharina Hamza\r\nStaff Writers: Mark Caswell, Philip King, Lloyd Mangram, Nick Roberts\r\nTechnical Writers: Jon Bates, Simon N Goodwin\r\nEditorial Assistant: Frances Mable\r\nPhotography: Cameron Pound, Michael Parkinson (Assistant)\r\nContributors: Robin Candy, Raffaele Cecco, Mel Croucher, Paul Evans, Philippa Irving, Brendon Kavanagh, Paul Sumner\r\n\r\nPRODUCTION\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nArt Director: Mark Kendrick\r\nAssistant Art Director: Wayne Allen\r\nDesign & Layout: Yvonne Priest, Melvyn Fisher\r\nPre-Print Manager: Jonathan Rignall\r\nReprographics/Film Planning: Matthew Uffindell, Nick Orchard, Ian Chubb, Robert Millichamp\r\n\r\nPublishing Controller: David Western\r\nEditorial Director: Roger Kean\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Roger Bennett\r\nSales Executive: Andrew Smales, Sarah Chapman\r\nAssistant: Jackie Morris [redacted]\r\n\r\nMail Order: Carol Kinsey\r\nSubscriptions: Denise Roberts\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nTypeset by The Tortoise Shell Press, Ludlow. Colour origination by Scan Studios [redacted]. Printed in England by Carlisle Web Offset, [redacted] - member of the BPCC Group. Distribution by COMAG, [redacted]\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 (like a game that has been offered as a prize being scrapped) 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 Frances Mable a line at the [redacted] address). No person who has any relationship, no matter how remote, 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 is welcome, and if used in the magazine is paid for at our current rates.\r\n\r\nTotal: 96,590\r\nUK/EIRE: 90,822\r\n\r\n©CRASH Ltd, 1988\r\n\r\nCover Design & Illustration by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"Producer: Gremlin Graphics\r\nRetail Price: £7.99 cassette, £12.99 disk\r\nAuthor: Steve Marsden\r\n\r\nThe planet Sylonia is under constant attack from the Scorpions, a band of space convicts who specialise in small plundering raids. Hark and Kren, two 18-year olds, return from a jet-bike expedition to find their village burning, their home destroyed and their family dead. Shocked and confused they make a pact of blood brotherhood and resolve to seek out the murderers.\r\n\r\nControlled individually by two players, or alternately by a solo player, Hark and Kren make their way through the Scorpions' multiloaded flick-screen complex of underground tunnels and mines. Subterranean platforms overhang hazardous rivers of sludge, anti-gravity surfaces cause the heroes to float, and mining wagons roll dangerously from side to side. Aliens, which need to be shot several times, home in on the heroes and drain their energy. Each brother has a jet-pack for extra mobility, while additional equipment (guns, fuel, weapons units) and looted jewels are scattered around the environment.\r\n\r\nA display shows current energy, thrust and weapon capacity in the form of status bars. As energy and power get used up, the brothers are able share their resources on contact with each other.\r\n\r\nDifferent sections of the mine area can only be accessed via the surface. Pressing fire at the mine entrance switches into jet-bike mode. Taking control to their technologically advanced aerial craft, each brother negotiates a 3-D environment of pillars and walls displayed using a first-person perspective. By weaving in and out of the narrow gaps and sooting obstructing blocks, the blood brothers attempt to reach the next underground entrance. A collision forces them back to the beginning, and if the bike runs out of fuel to in mid-flight, it explodes and the riders life comes to an immediate and premature end. The remaining brother carries on the mission in the hope that alone he may counter the Scorpions' threat.\r\n\r\nCOMMENTS\r\n\r\nJoysticks: Kempston, Sinclair\r\nGraphics: fast monochrome jet-bike graphics with detailed and very colourful underground stage\r\nSound: good 128K and 48K title track. Fairly standard in-game effects\r\nOptions: one or two players, sound on/off, restart. Three individually loaded modules (environments) of play","ReviewerComments":["Gremlin have taken the ageing platform formula and spiced it up with an extremely innovative idea. The 3-D Jet-bike sequence is exciting enough to stand as a game on its own. Hair-raising gaps, seemingly impassable walls, looming obstacles and incredibly sharp turns make for continuous tension and suspense - not least because the whole procedure looks deceptively easy. What the Sylonian underground lacks in terms of originality, it makes up for with unusual effects. Weapons have a powerful recoil, so blasting willy-nilly through the platform complex needs to be tempered with a little strategic thought. Shoot your laser from an awkward place, and you may find yourself plunging to a sudden swampy death on the unexpected rebound. It's a pity that there's no one-character option, but this is an inconvenience rather than a major fault. Even taking into account this minor quibble you have a polished and very compulsive game. Buy it.