[{"TitleName":"Here Comes the Sun","Publisher":"Alligata Software Ltd","Author":"C.M. Wright, M.D. Russell","YearOfRelease":"1983","ZxDbId":"0006427","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Crash Issue 5, Jun 1984","Price":"£0.75","ReleaseDate":"1984-05-24","Editor":"Roger Kean","TotalPages":126,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Roger Kean\r\nConsultant Editor: Franco Frey\r\nProduction Designer: David Western\r\nArt Editor: Oliver Frey\r\nClient Liaison: John Edwards\r\nStaff Writer: Lloyd Mangram\r\nContributing Writers: Matthew Uffindel, Chris Passey\r\nSubscription Manager: Denise Roberts\r\n\r\nTelephone numbers\r\nEditorial/office [redacted]\r\nAdvertising [redacted]\r\nHot Line [redacted]\r\n\r\n©1984 Newsfield Ltd.\r\nCrash Micro is published monthly by Newsfield Ltd. [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 Studio, [redacted]\r\nPrinted in England by Carlisle Web Offset Ltd, [redacted].\r\nDistribution by Comag, [redacted]\r\n\r\nSubscriptions: 12 issues £9.00 UK Mainland (post free)\r\nEurope: 12 issues £15 (post free).\r\n\r\nWe cannot undertake to return any written or photographic material sent to CRASH MICRO unless accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope.\r\n\r\nCover by Oliver Frey"},"MainText":"HERE COMES THE SUN\r\n\r\nProducer: Alligata\r\nMemory Required: 48K\r\nRetail Price: £7.95\r\nAuthor: M.D. Russell and C.M. Wright\r\n\r\nA massive space station is on collision course with the sun and it's your unenviable task to prevent a solar explosion turning the universe into a black pudding (all right, it didn't actually say that but you know how it gets after reading so many cassette covers).\r\n\r\nPlaying Here Comes The Sun you get the impression of an adequate but unpolished piece of software. I'll show you what I mean.\r\n\r\nThe program spends one minute loading a screen which is left there for only 12 seconds before being deleted. This is replaced by a list of the vocabulary - useful, but should it be placed on a loading screen which is lost when the game starts? On the loading screen vocabulary is mis-spelt and this is a foretaste of things to come. If you're struggling with the word LASER that's because the computer has been programmed to expect LAZER.\r\n\r\nAlthough the space station appears large there are no location descriptions, more location statements really. Many locations are repeated and so some loss of atmosphere is inevitable. The half dozen or so graphic descriptions add little to the adventure. You can be randomly killed for no apparent reason in locations where you have previously been safe. I'm no great fan of the random element - at best it's irritating, at worst it can dissuade you from playing again.\r\n\r\nOnce you've settled into the run of things you come to the exertion area to be confronted with a primitive arcade ski slope game no better than the type found in program listings of what seems like eons ago. However, not all is gloom. The adventure is interspersed with a thousand funny ways of dying. Oh, well...","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"76","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Derek Brewster","Score":"5","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Difficulty","Score":"5/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Atmosphere","Score":"4/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Vocabulary","Score":"4/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Logic","Score":"3/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Debugging","Score":"5/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall Value","Score":"5/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 25, Apr 1984","Price":"£0.85","ReleaseDate":"1984-03-15","Editor":"Bill Scolding","TotalPages":148,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Bill Scolding\r\nDeputy Editor: Nicole Segre\r\nConsultant Editor: Mike Johnston\r\nManaging Production Editor: Harold Mayes MBE\r\nSoftware Editor: John Gilbert\r\nProgram Reviewer: June Mortimer\r\nIllustrator/Designer: Brian King\r\nGroup Advertisement Manager: John Ross\r\nSales Executive: Annette Burrows\r\nProduction Assistant: Dezi Epaminondou\r\nEditorial Assistant: Colette McDermott\r\nManaging Editor: Nigel Clark\r\nAssistant Managing Director: Barry Hazel\r\nManaging Director: Terry Cartwright\r\nChairman: Richard Hease\r\n\r\nSinclair User is published monthly by ECC Publications Ltd.\r\n\r\nTelephone\r\nAll departments\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nIf you would like to contribute to Sinclair User please send programs, articles or ideas for hardware projects to:\r\nSinclair User and Programs\r\nECC Publications\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nPrograms should be on cassette and articles should be typed. We cannot undertake to return them unless a stamped-addressed envelope is included.