News

Microprose's "F-15 Strike Eagle" was about to land on the ST. The ST would also get a port of Mirrorsoft's flightsim featuring a somewhat older aircraft, "Spitfire 40".

Viz were working on "Werewolves of London".

For the first time since being bought out by Mastertronic, Melbourne House announced its upcoming titles: "Roadwars", "Rockford", "Pulse Warrior", "Street Hassle", "Metropolis" and "Kelly X" (I was unable to find any sign that the latter two were released, at least not under those names).

There was a screenshot from EA's upcoming "Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator".

Probe's "Bravestarr" - a game based on the cartoon series of the same name - was due out on the Spectrum in time for Christmas.

The game license for the "Pink Panther" had been picked up. The bit in the mag about this was done in a very strained French accent and was quite difficult to comprehend. I think they were trying to say that Ollersoft had the rights, but I have no idea who Ollersoft were (if indeed they existed) and the game was actually published by Gremlin.

Cinemaware's next movie-esque game - this time featuring gangsters - would be "King of Chicago".

Early '80s Whizz Kid poster boy Eugene Evans had resurfaced and was working on "Bermuda Project" (Amiga/ST/Mac) for Mirrorsoft.

Martin Deem from Stubbington took away the first prize in C&VG's arcade competition held at the Personal Computer World Show. Runners up were Darren Parker from Doncaster, and Andrew Hall Davies from Redditch.

Also taking place at the PCW Show was Mastertronic's international arcade champs (to celebrate the launch of their own Arcadia range of coin-ops.. I never realised they got into coin-ops). It was the US team vs the UK team, with the latter taking away the honours.

Gremlin had a packed Christmas line up: "MASK II", "Compendium", "Alternative World Games", and "Basil The Great Mouse Detective".

Another screenshot of Incentive's upcoming "Driller". The software house boasted that there would be 20,000 billion screen possibilities. What on earth did that mean?!

Not much had been heard from the ever intriguing ladies of St Bride's over the past year or so, but they announced their next adventure was to be the gruesome (and somewhat controversial) "Jack the Ripper".

Ocean were throwing their hat into the 16bit ring with a rather interesting game in the form of "ECO", though I don't think I ever understood what I was doing. Ocean had also secured the rights to "Madballs", meanwhile Imagine were to release "Freddie Harvest".

Kevin Toms revealed the long awaited "Football Manager 2" at the PCW Show (with help from West Brom's manager, Ron Atkinson).

Features

This month's music reviews featured: Suicidal Tendencies, Slade, Bathory, Shy, and Poison.

There was a Thundercat's short comic.

C&VG attended the British Fantasy Society's FantasyCon.

The movies covered this month were: The Witches of Eastwick, Angel Heart, A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3, Beverly Hills Cop II, Who's That Girl, Private Investigations, Dirty Dancing, Mascara, and Eat the Rich.

C&VG visited the studio behind innovative TV adventure game show, "Knightmare", to see how they manage to put it all together.

The comics section took a look at the work of Moebius.

Tony Takoushi gushed over "Nemesis 2" for the 128K MSX, and made the rather ridiculous claim that "this game has music and sound effects that make the industry standards of Rob Hubbard look like Noddy." Utter rubbish, Tony.

Notable Reviews

• "International Karate 2" Archer Maclean/System 3 - C64 10/10 Game of the Month "Sound the fanfares and get the flags out for System 3's International Karate 2, the sequel that's more than equal to the original."
• "Super Sprint" Electric Dreams - C64 9/10 "The 64 version is excellent. It looks good, plays pretty much like the arcade machine and has sto [sic] many nice touches that you'll want to keep comeing [sic] back for more." Oh dear, Editor.
• "Hollywood Poker" Diamond Software - Amiga 8/10 C&VG Hit "Hollywood Poker is the best strip poker game I have ever seen, heard and played."
• "Quedex Stavros Fasoulas/Thalamus - C64 9/10 C&VG Hit "Quedex is pretty damn good - puzzling, frustrating and addictive all at once. Don't miss it."
• "Hysteria" Special FX/Software Projects - C64/Spectrum 9/10 C&VG Hit "The Software Projects revival continues. Dragon's Lair (ok), Star Paws (getting better) and now Hysteria (great)."
• "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" US Gold - Spectrum/Amstrad/ST 9/10 C&VG Hit "Playability is great. Control of your character is smooth and easy, which is what I like best about this game."
• "Renegade" Imagine - Spectrum/C64/Amstrad 7/10 C&VG Hit "Although the actual arcade original was nothing much to rave about, Imagine has done a marvellous job at converting it." A bizarre review.. really didn't sound like the reviewer enjoyed it at all.
• "Sidewalk" Infogrames - ST 7/10 C&VG Hit "Sidewalk is a strange mixture of adventure and arcade, with stunning graphics, a novel, and sometimes annoying, control mechanism [sic], and the kind of humour and feel that will appeal to comic buffs, who may finally be persuaded that comics and computer games can be combined to provide a piece of genuine entertainment." Yes, that was one sentence - what the hell, Editor?
• "Maniac Mansion" Lucasfilm/Activision - C64 9/10 "A FUN adventure with original feel. Great graphics, good sound effects, nice animation and on top of all that it's totally addictive!"
• "Pirates!" Microprose - C64 9/10 C&VG Hit "Pirates! is an impressive and absorbing game - one for those of you who enjoy getting all wrapped up in a strategy-style role-playing game with enough action to appeal to the arcadester."
• "Backlash" Novagen - ST 10/10 C&VG Hit "Luckily for you, Novagen's wizard programmer, Paul Woakes, has found time to produce Backlash [while working on the upcoming Damocles], a full-blooded, no-nonsense blaster."
• "Red LED" Starlight - C64 9/10 "Okay, despite the fact that Red LED's plot is about as thin as our ad manager's hair, we've got a nifty little game on our hands here. Well done, Starlight. The best yet."
• "Yes, Prime Minister" Mosaic - Spectrum/BBC/C64/Amstrad 9/10 "All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable and untaxing game, that is every bit as fun as watching the TV programme. Paul Eddington, Nigel Hawthorn and Derek Fowlds positively jump out of the screen."
• "The Hunt" Robico - BBC 9/10 C&VG Hit "Nice graphics, good text, logical puzzles, no sound (shame!) and a good plot."