\r\nKati Hamza\r\n89%","Blood Brothers is a tale of two levels. One - the jet-bike stage - is very playable and challenging, while the other is repetitive and aggravating. Both, however, feature credible graphics: the first stage is very reminiscent of Micromega's 3-D Deathchase and contains some super animation of monstrous walls and towering pylons as they speed towards you and (hopefully) zoom straight past! Once into the underground stage it's very easy to get quickly bored with the similar appearance of every screen - even though there's three modules - and in my mind this bring the game down to an average level. The recoil action of the man is very clever feature, but proves to be a real pain, being annoying rather than challenging. If you like the underground stage then the game will be a very appealing purchase; however, the average player will only find an average game.\r\nPaul Sumner\r\n75%","Hmmm. I don't quite know what to make of this. It seems like Gremlin had two games kicking about and just joined them together. The jet-bike section is about the best, with 3-D pillars and a bike that just refuses to slow down! All dodging and weaving in and out of tight corners is incredibly addictive. The accompanying platform section lets the package down a bit games like this have been around for ages and they lose all their playability after only a few goes. There are three separately loaded modules in the game, and each one is basically the same, merely having a different layout and a few new aliens here and there. The platform section is neatly coloured although the 3-D section is monochrome. 48K sound effects are just the usual gun sounds, but on the 128K there is a fantastic tune at the beginning. Blood Brothers has the best of both worlds - platform and 3-D - which makes it a very addictive arcade game.\r\nNick Roberts\r\n88%"],"OverallSummary":"General Rating: With two stages and three modules Gremlin Graphics have not only provided value for money but also two very attractive and playable games.","Page":"78","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Kati Hamza","Score":"89","ScoreSuffix":"%"},{"Name":"Paul Sumner","Score":"75","ScoreSuffix":"%"},{"Name":"Nick Roberts","Score":"88","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"A tale of two stages."},{"Text":"Hark plays Blockbusters."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Presentation","Score":"87%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"85%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"88%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictive Qualities","Score":"87%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"85%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 32, Aug 1988","Price":"£1.5","ReleaseDate":"1988-07-12","Editor":"Teresa Maughan","TotalPages":92,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Teresa Maughan\r\nArt Editor: Darrell King\r\nDeputy Editor: Marcus Berkmann\r\nTechnical Editor: Phil South\r\nProduction Editors: Jackie Ryan, Sophie Moorcock\r\nDesigner: Catherine Higgs\r\nContributors: Richard Blaine, Owen & Audrey Bishop, Ciaran Brennan, Jonathan Davies, Mike 'Skippy' Dunn, Mike Gerrard, Sean Kelly, Graeme Kidd, David McCandless, Duncan McDonald, John Minson, Nat Pryce, Peter Shaw, Ben Stone\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Mark Salmon\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Simon Stansfield\r\nAdvertisement Director: Alistair Ramsay\r\nProduction Manager: Judith Middleton\r\nMarketing Manager: Bryan Denyer\r\nArt Director: Hazel Bennington\r\nPublisher: Kevin Cox\r\nPublishing Director: Roger Munford\r\nFinance Director: Colin Crawford\r\nManaging Director: Stephen England\r\nChairman: Felix Dennis\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 ©1988 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":"Gremlin\r\n£7.99/£12.99\r\nReviewer: David McCandless\r\n\r\nThose chaps at Gremlin seem to have a fascination with blood. First came Blood Valley, now there's Blood Brothers. What next? Blood Cousins twice removed? Anyway on with the review.