Producer: Firebird
Retail Price: £1.99

You have entered the strange and peculiar space-world of the Balls. In this two-dimensional place live a race of multi-coloured ball-people, quite content to bounce from day to day. But all is not well in this haven of rotundity. The evil Terry Ball has captured Lover Ball, Eddy Ball, Glowball, and No Ball and is threatening to deflate them. In fact the only Ballboy left around is I, Ball, and he alone can save his compatriots from puncture.

To do so there are 16 screens to negotiate, each made up of an obstacle course of metallic denture sets, angular metallic structures, blocks arranged in steps and rotating crosses. As I, Ball picks his way through a world resembling a lunatic scrap-metal merchant's yard, he's attacked and bombarded by lethal devices unleashed by the evil Mr Ball - micro wave ovens, crabs, roulette wheels and Polo mints come after him thick and fast. At first some of these devices present no danger, but soon they lose their benevolence and become lethal. Now, failure to avoid or destroy them means I, Ball loses a life with every contact.

I, Ball is a resilient little bouncer though, blessed with four lives with which to rescue his friends. And for defence there's a bubble-gun that sprays opponents with destructive force. However it only blows bubbles vertically, making I, Ball vulnerable to attack from devices that follow like evil puppy-dogs in his wake. The gun overheats with prolonged use and has to cool down before it fires effectively again.

On occasions a chance to acquire a power disc is presented. By touching a disc I, Ball can increase his range of weapons and abilities - turbo boost allows greater movement speed through a section, while single- and twin- lasers shoot attackers to the sides. Not only weapons, but extra scores and extended time are awarded when a power disc is taken. A status panel shows which weapons are currently in I, Ball's possession. Unfortunately, power discs can be destroyed by the bubble-gun, and when that happens, the weapon or feature it offers is also lost. Some power discs are faulty, picking one up means that the last gathered weapon is lost.

The computer gives verbal encouragement, throaty congratulations greet each new level achieved, and rasping commiserations blast each loss of life. I, Ball's friends are imprisoned at regular intervals, simply reaching the correct level ensures their release. But speed is essential if he's to get through each section before the countdown runs to zero.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Z/X left/right, O/K up/down, P to fire
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Use of colour: excellent
Graphics: large, well-defined and smooth
Sound: good tunes and spot FX, recognisable speech
Skill levels: one
Screens: 16 stages

It's hard, very hard, but I, Ball is immensely enjoyable. It's almost like a vertically scrolling version of Nemesis in the way that your armoury is built up as the game progresses. Graphically very detailed, every character has its own cute features, and the animation, which is some of the smoothest I've seen for a long time, sets them off magnificently. The speech, which is quite recognisable, is best heard through an amplifier as the old squeaker muffles it somewhat. Simply, I, Ball is a fast, furious and highly addictive game that is well worth two quid of anyone's money.
RICHARD

Well, well, well, what a fine little game this is. Although highly-coloured, the excellent graphics suffer hardly any attribute clash, and the scrolling is almost perfect. Sound is marvellous, with a quite bearable tune on the title, jazzy FX and some nifty speech (surely that isn't the legendary Fuigey who's been digitised)?! it undoubtedly becomes more fun when you get loads of add-ons for your ball, but even with the rock-bottom turbo-boost (even without it!), I, Ball is a great game, full of playability and addictiveness, and one that improves as you get better at it; there are some REALLY frustrating layouts on the higher levels. For the standard Firebird budget price, it's probably the best value game I've played this month.
MIKE

Despite the overly cute scenario and the distinct lack of any instructions I, Ball has got me hooked and I can't see myself putting it away for a long while. At first the action is too fast, so it's a bit confusing, but once you've got the hang of how everything on screen behaves, it all becomes fairly straightforward. The graphics are excellent, each character is large, colourful and well defined and the background scrolls smoothly. The sound is also very good; the ace tune on the title screen is bettered by the astounding effects and speech during the game. For two quid this is a steal - go geddit!
BEN

Firebird
£1.99

Rachael... and Me, Rachael. Or should that be I. Rachael, I'm not sure. (Where's your grammar? Ed). At home with me grampar, actually!

Back from me hols and what do they give me? A damn difficult, vertical scrolling shoot 'em up full of colour and bubbles and mostly balls. Can I resist the temptation to get my revenge with the odd, well chosen pun? (You'd better! Ed).

So, lets get this load of sphericals on the road. Evil Terry Ball has kidnapped Glow Ball, Eddy Ball. No Ball and the one they named after me, Lover Ball (Oh please, Ed). It's up to you, the eponymous and egotistical I, to go get 'em. You're sort of a rolling Rambo.

You start almost nekkid (Eeek!) but as you progress through the sixteen layers your Speccy will scream at you (or whimper, if you're still possessed of a wimpish rubbery model) 'Power Disc!'. This means it's time to stop shooting and pick up the aforementioned object, which will bestow great gifts upon you, such as turbo thrust or additional weapons.

It would all be fairly easy if not for the fact that you're a big ball (which reminds me, why do firemen have bigger balls than policemen? Because they sell more tickets) and the hazards are similarly scaled. It's rather too easy to bounce off the walls into a deadly doughnut or an electrified shelf.

Things are made worse at first by the fact that you can only fire vertically. This makes any nasty that drifts in from the side almost impossible to avoid. You just have to zoom on up at top speed because the enemy remains harmless for a split second after it appears.

I must confess I found this initial difficulty rather badly balanced, but things do perk up when you achieve your first new weapon, which is a side-ways firing laser. It's not plain sailing even then though because you'll lose it again when you lose your life.

So, is it the ultimate challenge or just frustrating? It's a big colourful game with some neat digitised sound but I'm not sure I'd rather be back on the sand than sitting in front of a Spectrum. Still, if I could move my micro down to the shore it might be a brilliant beach ball!

Label: Firebird
Author: Timothy Closs
Price: £1.99
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Cursor
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Jack Daniel

The good news is that you'll love I, Ball.

Lots of great colour and zippy sound effects (which include some digitised Daleks) in this game where you must rescue your four ball-like friends, Lover-Ball, Eddy-Ball, Glow-Ball and No-Ball (the fifth would have been Policemans-Ball, bets) who have been captured by... who the hell cares... Just blow them away!

It's a smooth vertical scroller, with the object being to reach the end of each stage without being killed by the animated, kamikaze nasties that appear on the screen. You have to weave your way around some nicely designed obstacles - but watch out if they're glowing - one touch is fatal.

Starting off, you only have a single stream of bubbles with which to zap and they are maybe), but as you make your way through the screens, you can pick up Power Discs, that will add to your armoury, until you become... yup, invinsea-Ball! These powers include Turbo Boost, Multiple Lasers, etc. but each time you loose a life, you loose the best.

It plays like a dream, it's technically competent, just about the right level of difficulty, and its uncannily addictive.

I have the odd doubt about its long term last term lastability, but at the price, who cares?