Previous Next

Yellow-heads, metal-heads and meat-heads - that about sums up the Dream Team. Bartman returns to re-enact They Live, Arnie re-works the script from Terminator 1 and the make-up mob rehearse heavily to avoid laddering their tights. Licences have often been attacked as big names with little games, but these three pack gameplay that matches their 'glamour' tags.

Bart faces up to six levels of console-style timing and leaping. The WWF boys storm the C64 with high-grade grapple action in both a one-player tournament and a head-to-head two-player mode. And Arnie stars in a non-stop punching, puzzling frenzy that almost captures the atmosphere of the megabucks movie.

All three play well, and Bart particularly is a star. If you missed out on these first time around then it's a bundle you'd be daft to miss second time around. (Dave, help, I've run out of compliments!)

Previous Next

Fighters, yes. Super, no. Superfighter tries to get the game blood flowing with a combination of good, average and decidedly duff beat-'em-ups. The result is not really what you'd call a knockout combination.

WWF Wrestlemania is a fun rumble-in-a-leotard-kind-of-game, with more flash moves than, erm, Flash Gordon moving a lot and is genuinely smart. Pit-Fighter tries to bring the fun of the high-tech arcade thumper to the C64, and it almost works... apart from the fact that it doesn't. The real weak link, though, is the thoroughly predictable, massively easy and totally unexciting Final Fight. We gave it a monumental 19 per cent when we first reviewed it and, to be honest, that was probably generous marking.

If you want top-flight fighting action, you'd be better going for Dream Team. Of this batch, Pit-Fighter can hold its own but the whole bunch is badly let-down by the dire Final Fight.

They say good things come in threes. (Except buses, which do always seem to come in threes, but it isn't good news when they do.) The Grandslam Collection attempts to go ten times better by offering not three, not six, not sixteen, but a massive thirty games. This is what's known in the trade as a tempting offer. So what's the catch?

Well, for starters all of the thirty games on offer are a little long in the tooth. In fact, some are so long in the tooth that they have trouble closing their mouths. Now this isn't always a problem, because although games don't improve with age, some retain that classic quality - despite being written before the Dead Sea Scrolis!

The Grandslam Collection doesn't contain any die-hard classics. There are a few games that demand attention, though, even if it's only for the sake of historical interest or an amble down Memory Street (the Lane was turned into a car park back in 1982).

Nick Faldo Plays the Open, π-r², Miami Dice, Time Trax and Glider Rider are simply fun, and although they may seem a little nave by 1993 standards, they are still playable and exude a certain charm. On the dodgy downside, however, there are Nether Earth, Chubby Gristle, Romulus, CORE and Peter Beardsley's International Football, games only fit for the local dog pound (Remember folks: a game is for life and not just for Christmas!).

The majority of the games in the Grandslam Collection are weak, not worth sticking at for more than half an hour, but all of them are worth checking out at least once - if only for a laugh. At about 60p per game you know that you're getting quantity and not quality. The Grandslam Collection is a fun way of finding out how games used to be made. It's not the bargain of the century, but if you want to extend your games collection and happen to have the odd 20 doing nothing [Swoon! - Roger]... But, be warned, there are some real howlers here.

American Football, Agent Orange, Black Thunder, Chubby Gristle, Core, Dark Empire, Defcom, Espionage, Evil Crown, The Flintstones, Glider Rider, Gryphon, Head Start, Miami Dice, Mission Omega, Nether Earth, Nick Faldo Plays The Open, Peter Beardsley's International Football, Peter Shilton, π-r², Romulus, Scramble Spirits, Souls Of Darkon, Terramex, Time Trax, Trashman, Trivia Pak 1 & 2, The Tube, Yabba Dabba Doo, Xeno