Back in the mists of time (when the C5 was just a twinkle somewhere in Sir Clive's anatomy) there was a computer called the ZX81 for which reviews used to go somewhat like this:

"I cannot review this game as I cannot get it to load due to the bad loading system on the computer. However, it is described by the manufacturer as..."

Hey? Guess what? A touch of nostalgia! I can't get Mail War to load either. At least not more than once. But that, I'm said to say, was enough (I'm not actually sad to say it. It took me three cassette recorders to get Mail War to load and not it has given up altogether!).

The game has aspirations to be a play by mail game. It runs in 32K without the need for loading and saving of data except at the end of a game!

This is the equivalent of me saying "I want to be Rambo! I have a nine-inch chest and can carry three potatoes at a time!"

Play by mail games are big. They have to be, otherwise no one would still be interested in them after having waited two weeks since their last move. This game is not big.

To play this game by mail would also require supreme cassette I/O. The data file workings of the Dragon, especially through I/O, are notoriously bad and to have to save the game every move would be a nightmare!

When the game did eventually load it was, as I've said, an immense disappointment as it was written, it seems, in BASIC and runs very slowly.

The instructions appear to have been written by someone who have never actually played the game, as in play they were about as useful as the Pac Man copyright (hello Atari)!

For example: "If a friendly unit occupies the same location as the cursor you will enter 'Control' mode for that unit. The cursor will change from red/green/blue/yellow to red/green/red/red."

The "cursor" described is a pair of pixels set three pixels apart on the PMODE1 screen and the colour change appears to be totally indeterminable! The manual does on to say how the mathematics of conflict is done by the computer and then tells you what the computer is doing, in case you want to do it on paper.

The game cannot be played solo so both my sister and myself were forced to play this appalling drivel for far too many hours as a test.

Jason Orbaum