\r\n\r\nBlood Brothers begins when twins, Hark (what light from yonder window breaks), and Kren return home to the planet Slyonia to find their family has been murdered and their home destroyed, by a band of space baddies called the Scorpions. Vengeance is vowed and armed with some sophisticated weaponry, the pair set out to single-handedly hunt down and destroy the Scorpions and recover the stolen lolly. All in a day's work, really.\r\n\r\nYou control (I'm not sure whether that's the right word), Hark or Kren as they jet-pac it around a multi-screen complex of platformy, geometric caverns, blasting aliens, collecting jewels, and then blasting some more aliens. But inertia and gravity effects means that one lax moment and hey, splato! you're dead. Also, when you fire, a massive recoil can batter you uncontrollably through several screens like a pinball. Ouch!\r\n\r\nThe aliens are pretty dumb, they generally stick to plain ol' left/right, up/down movement patterns. But some, usually one per screen, have an irrepressible affection for you, and will home in for a bite of your rear. And as they're tenacious little so-and-so's, it takes six shots to oxidise an alien, and this, added to the recoil-syndrome, really makes kiting ET's a chore. You have little chance of surviving, what with well 'ard aliens and decreasing energy, ammo and jet-pac power.\r\n\r\nThe simultaneous two-player option is okay, but in such a fast-moving downright deadly game, there's little space for skill.\r\n\r\nThere's also little graphic or strategic incentive to reach the next screen. Each screen looks much the same as the last one, and getting past each doesn't exactly require a feat of mental dexterity.\r\n\r\nBut the one little trick that really perks up this game (and its score), is the jet-bike section. This is the bit where you straddle (fnar), your ultra high-tec but still quite trendy jet-bike and go off in search of other mine shafts. To get to the shafts you have to steer your bike through miniscule gaps and around tight corners in the impervious walls that bullet towards you, whilst avoiding (or shooting) the strategically placed towers and making sure you don't run out of fuel or ammo. This part is really addictive. I spent a sweaty, foul-languaged hour trying to get to a certain mine shaft. I succeeded eventually (using the well-worn hackers adage:- if at first you don't succeed, use a multiface) and joy upon joys, I could remember the route and re-succeeded on the re-play Remarkable.\r\n\r\nThe overall game takes place over three loadable modules with differing graphics, differing routes, and differing strategies - apparently. Every level, I found seemed to require exactly the same combination of frenetic blasting, swearing and incredible good luck. And all in all, it was a little boring.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"An annoying platform shoot 'em up, saved only by a savagely addictive sub-game.","Page":"27","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"David McCandless","Score":"7","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"8/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Value For Money","Score":"6/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"7/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 75, Jun 1988","Price":"£1.5","ReleaseDate":"1988-05-18","Editor":"Graham Taylor","TotalPages":116,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Graham Taylor\r\nStaff Writer: Jim Douglas\r\nStaff Writer: Tamara Howard\r\nArt Editor: Gareth Jones\r\nDesigner: Andrea Walker\r\nAdventure: The Sorceress\r\nZapchat: Jon Riglar\r\nTechnical: Andrew Hewson, Rupert Goodwins\r\nContributors: Tony 'I'm a headbanger' Dillon, Chris '10 o'clock isn't late' Jenkins\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Katherine Lee\r\nDeputy Advertisement Manager: Margaret Caddick-Adams\r\nAdvertisement Executive: Alison Morton\r\nAd Production: Emma Ward\r\nPublisher's Assistant: Debbie Pearson\r\nPublisher: Terry 'Great idea, I'll put it on the back burner immediately' Pratt\r\nMarketing: Clive Pembridge\r\n\r\nPhone: [redacted]\r\nFax: [redacted]\r\nSubscriptions: [redacted]\r\nBack Issues: [redacted]\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]\r\n\r\nThis Month's Cover: Clive Goodyear\r\n\r\nPrinted by Nene River Press, [redacted]\r\nDistributed by EMAP Publications Ltd.\r\n\r\n©Copyright 1988 Sinclair User ISSN No 0262-5458"},"MainText":"Label: Gremlin\r\nAuthor: S Marsden and D Cooke\r\nPrice: £7.99\r\nMemory: 48K/128K\r\nJoystick: various\r\nReviewer: Tony Dillon\r\n\r\nBlood Brothers is yet another spacey-shooty-ouch-that-hurty-collecty arcade adventure. And despite that fact it is flamin' excellent!