News

Gary Penn responded to grumblings from readers about the Christmas issue. The main complaints were around the lack of reviews and the price. The former issue was hardly the magazine’s fault as publisher’s were taking any morsel of time they could get in order to get games on the shelves for the Christmas shoppers.

Electric Dreams/Activision had a whopping dozen licensed arcade conversions heading to the C64. They included: "Tempest” (unreleased?), "Super Sprint III”, "Enduro Racer”, "Wonder Boy”, "Quartet”, "Rampage”, "Fire Trap”. It wasn’t all arcade ports, though, with a bunch of original titles: "On-Field Football” (a sequel, but unreleased?), "Aliens Part II” (unreleased?), "Star Raiders II”, "Portal”, "Firetrack”. Activision was also handling the distribution of System 3’s "Last Ninja" and "Bangkok Knights”.

US Gold had a couple of coin-op licenses themselves in the form of Atari’s "Road Runner" and "Indiana Jones”.

Gremlin were to release four games at a budget(ish) price of £4.99: "West Bank”, "Pentacle”, "Zyron" and "Snooker and Pool”. There were a few sequels in development too: "Thing on a Spring II”, "Auf Weidersein Monty”, "Bounder II" and "Jack the Nipper II”. They were also working on "The Samurai Trilogy" and "Convoy Raider”.

Ocean had the home computer rights to Nintendo’s "Mario Brothers" which would be released on the Imagine label. Meanwhile, the Sensible lads revealed their next game: "Wizball”. And what a game it would be.

Cat throwing, ale drinking and throwing rocks at a human victim in stocks were two events in American Action’s take on multi-event games, "Blood’n'Guts”. Lovely.

"Nosferatu" from Pirahna would see the player control three characters trying to hunt down the vampire.

Gremlin’s "Future Knight" and Melbourne House’s "Knucklebusters" arrived just too late to be reviewed in this issue.

"Bombjack II" received a decent 80% score from Zzap!, but apparently Elite were going to be “changing the graphics”.

Features

Graeme Kidd travelled to Denmark to interview two relatively new software houses, Kele Line and World Wide Software.

Notable Reviews

• "Gauntlet" US Gold - 93% Sizzler “Unbelievable! All the features of the arcade game (including the original maze plans!) have been packed into this incredible conversion.”
• "Avenger" Gremlin Graphics - 86% “A highly competent addition to the growing range of Gauntlet inspire maze games.“
• "Championship Wrestling" Epyx/US Gold - 80% “An entertaining wrestling game which works well. Give it a whirl if you’re into fighting games.”
• "Destroyer" Epyx/US Gold - 85% “Destroyer is one of the most playable simulations I’ve seen on the 64. The instrumentation is beautifully drawn, and although the spot FX are quite simple they work well enough.“
• "Moonmist" Infocom/Activision - 91% Sizzler “Pricey as it may be, but it deserves to join the other Infocom titles in your collection. And whatever UK companies may say about the importance of graphics, provided you can read I wager that you’ll never - after finishing an Infocom game - say ‘But it would be so much better with pictures.’”
• "Silicon Dreams" Level 9/Rainbird - 90% Sizzler “All three [games] can be recommended, but don’t expect either the atmosphere or the ‘classic’ quality of Jewels of Darkness.“
• "Escape From Singe’s Castle (Dragon’s Lair Part II)" Software Projects - 90% Sizzler “An excellent arcade conversion consisting of eight varied and addictive mini-games.“
• "Bomb Jack II" Elite - 80% “A simple but addictive game which puts its predecessor to shame.“
• "Park Patrol" Firebird - 94% Sizzler “An original, attractive and extremely addictive game. Don’t miss it.“
• "They Stole a Million" 39 Steps - 90% Sizzler “An original and absorbing alternative to gratuitous binary violence.“
• "Heartland" Odin - 85% “Odin have not yet come up with a product that hasn’t won my approval and Heartland is yet another in a long line of successful releases.“
• "Light Force" FTL - 87% “What a superb shoot ‘em up! Light Force is very fast and VERY playable.“
• "Tenth Frame" Access/US Gold - 85% “Another slick and extremely well programmed Access sports simulation.“

Charts

Games

1. "Leader Board" Access/US Gold
2. "Super Cycle" Epyx/US Gold
3. "World Games" Epyx/US Gold

Music

1. "Knucklebusters" Main Theme - Rob Hubbard/Melbourne House
2. "Light Force" Main Theme - Rob Hubbard/FTL
3. "Miami Vice" Title Screen - Martin Galway/Ocean