CRL
£9.99 cass
Reviewer: David Wilson

"Hell-llo and welcome to another edition of Antiques Roadshow. Ah, mmmm, yes, and here's a lovely old piece thats been bought along today by CRL. Tell us a little about this..."

Well, it's actually three pieces which we've had in the family now for about five year's."

"Really, yes, that's remarkable. And you've decided to bring them out again to see if they're of any value? Do you want to know what they are? They're Spectrum games of a motoring theme! Yes, from the early so called 'rubber key' period! Let's peek inside shall we?"

Er, thank you, Arthur Negus...

ENDURANCE

This one is, in fact, the most 'recent' of the games in the box, a stollid January '86 vintage, reviewed in the very first issue of Your Sinclair! It's a motorcycle racing management game which actually went down rather well at the time - it scored eight out of ten. I suppose that being a 'management game' the graphics are of subsidiary importance, and so this one should have stood the test of time. The funny thing is that despite the basic nature of this sort of game they can frequently end up with something that's eminently playable (take the original Football Manager and World Championship Boxing Manager for example). This one has some of that playability, and was likened indeed to FM. However the highest mark in '86 was for Value For Money, which is a tad ironic in this present package.
'90 Rating: 50°

JUGGERNAUT

This one again came out in the year dot (October '85 to be exact! Ed) and represents, in fact, the only non-management game in the pack. It purports to be an overhead-viewpoint arcade simulation of driving a very large juggernaut. Again, after I'd descended into the bowels of Castle Rathbone (That's enough 'bowl descending'! Ed) to dig out the dusty old archive copy of Your Spectrum, I found out that Juggernaut had been received favourably in its original review. They even commented on the 'good smooth graphics'! As I mentioned, however, this was some time ago, and there's not really much here to excite a modern-day Spec-chum with its scenario and vector graphic lorry. Mind you, if lorry-driving is your 'bag' then this is probably the only game ever written to cater for your tastes!
'90 Rating: 50°

FORMULA 1

Eeeee! I remember this one. It came out in the good old days when Speccy games were about nice things like worms, and you could buy three and still have change from 30 bob and everything was node at wood. (Eh? Ed) it first saw the light of day in June 1985! It's another management game. but it differs to the first on two counts. Firstly, it's based on cars and, secondly, it wasn't liked very much. It's a basic decision-making game. In which you take the role at a Paddy MacNally chappie and manage a Formula One racing team. Fortunately there's no Fergie snogginq - instead you receive sponsorship money and then spend it on drivers, cars, engines and pit crews. With very basic graphics and little depth at decision-making, this game looks even worse for its five year absence.
'90 Rating: 30°

So there we have it, and why not? All these games are as old as the hills and serve as useful reminders of just how far today's Speccy software has come! The age factor doesn't detract too badly from the two management games in this pack, since this is a genre whose strength has always been in decision-making and its consequences rather than graphics and animation. But since one of those was sub-standard when it first came out this doesn't make for a good buy. "Three accurate driving simulations"? I don't think so, I'm afraid! Goodbye.