Producer: Players
Street Creds: £1.99
Author: Paul Griffiths, Jabba Severn, Richard Beston

Remember the time a few years ago, when kids could be seen in the streets hurtling along on planks of wood with wheels attached (and then there was the skateboard craze as well! - Ed). Yes the craze of skateboarding which swept across the Atlantic is back with a vengeance. Several software houses have produced games featuring this sport of speed, skill, and a heavily padded body. (I've only tried skateboarding once, and I fell off...) (Why aren't I surprised? - Ed). Players, not wanting to be left out, have produced Kickturn using the Skateboard Construction System on the other side of the tape.

You play the part of a street wise kid (not unlike our Mr Roberts), who has taken up the challenge to become the Skateboarding Champion. So, donning your pads and crash helmet, you set about tackling the courses. These include back alleys, building sites and dockyards, none of which offer an easy ride with bollards, pipes and bottles messily left in your way. To make a difficult situation even worse an imposed time limit has to be beaten to quality for the next part of the course.

I found this timer difficult to beat - mainly because of the tricky controls. Game after game my little character piled into either the scenery, or the obstacles, and after not very long my patience had almost gone. Before I decided to hurl the computer out the window, I flipped the tape and had a look at the game editor.

The editor has ten options on the main menu, including a title designer, a sound designer, a sprite designer, and a course designer. Obviously at first you have to keep referring to the instructions, but it's enjoyable enough and after much trial and error, I managed to construct a course that even I could complete (no obstacles then? - Ed). But although the editing facility did provide me with more amusement than the actual game, I still doubt whether Players could have marketed this at a higher price because of weak gameplay.

MARK [40%]

THE ESSENTIALS
Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Sound: squeaky spot effects
Options: editor allows you to alter all aspects of the game

Construction System gives you the rare chance to virtually design a game of your own. Even the sprites can be changed to whatever you like, and even if you're no Mark 'Picasso' Caswell much fun can be had creating new ones. The trouble is that once you've redesigned everything, the game itself is nothing to write home about- just a simple 'dodge the obstacles'-type affair. Worse still, sometimes when the skateboarder falls off, the program stupidly puts him back on the screen right in front of another obstacle, so he's bound to hit it. With such a great designer it's a great pity you can't actually produce anything better with it.
PHIL [58%]

BARGAIN BASEMENT

Ben 'n' Skippy take a seat in the stalls to play their way through this month's cut-price offerings! With a bit of help from the usherette of course!

Players
£1.99
Reviewer: Ben Stone, Mike Dunn

Phew! After an hour of messing about twiddling knobs we finally managed to get this one up and running on our trusty old Speccy! And unfortunately it wasn't worth it! SCS's lousy gameplay has been heavily disguised by pretty graphics and a beefy front-end, but Player's can't pull the wool over Speccy gamesplayer's eyes that easily.

The construction system on the reverse side of the cassette is actually a darn sight better than the game itself and more fun to play around with too! Though the demo game plays rather like a cold, slippery wet fish (it's hard to get hold of) the scrolling is effective. Unfortunately, since any games you construct use the main game to run on, even your own designs will be just as unresponsive. Norralorrafun!