Previous Next

It seems that all those BBC documentaries have finally paid off. The year is 2084 and road accidents are now a thing of the past.

Which is a shame for the population, as they have nothing to amuse themselves with any more. The world is such a safe place and they miss all the blood now the roads have been replaced with Autoslot tracks.

But, luckily, someone has found some old 20th century cars so they go in search of an old road to race them on. It doesn't take long for the sport to become a success, especially when a famous driver is actually killed. They're a savage lot a hundred years from now, you know.

Battlecars becomes a sport. The computer version is either for one or two players. You can play against a friend or the computer. The cars are fairly complex machines with twelve keys used to control each car. Luckily you get a keyboard overlay to help you remember which buttons to press to fire which piece of your mobile arsenal.

On the other side of the tape to the main game is a program called Designer. With this, you can design your own battlecars and the artillery which they will carry.

The screen shows two windows at the top. One is used to show the position of each car. You see the car itself and the immediate surroundings. At the bottom of the screen is a diagram of the cars and their artillery, and also a map of the whole track.

This is certainly a long way from Chequered Flag and not really as good. The idea is pretty silly, but then so are quite a few computer games at the moment. Animation of the cars is very slow and the track moves a whole character at a time across the screen. Most of the game is written in Spectrum Basic which just isn't fast enough.

There's a lot to playing this game and you'll certainly have to study the 16-page manual for some time. Personally, I don't think it's worth it. It's one thing to have a good idea for a game, but another one to actually write the program.

And one out of two isn't good enough.