Sinclair User


Dead Ringer

Author: Jim Douglas
Publisher: Reaktor
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Sinclair User #67

Deadringer

Welcome to Dead Ringer - a slam-bam space-age race game - tearing around a giant four lane, doughnut shaped track. It's a roller-coaster ride in space where the object is to avoid obstacles, destroy your opponents, and clock up the fastest lap time.

Your racer is an armoured skimmer, equipped with the most powerful lasers your sponsors could buy and a radar device which shows any obstructions on three of the four lanes either ahead or behind you.

Your skimmer is versatile - it has to be. It can hurtle fowards or backwards and switch racing lanes with a flick of the joystick. You can race on any of the four lanes but the outside edge, notches up the most points because on it you'll be racing blind - your radar can't reach that part of the track. It's best to spend only short periods out there!

Deadringer

Hazards include mines, which you can destroy or avoid with skill. Warp Gates which zap your speed so that your Skimmer becomes uncontrollable, and walls which'll flatten you unless you skip to the next lane to avoid them. There are also other craft on the track and with them it's kill or be killed. Shoot at them as soon as you turn that corner. If you wait too long your laser bolts may miss and then it's head-on collision time. One type of track object you mustn't shoot up is the ammo dump which'll blow up in your face. Instead you'll need it to stock up your ammunition supply.

Dead Ringer is a fast-reflex high-pulsed place to be and there's only one thing wrong with this pseudo-simulation. The instructions tell you how to combat course obstacles but don't show you what each look like. You've got to guess and. at the speed you make around those straights and bends, that's not easy.

Overall Summary

Fast paced, high octane, race set in space. The course is like a roller coaster and the obstacles come thick and fast.

Jim Douglas

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