All The Hits And More!

Previous Next

Yet more compilation cassettes for you lucky Electron owners out there. These two packs each contain four of Acornsoft's very best software. Volume 1 contains little gems such as Magic Mushrooms, Maze, Planetoid and Monsters. Monsters has been around for quite some time but is still addictive and exciting to play. The game is a close copy of the old arcade game Space Panic in which you have to destroy space monsters. This is done by climbing up ladders and digging holes on the brick platforms.

The stupid monsters then come running to gobble you up and fall into the hole trying to hang on for dear life. You then have a little time to fill in the hole and cause the monster to fall to his death. The game gets harder and harder as the monsters mutate and become stronger needing a longer fall to finish them off. All in all a very enjoyable game.

Planetoid is another arcade conversion similar to Defender in which you pilot a fast craft over the surface of a planet. The object is the obliteration of horrid aliens who have come to snatch the bodies of the planet's inhabitants. The action is fast and furious and it certainly gets the adrenalin pumping especially when the last human is destroyed because all hell breaks loose as the planet explodes and all the aliens come looking for your blood! This is a must for anyone who hasn't got in their collection, a Defender-type game (e.g. Gauntlet or Guardian). The graphics are a little duller than depicted on the box as those naughty people at Superior have put the full colour BBC version on the cassette front (the same is true of Volume 2 and Meteors).

Maze is an interesting and sometimes exciting 3D game which, as you might have guessed, has you wandering around a large maze of corridors looking for the way out via the lift. There is a snag however because you have to find a key to open the lift and to get the key is a job in itself. The maze is shown on screen as walls with gaps in and these move with perspective quite realistically as do the objects and security droids. The best feature is the security robots which patrol the maze shooting and intruders on sight. You have a map which chows the portions of the maze already explored and the positions of the droids. Your weapon can only be used three times without re-charging and this makes the game quite challenging. To make things even more atmospheric they are audible footsteps of the droids as they come close by.

Magic Mushrooms may be of the well worm platform and ladders genre but it is still the best game in the pack. The object of the game is to make your way around complex and hazardous screens and collect some mushrooms for tea. The graphics for the mushrooms are more reminiscent of highly poisonous toadstools but even so the game is graphically superb. The sprites are smooth and move quite fast. The screens are all difficult but none impossible and they look great with plenty of animation and colour. And as with any good P & L game it is addictive to play. The feature which makes this game most outstnading is the built-in screen designer. This allows you to edit existing screens or create your own from scratch. The designer is very user-friendly and good results can be achieved in only a short time. As you would expect you can load/save screens and give them to your friends to try. The only option missing is a character designer but to my mind this is not at all essential in this type of game.

Volume 2 is just as fun packed as the first. This one contains the more well-known games such as Starship Command, Meteors, Arcadians and Snooker. Kicking off or should I say breaking off with Snooker this is a playable version of the classic two player game. The controls are simple to learn and the game has all the features of the real thing. The players take it in turn to position a white line on the screen which indicates the direction of movement and power of shot. Once set, the player then selects the type of shot to be played e.g. Normal, Topspin or Backspin this gives the player a lot of control over the cue ball. Due to this and the fact that the balls counce realistically off each other and the cushion, players can develop read skill in playing shots. The game can be very enjoyable when played against someone with a similar skill as your own.

The rest of the games in the pack are deep space shoot-'em-ups. The first is a version of the arcade game Galaxians, called Arcadians. This is a close copy of the arcade original in which you have to exterminate the hordes of evil aliens that have assembled to confront you. They wait in formation, letting you pick a few off one at a time, then the elite pilots peel off from the pack to engage in combat with laser cannons blazing. The graphics are colourful and surprisingly fast and flicker-free. The sound leaves something to be desired as the single sound channel tries desperately to output three noises at once. These types of games have had their day but I still return now and again to show the aliens who's boss.

Starship Command is a more complicated game with plenty of playing options to choose from to make things either harder or easier. Your craft is fixed in the centre of the screen and the stars, enemy craft, torpedoes, etc, all move around you relative to your movement. The object is to defend your area of space for as long as possible by repelling the invaders with torpedoes. When you are eventually overcome by the baddies you either die outright, or if you managed to launch an escape pod, you might be given another starship to command. The game gets harder as you get better with nastier and nastier baddies swarming around you. So, intent on your demise are they that they happily smash their ships into yours thus depleting your energy reserves to a dangerously low level. The game is very addictive and skill is needed to master the controls enough to be effective against the enemy.

The last of the space games is Meteors which you must have guessed is a good version of Asteroids. This type of game is universally known but even so I will give you a quick rundown on gameplay. You find yourself in the middle of a meteor storm with large hunks of hard rock whizzing about barely missing your hull. Sooner or later one of them is going to squash your ship flat so you decide to blow the rocks to pieces with a few well aimed laser bolts. On doing this you find, to your horror, that you have only succeeded in breaking them into smaller, faster-moving pieces. Again you try and again they just break into pieces. A last desperate attempt gives the desired results and the boulders are reduced to so much space dust.

Things are quite easy now and shooting the rocks to bits is a piece of cake but, wait a second, some crazy killer satellite is trying to blow you up and is firing bolts right at you. The only way to survive is to thrust out of danger and vapourise the culprit. So goes the scenario and gameplay of Meteors. The graphics are of a two colour linear type which are fast-moving and smooth. Real excitement comes when you have a screen full of fast-moving meteors and a demented satellite trying to blow you apart. This game should be in everyone's game collection. All of the programs in the two volumes are high quality games and worth nearly a tenner each anyway so only a fool would turn up the chance to get hold of these treasures for the price they are asking!

Dave Reeder