Moons of Tantalus

THERE ARE three stages to the Moons of Tantalus, an arcade game with adventure plot. While protecting your moon mining community from attack, you have to refuel a rocket; then you must fly to another moon and try to establish an orbit; finally you must destroy the attackers based there.

To play you have to go through a very slow and confusing set of instructions, all set in double-height characters. Those instructions and the control keys are not included in the cassette insert, so you must remember to note them before they disappear. Once into the game the graphics are good and move very smoothly.

Unfortunately, a bug in the program appears which, while it makes it possible for you to increase your score indefinitely, also means that if you begin to refuel you are shot to pieces immediately.

It is not an original scenario but the execution is novel. The game, except for the unfortunate bug, is well produced.

John Lambert

Multi File

A DATABASE program needs to be straightforward in operation and should require as little fiddling with the tape recorder as is humanly possible. The ISP Multi File is a little complicated in this area.

The program offers a record-card-format filing system with up to 10 headed fields. Each field name can be up to 10 characters long, with the ensuing data allowed up to 19.

Data is contained in separate date files which must be loaded into the control program. The instructions recommend that you keep a written note of program, file names and security codes, which makes the whole business as fussy as keeping paper files.

The program will sort alphabetically, leaf through the cards, produce an index of all first field data, and also search for a specific entry in the 100 or so records in each data file.

The program is well-presented but the screen prompts are vague at times. The search option did not live up to the promise of the leaflet and the loading system, probably inevitably, causes minor aggravation.

Richard Price

Mysterious Fairground

IN Mysterious Fairground from Buffer Micro the five treasures are concealed inside the stalls and rides of a fairground. Some of the rides are inhabited by extremely unpleasant characters and progression is a tough business, involving some ingenuity on the player's part.

Keyboard entry is the standard verb/noun combination, as always with Quill derivatives, and locations are labelled at the top of the screen. A little help is available which you will definitely need at certain points. There is very little interaction with other characters, that being difficult on the interpreter used. For those who prefer the type of adventure where speech and combat sequences are included that is a definite limitation.

Mysterious Fairground, although giving a rather bleak, empty feeling at times, is no easy nut to crack and compares favourably to other ready-to-wear text games. If the setting appeals to you it will undoubtedly get those brain cells straining.

Richard Price

New Venture

LATEST RELEASE from a new software company, Falcon Computing, is New Venture. It is a management game where you are put in charge of a shop and you can choose the type of goods you want to sell. They cover newspapers, sports equipment, clothes, shoes and groceries. While others have risen from such lowly beginnings it is unlikely you will join them.

Each month you have to re-stock and it is often left to chance as to which line will sell well. For example, as a newsagent it is almost impossible to sell more than £500 worth of newspapers from a city centre shop and while fireworks sold well in November, the gift items flopped miserably in December.

To liven the game you are offered the chance to buy sundry luxury items at different stages. That might he a microcomputer, a holiday, or even a fall-out shelter, most of which you will not be able to afford. The ultimate goal in the venture is to be offered a Falcmobile.

If you like this kind of game and do not want to strain your intellect, it will pass a rainy afternoon.

John Lambert

Odyssey of Hope

THE ODYSSEY of Hope from Martech is an interesting adventure game based on the ancient legend of Pandora. She was the first mortal woman, created by the gods of Olympus, and because of her insatiable curiosity she released into the world all kinds of diseases and misfortunes. Fortunately, Hope was released at the same time but that has been stolen by some unnamed evil and your mission in the adventure is to recover it.

The story is well-introduced with some amusing graphics. As with most mythical adventures, you need no knowledge of Greek mythology to complete the adventure successfully, although it can give some helpful clues.

The various locations are well laid out and reasonably complex, with the frequent hazard of being drowned or bitten by snakes.

There is a certain amount of independent action in the game - that is to say characters move round you a little - but it is not a game to be compared to such giants as Valhalla or The Hobbit.

John Lambert

Paradox

MOST ADVENTURE players will begin their travels by exploring and then constructing a consistent location map. If the locations are variable, appearing first in one spot then another, it may well cause considerable irritation at any point in the game.

Paradox from Runesoft seems to make a virtue of that problem. The insert claims that the magical world created in the program is full of nightmare and hallucination. Realities and locations change constantly.

How this has been achieved on the Quill interpreter is difficult to see but it certainly militates against the urge to explore. The reviewer, after perishing miserably, quickly, on more than 50 occasions, soon lost his patience with the world of Paradox.

The program is a pure text adventure divided, we are told, into four main sections. They are the Tunnel, where death may well be the happiest way out, since quitting is not allowed; the Games-board, the Crystal Palace and the Rooms of the Magician. The Lords of Chaos have chosen you to guide their disorientated hero. Chaos certainly rules the program and you will need persistency and clairvoyance to get anywhere.

Richard Price

Reichswald

REICHSWALD simulates the crossing of the Rhine by the allied armies in 1945 and you are in control of units of the American Ninth Army. Your task is to capture one of the bridges or, alternatively, inflict serious damage on the enemy.

You have a number of armoured and infantry regiments, engineers and reconnaissance units; they move across a map laid out in squares; speed of movement depends on terrain. The fastest type of movement is what non-wargamers would call very slow.

Once the pieces have been moved you must wait for the computer to move the German forces and then conduct any battles. The computer takes several minutes to go through its moves and the resulting battle becomes a tedious war of attrition.

The surprise is that dedicated wargamers may enjoy the masochistic experience. We for our part cannot understand why M W Gamesworld has managed to transfer all the disadvantages of simulation wargaming to the Spectrum when computers are so clearly suited to writing complex games which can be played at speed.

Chris Bourne

Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes

VEGETARIANS may be deeply disturbed by the warped concept of Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes, from Visions. Set in a rapidly-mutating market garden, the game features crazed tomatoes, psychotic swedes, manic mushrooms and mobile cabbages, all of which cause Smiffy, the weeder, a pile of grief.

To earn pay and points the player must steer Smiffy between the moving furrows of cabbages and grab the weeds which are around. Every time Smiffy treads on a cabbage he loses points. Meantime the screwy salad items float about the screen, chasing the gardener. They kill on contact. There are 10 levels of difficulty, customised keyboard movement and the option of Kempston joystick.

The main point in the game is the movement, as weeds appear relatively infrequently. Evading the moving lines of cabbage is similar to the Frogger style of play and the rampaging vegetables are like heavy traffic, though they will divert frequently to chase Smiffy. At lower levels of play the evasion portions are a little dull but the action develops into more complexity on higher levels.

Richard Price

River Rescue

IF YOU have piloted a power boat, forget River Rescue. The real thing is far more exciting than the game, by Creative Sparks, which leaves much to be desired as a commercial product.

Perhaps the most glaring fault is the complete lack of instructions. Nowhere in the program or on the cassette insert is there any indication of which keys to press to obtain joystick and two-player options; there is not even a message explaining how to start the game.

If you manage to press the appropriate keys you will be rewarded with a green background and a blue river which scrolls horizontally. You have to pilot your powerboat, avoiding crocodiles and logs, and negotiating islands and bends.

The boat has a gun which can be used to clear objects from the river if you feel aggressive. The crocodiles disintegrate immediately but the logs require three hits.

If your taste runs to Skramble without the bombs, aliens and fuel dumps you will no doubt be overjoyed to play River Rescue - assuming you can determine which buttons to press.

Chris Bourne

Sinclair User
September 1984