\r\n\r\nYou play one member of a huge team (well, 2) and you have to penetrate each of the 3 modules of the game and collect all of the gems. Easy peasy. Not so. At the time of writing, I've yet to complete a module, and I've been playing it for more than a few hours.\r\n\r\nBefore you can start collecting all the gems and bits and bobs (more of those later), you have to atcherley get to your module, and to do this, you have to get through the dreaded 3-D flight on a jetbike through a slabs and wall sequence. You are viewed from behind and slightly above, looking over your own shoulder, so to speak. The walls and slabs start a short distance form you, with a large gap in a wall to start with. These soon rush toward you at an alarming rate, and when I say alarming, I mean these self-abusers are FAST! You have to steer your little bike around and over obstacles, looking for the entrance to the module which looks like a curtain of snow on a black background. Finding it is one thing, steering into it is another. It takes an extraordinary amount or time to get used to the road handling of your new machine.\r\n\r\nClimbing and diving is no hassle, but the left and right steering is a right royal pain. The bike nips from left to right quite nattily, but inertia ensures that it doesn't change its course back to flying straight immediately. So you usually end up overshooting the hole in the wall you were aiming for and crash into the large expanse of brick next to it. Not that that has any drastic effect. All it does is send you back to the start of the sequence. No big deal if you crash early in the game, but it's when you're nearing the entrance of the module that you tend to cry with frustration. The worst bit about this sequence is that it costs you fuel. Once you run out of fuel you lose control of the bike, and inevitably crash into the next wall, which causes you to explode in a glorious manner.\r\n\r\nThe whole graphical feel of this section is unmatched by any other kind of 3-D flying thingy ever. The scrolling is amazingly smooth, and the enlargement of distant objects is done very well indeed. Just one minor bug. It's difficult in places to tell whether you have passed an object or not. Of course, the obvious solution to that is to blow it up. Yes, you can blow things up as well!\r\n\r\nOnce through this bit, you're into the module and it's platform time again. Praise the Lord (OOooooooh, yeeeeeaaaah!), this one is good. Controlling your little sprite with his little jet pack you have to fly around some caverns shooting lots of strange shaped things and collecting gems, extra bullets, extra fuel and extra laser power.\r\n\r\nI can see Blood Brothers being very popular in the near future. It has everything a good game needs, good graphics, good sound, great playability, a good few hours of addictive gameplay, and all for under a tenner.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"Well above average arcade-adventure with emphasis on the arcade. Climb aboard yer jetbike.","Page":"6","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":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 81, Jul 1988","Price":"£1.1","ReleaseDate":"1988-06-16","Editor":"Eugene Lacey","TotalPages":116,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Eugene Lacey\r\nDeputy Editor: Paul Boughton\r\nSub-Editor: Seamus St. John\r\nStaff Writer: Matt Bielby\r\nArt Editor: Craig Kennedy\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Garry Williams\r\nSales Executive: Sian Jones\r\nAdvertisement Production: Lora Clark\r\nPublisher: Terry Pratt\r\n\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]"},"MainText":"MACHINES: Spectrum/Amstrad/CBM 64\r\nPRICE: £7.99 (Spectrum)/£9.99 (Amstrad)\r\nSUPPLIER: Gremlin Graphics\r\nVERSIONS TESTED: Spectrum/Amstrad\r\n\r\nTut, tut, tut. In these super-health conscious days, Gremlin Graphics certainly hasn't been reading its inter-galactic government health warnings. Blood Brothers? Gasp!\r\n\r\nIt's not that many weeks ago that one of the television companies was slammed for showing an old film which included two chums becoming blood brothers. Shameful! Bad Example! Irresponsible, cried the critics.\r\n\r\nSo it comes as some surprise to find our heroes \"draw blood from their wrists and press them together, mixing the blood, and combining their companionship.\" Now even with added health dangers, it's not a great idea to go around cutting your wrists. It's liable to hurt and be very, very messy.\r\n\r\nAnd just why two brothers - who after all are blood brothers to begin with - should want to indulge in this dangerous and totally ridiculous ritual, is never explained.