\r\n\r\nWe will pay £10 for the copyright of each program published and £50 per 1,000 words for each article used.\r\n\r\n©Copyright 1984\r\nSinclair User\r\nISSN NO. 0262-5458\r\n\r\nPrinted and typeset by Cradley Print PLC, [redacted]\r\n\r\nDistributed by Spotlight Magazine Distribution Ltd, [redacted]"},"MainText":"SUN BURN CAN BE TERMINAL\r\n\r\nMemory: 48K\r\nPrice: £5.95\r\n\r\nIf you do not take adventure games too seriously, you might enjoy Here Comes the Sun from Alligata Software. In this somewhat tongue-in-cheek tale, you play the part of the last great hero who must try to prevent his space station colliding with the sun, failure resulting in a solar explosion which will wipe out the universe.\r\n\r\nThat is the theory, but in practice playing the game more often seems to result in the hero suffering some ignominious disaster, such as turning purple from lack of air and being pronounced \"seriously dead\".\r\n\r\nThe game starts in the airlock of the spaceship, whence you must trace your way to the retro-rockets which will enable you to pilot the ship to safety. Unfortunately, giving perfectly sensible commands does not often elicit a sensible response.\r\n\r\nSimple graphics do not add a great deal to the game and in time the humour may pall, but the adventure provides a reasonable amount of entertainment.\r\n\r\nHere Comes the Sun is produced by Alligata Software, [redacted].","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"40","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Gilbert Factor","Score":"6/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Personal Computer Games Issue 5, Apr 1984","Price":"£0.75","ReleaseDate":"1984-03-15","Editor":"Chris Anderson","TotalPages":176,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Chris Anderson\r\nProduction Editor: Roderick George\r\nArt Editor: Ian Findlay\r\nTechnical Editor: Stuart Cooke\r\nStaff Writers: Steve Cooke, Peter Connor\r\nEditorial Assistant: Samantha Hemens\r\nSoftware Consultant: Tony Takoushi\r\nCartoons: Kipper Williams\r\nProgram Control Guardians: Jeff Riddle\r\nGame-of-the-month poster: Pat Weedon\r\nScreenshots: Chris Bell\r\nCover Illustration: Richard Evans\r\nGroup Editor: Cyndy Miles\r\nArt Director: Jim Dansie\r\nPublisher: Mark Eisen\r\nAssistant Publishing Manager: Sue Clements\r\nPublishing Secretary: Jenny Dunne\r\nAdvertising Manager: Herbert Wright\r\nAssistant Advertisement Manager: Jan Martin\r\nGroup Advertisement Manager: Pat Dolan\r\nAdvertisement Production: Simon Carter\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Coraline Turner\r\nSales Executives: Joey Davies, Marion O'Neill\r\n\r\nPublished by VNU Business Publications, [redacted]. Typesetting by Spectrum Typesetting, [redacted] Origination by Fourmost Colour [redacted]. Printed and bound by Chase Web Offset [redacted]. © VNU Business Publications 1984."},"MainText":"MACHINE: Spectrum 48K\r\nJOYSTICK: No\r\nCATEGORY: Adventure\r\nSUPPLIER: Alligata\r\nPRICE: £7.95\r\n\r\nHere Comes The Sun is a text adventure with a few graphic screens and minimal sound in which your task is to take control of a space station and prevent it from colliding with the sun.\r\n\r\nIt's good to see someone taking enough care over a program to create their own character set, and the text is clearly presented.\r\n\r\nThere's a fairly large vocabulary, with most of the standard commands as well as some more unusual ones, The vocabulary is listed on the screen during loading.\r\n\r\nI have a number of quibbles with this game. The first is that a good deal of unnecessary effort has been put into providing witty diversions while playing. At various points during the game an aardvark eating an orchid crosses your path, and at other times the program resorts to Shakespearian English and Hobbit references.\r\n\r\nTouches like these may amuse some people, but surely the effort would have been put to better use in adding relevant detail to the locations, most of which have very little to offer.\r\n\r\nA number of drones and members of the ship's crew come and go, but none of them have much to do, and even less to say. From time to time one of the drones will cotton on to the fact that you are a stranger, at which point the game ends and you have to start again.\r\n\r\nI can't help thinking that a little less quirky humour and a little more substance would have made this a better adventure.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"85","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Steve Cooke","Score":"6","ScoreSuffix":"/10"}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"6/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"3/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Ease Of Use","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Originality","Score":"6/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Lasting Interest","Score":"7/10","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"6/10","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]