Wringing the last out of a tired genre.

Producer: Cascade
Uranium 235: £8.95 cass
Author: Vektor Graphi

Sometimes the downside of bad programming is a bit more serious than a spot of colour clash. Take, for example, an alien fleet of Ring Worlds designed to locate uninhabited planets and extract valuable minerals. Hundreds of them are drifting into the Solar System and widespread human colonies soon discover how well they detect life.

As the pilot of a space fighter you soon come under attack from Ring World defence drones. While your fighter flies on automatic pilot toward the World you flip between six screens trying to blast the drones. Once you're through to the World you fly inside, and immediately come under heavy fire. Your objective is the World's centre where a nuclear bomb will do most damage. Pylons have to be flown through to get on course, and once the bomb is way before the timer runs out.

Outside the World you can assess your damage; shield energy is measured on the left, with fuel on the right. Status and weapons screens show ammo levels, damage and faults. To repair these you can hyperspace to the moons of surviving planets. Atmospheric entry is automatic, but manoeuvring into a hanger definitely isn't. The type of services offered by a hanger varies from moon to moon. Once enough Ring Worlds have been destroyed their Mothership will appear, blow it up and you've completed the game.

Warping about space and blasting alien invaders will be familiar to anyone who's ever played the superior Code-Name Mat. New elements such as finding various services and bombing the reactor fail to significantly alter the over-familiar and repetitive nature of gameplay. Programming is very professional, however, with some good, fast-moving vector graphics. If you haven't played this type of game before it could prove entertaining for a while.

STUART [61%]

THE ESSENTIALS
Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: fast, well-drawn wire-frame graphics...
Sound: ...but only a single laser shot effect

Fast vector graphics make the first run through the defence drones and anti-spaceship lasers exciting. Unfortunately by the second or third bomb run the appeal has begun to wear off. Despite being years older than Elite the gameplay is a considerable step back from that game's complexity and apart from the graphics it's it's very dated.
MARK [48%]

With a title like Ring Wars I was expecting a boxing game! But instead, it appears some doughnuts are attacking the solar system. First impressions are good, but misleading: shooting enemy ships is monotonous and there's nothing too remarkable inside the Ring Worlds either. Even with the ability to land on various moons, there really isn't much depth to what promised to be a complex game. Although technically competent, Ring Wars is really just a shallow shoot-'em-up masquerading as something more interesting - doughnut buy it.
PHIL [51%]

Cascade
£8.95 cass
Reviewer: David McCandless

The story so far: Earth is the buckle in the universe's belt: a fragrant lump of granite where all is good, big and self-righteous (a bit like America you could say), when suddenly a squadron of armoured, alien battle-planets appear on the fringe of the solar system. These RingWorlds - as they are named - move silently and insidiously into each planetary system, with the earth and galactic conquest in their sights.

It's up to you, lone fighter pilot, the man with the flying skills and sexual prowess to match them, to take on the RingWorlds and alien mothership and blast them into Monday.

Your view of the universe is the typically wire-frame/oncoming stars one, not dissimilar from Elite. A target sits smugly in the centre of the screen, a meeting point for your lasers. It can be moved cleverly off screen in each direction to provide a flick-screen panoramic view of the vacuum around you.

Alert messages flash on the screen, informing you of the planetary systems under attack. Uranus is normally first (insert your own milkman/microwave joke here). Your navigation system must be selected before you can warp to that planet's aid.

"Navigation" provides you with a diagrammatic view of the solar system (a la Elite again) and there's a choice of either womping straight to the RingWorld or going for a quick lunar holiday on one of the picturesque moons.

The only way Jo actually destroy a RingWorld is by entering through its exhaust port, and then planting a thermonuclear warhead in the reactor (it beats me why all these "invulnerable" death star things always have these stupid tunnels).

The RingWorld's drone craft try and prevent you from accessing the port. They attack you from all sides and angles, belching missiles and lasers. You, in return, have to master the panoramic view movement and overheat the laser somewhat. Once inside, finding the reactor is a simple case of following the signs and avoiding the energy balls.

Then when you've planted the bomb (giving yourself enough time to escape) and jetted out of the system, there is time to visit a moon and restore some energy and fuel.

The graphics are the usual wire-frame type. Because none are particularly complex they move fast and smoothly. The graphical representations of the planetary system with cute orbiting moons are good. The game is quite involving. The satisfying explosions, the fast and realistic alien movements and sub-games all contribute to the gamplay.

It's difficult not to draw any parallels with Elite, since the games are so similar. Elite as the edge though with its strategic element and weapon add-on ability.

I liked it. The attraction is wired together with the challenging scope of the game and addictive qualities.