\r\n\r\nHere endeth the health warning. Back to the game.\r\n\r\nThis is a space tale of slaughter and revenge, the ingredients of a thousand Westerns. Brothers Hark and Kren - aren't they two of the bods from A-ha - have been zooming around testing out their new Skywalk jet bikes. They return home to their village on the planet Sylonia and find the plate in ruins, the homes destroyed and their families slaughtered.\r\n\r\nthe thugs responsible for this heinous crime are a band of crazed space convicts known as the Scorpions, who roam the galaxy preying on the innocent, plundering, looting and stashing the swag in an underground city of tunnels and mines on Sylonia.\r\n\r\nUnderstandably Hark and Kren are a little miffed at finding their home and loved ones are no ore. So addled by this tragedy are their brains that they indulge in the blood brothers ritual and swear revenge on the Scorpions.\r\n\r\nNow Hark and Kren are, apart for a predilection for self-mutilation, completely non-violent. However, in their attempts to pass exams the brothers have built a range of sophisticated weapons. These fearsome hardware built as part of their A-level A-level Holocaust, are strapped to their sky bikes and the brothers set off for revenge.\r\n\r\nThe game opens with the bros at the mine entrance. Two people can play, one using the joystick, the other keyboard. You can choose to drop into the mine, start exploring, collecting gems, extra fuel etc and blasting the aliens. On the jet bike - much more fun, I found - you fly towards a mine entrance, avoiding blocks, blasting away others. It's a sort of maze and dodge 'em.\r\n\r\nBut basically, the game is much-of-a-muchness, playable but not addictive, entertaining but not memorable.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"50","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Paul Boughton","Score":"7","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"Oh brother! Out for revenge."}],"BlurbText":[{"Text":"AMSTRAD SCORES\r\n\r\nGraphics: 8/10\r\nSound: 6/10\r\nValue: 7/10\r\nPlayability: 7/10\r\nOverall: 7/10"},{"Text":"UPDATE...\r\n\r\nThe Commodore 64 version of BB is out now. No news of any 16-bit versions."}],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"5/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Value","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"7/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"The Games Machine Issue 8, Jul 1988","Price":"£1.25","ReleaseDate":"1988-06-16","Editor":"Oliver Frey","TotalPages":124,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"EDITORIAL\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nEditor: Oliver Frey\r\nAssistant Editor: Nik Wild\r\nSoftware Co-ordinator: Richard Eddy\r\nStaff Writer: Robin Hogg, Stewart Wynne\r\nEditorial Assistant: Frances Mable\r\nPhotography: Cameron Pound, Michael Parkinson (Assistant)\r\nContributors: Jon Bates, Robin Candy, Mel Croucher, Robin Evans, John Gilbert, Roger Kean, Barnaby Page, Marshall M Rosenthal, Rob Steel, John Woods\r\n\r\nPRODUCTION\r\n[redacted]\r\nArt Director: Markie Kendrick\r\nAssistant Art Director: Wayne Allen\r\nDesign & Layout: Yvonne Priest, Melvin Fisher\r\nPre-Print Manager: Jonathan Rignall\r\nReprographics/Film Planning: Matthew Uffindell, Nick Orchard, Ian Chubb, Robert Millichamp\r\nPublishing Controller: David Western\r\nEditorial Director: Roger Kean\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Roger Bennett\r\nSales Executive: Andrew Smales, Sarah Chapman\r\nAssistant: Jackie Morris [redacted]\r\n\r\nMAIL ORDER\r\nCarol Kinsey\r\n\r\nSUBSCRIPTIONS\r\nDenise Roberts\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nTypeset by the Tortoise Shell Press, Ludlow. Colour origination by Scan Studios [redacted]. Printed in England by Carlisle Web Offset [redacted] - a member of the BPCC Group. Distribution effected by COMAG, [redacted].\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 (like a game that has been offered as a prize being scrapped) 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 THE GAMES MACHINE. 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 Fran Mable a line at the PO Box 10 address). No person who has any relationship, no matter how remote, to anyone who works for Newsfield or any of the companies offering prizes, may enter one of our competitions.\r\n\r\nNo material may be reproduced in part or in whole without the written consent of the copyright holders. We cannot undertake to return anything sent into THE GAMES MACHINE - including written and photographic material, hardware or software - unless it's accompanied by a suitably stamped, addressed envelope. Unsolicited written or photographic material is welcome, and if used in the magazine is paid for at our current rates.