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City Patrol is a superb high speed action game set in a futuristic city which you have to defend from alien suicide ships.

The moving screen display is first class. The city consists of four streets of skyscraper blocks giving a 3D effect, and judicious use of the control keys allows you to move slowly, or at breakneck speed, in either direction as you search out the aliens. They are tantalisingly difficult to capture as they pass behind buildings and descend to ground level. If they reach the ground, their mission is accomplished and they set off a series of explosions which can destroy a large portion of your beloved city. There is a scoring system, but I was usually too absorbed in chasing the aliens to worry about my score - more often than not it seemed to be negative. All in all, City Patrol is a very impressive game.

Saboteur is another novel game from Macronics for the ZX81, but not in my opinion as absorbing as City Patrol. Nevertheless, it is based on a good idea and runs faultlessly.

In this game, the screen represents a plan of a compound containing randomly placed boxes of ammunition. You can either be the guard, who has to protect the ammunition, or the saboteur who must blow up as much of it as he/she can, with the computer taking the opposing character.

Your character is moved around the compound in the usual way. If you are the saboteur, you must find a suitable place to plant your charge and retreat a sae distance before it explodes. If you opt to take the role of the guard, you can adopt one of two alternative strategies: try and guess where the saboteur will go, and get there first; or attempt to trap the saboteur in a corner.

Both City Patrol and Saboteur are written largely in machine code, but the programs can be LISTed; indeed, the parameters of Saboteur can be altered using POKE commands to make the game more difficult - I must admit I found it hard enough as it was. Both games require 16K of RAM.

These Macronics cassettes are attractively boxed and well presented with full instructions on the cassette insert cards.

City Patrol and Saboteur cost £5.00 each from Macronics Systems Ltd, 26 Spiers Close, Knowle, Solihull, West Midlands.