This is supposed to be the best compilation tape on the market. Judging by the standards of the others that is probably a fact, but is not a boast!

This tape contains nine Basic games and a program advertising other Active Software products. I will talk about my general impressions first and then say a few brief words about each game in turn.

The programmers at Active Software are quite obviously masters of the graphic page. All the games containing graphics have the most beautifully designed text on the hi-res screen, and some fantastic background pictures.

Sadly the games themselves are so totally unoriginal the only surprises come when you find out that "Landing at the alien base at noon on the day of the Gruumsh worshiping ceremony" is actually a game which involves a helicopter descending over a city and having to bomb said city away to enable landing!!! This is the major problem - the games are executed brilliantly but so what? They're only fun when they are played with two or more people and even then there's nothing here that amateur programmers couldn't write themselves.

Execution is a glorified version of Hangman, nice graphics, but fails to create any sense of excitement.

Snail Race is a good game for more than one person but it's a shame there's no option to set the number of races at the meeting. Forget it for a solo game.

Interplanetary Trader has a nice internal logic but gimmicks like the abysmal space shoot-out ruin it.

Atom Hunt. The board game (Black Box) is a much better idea; this game doesn't really work on a computer.

Empire. Ever heard of a game called Kingdom?

Hilo is in my opinion the best game on the cassette. I really enjoy playing this in competition, but I hate playing it solo.

Air Assault. Landing at the alien base at noon on the day of the Gruumsh worshiping ceremony.

Wumpus Mansion. A real let down, as it plays for far too long on the test screen; but my sister loved it (there's no accounting for taste!).

Wipeout. This version of Snake is presented fantastically and plays awfully, or should that be looks awful and plays well?