\r\n\r\n©Newsfield Ltd, 1988\r\n\r\nCover Illustration by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £7.99, Diskette: £12.99\r\nAmstrad CPC Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99\r\n\r\nBROTHERS GRIM\r\n\r\nOne of the designers and chief programmers of Blood Brothers is Steve Marsden. who previously wrote the well-received The Final Matrix released by Gremlin about this time last year. His latest game follows in the footsteps of many that have attempted to add value by joining several game-styles together.\r\n\r\nThe planet Sylonia is a peaceful planet naturally vulnerable to the attentions of intergalactic space convicts such as the Scorpions. During a long summery day when the brothers Hark and Kren were testing their new Skywalk Jet Bikes the Scorpions paid Sylonia a visit. Hark and Kren returned home to find it in ruins and their parents dead. After burying their parents the two 18-year-olds swore a blood oath to earn vengeance, and set about adapting their Bikes for the battle to came. When every last weapon and device had been built into their bikes they set off in search of the evil Scorpions.\r\n\r\nThe blood brothers eventually track the convicts down to a mining planet. The game begins with the two brothers standing at the entrance to the first of numerous mines on the planet Scorpia. If both are sent into the first mine, one player can use keys to control Hark and another uses the joystick for Kren. This isn't really recommended, however, because if one player goes off-screen he is frozen until the other player joins him. In addition players can shoot one another, bouncing them off screen as easily as contact with the mines' aliens. The best strategy is undoubtedly for the brothers to tackle mines separately - pressing a key switches between the two.\r\n\r\nDROWNING SLOWLY\r\n\r\nThe objective of Blood Brothers is to collect all the gems in each mine and destroy any matter generators. An additional task is collection of stores to replenish weapons and fuel tanks of Jet Bikes and the Jet Packs used to manoeuvre in the mines. Alien creatures attempt to kill the brothers by bouncing them around, and should one of them touch the rippling water a lethal undertow quickly disposes of him. (Since each character has only one life it can be irritating watching him slowly being drowned.) Creatures can be killed if shot five times, but care has to be taken over the guns recoil. When all the gems have been taken from a mine the brothers can fly onto the next one.\r\n\r\nStanding on separate platforms at the mine entrance the brothers can choose to go to different mines, or by standing together to the same one. The Jet Bike section has you guiding your character through a city of blocks, only a few of which can be shot away. At the city's end stands the entrance to the next mine. If the bike crashes, you are sent back to the last mine entrance where you choose between going back into the mine - for Jet Bike fuel perhaps - or making another attempt at getting to the next mine.\r\n\r\nOn both Amstrad and Spectrum the game is divided into three different modules and once the main program has loaded you can choose which of these three to play and load it. Gameplay doesn't vary overmuch, though, and the general impression is one of two dated game-styles bolted together with only limited imagination.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"The Spectrum has a marginally faster Jet Bike section, and a rather garish mine section, but in terms of playability is virtually identical. On the 48K there are reasonable spot FX , while the 128K has a good tune - although the game modules are still individually loaded.","Page":"53","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"Deep in the mines of Scorpia, searching for the Scorpian pirates' heavily guarded diamonds - Spectrum screen."},{"Text":"Slowly, but colourfully jetbiking to a mine, in the hope of becoming rich - Amstrad screen."}],"BlurbText":[{"Text":"\"...the general impression is one of two dates game-styles bolted together...\""},{"Text":"AMSTRAD CPC\r\n\r\nOverall: 59%\r\n\r\nThe Amstrad has a nice tune and some professional graphics, but the Jet Bike sequence is a touch sluggish while the mine sections are limited and unoriginal. A tough, but average game."}],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"58%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]