LIGHT BLAST

Tony Dillon checks out the latest in spec hardware.

When I was littler than I am now, I remember there was nothing better than getting a new toy. No matter what the occasion, it was always a heartwarming experience. Christmasses were always merry, birthdays were always happy. The only time I was ever disappointed or frustrated about getting a toy was whenever I bought one of those Kinder Surprise Egg things. There was nothing worse than opening the wrapper biting my way through the chocolate and the yellow plastic tub, only to find that my model of Donald Duck had been destroyed in transit and was now just a few small twisted pieces of plastic and a picture on a small piece of paper. Funny how it always seemed to happen to me.

But I'm much older now, much more mature. Which is why I still had to trade my sixer conker and half of the red Star Wars bubble gum cards to get the latest Sinclair plaything, the Magnum lightgun. Marketed and built by Mastertronic, the lightgun aims to bring a whole new dimension to interactive action games such as Operation Wolf.

So what exactly is a lightgun? Well, it's basic premise is that it dispatches the need for joystick or any kind of actual physical interaction with a computer keyboard. Practically you use it by pointing the muzzle at the screen (at a reasonable distance) and pulling the trigger. The computer can then 'tell' what you are pointing at and give the appropriate reaction. A duck falling over in a duckshoot, for example, or an option on a menu screen being highlighted.

The gun unit connects directly to a 128K spectrum via the Aux port, and sources inform us that soon an interface will be available for all you 48K users. No extra hardware is required.

The gun itself is software controlled. In layman's terms, this means that on it's own the gun won't do an awful lot. It's only when you load in driver software, such as the six pack of games that come free with the gun (check the reviews) that the gun comes into 'full effect'.

Accuracy-wise, it ain't bad. Much better than I expected. Occasionally it does seem to be firing a curved beam, but more often than not, the shots are on target.

The gun unit is built from some very lightweight plastic, almost off-puttingly so. This does tend to give the unit a very fragile feel, but after extensive tests, the gun continued to function.

The design of the gun is simplistic enough. A long barrel, with two sighting markers, and a long moulded butt, designed to fit any size hand. The cable extends from the bottom of the butt, as not to get in the way, and the light beam is fired from a source recessed in the muzzle of the gun, shielded from outside light interference. One gripe with the design was the angle the handle is set at. It's much closer to 90 degrees than most actual guns, which means that aiming the gun seems too unnatural to start with. You have to remember to lift the muzzle, as holding the gun naturally results in the muzzle pointing earthward.

In tests, the gun performed with a large margin of success, but there were still times when it did things you wouldn't expect. Even so, it still looks poised to be much more of a success than the ill-faited Stack Light Rifle. It's by no means a defensive addition to your home entertainment system, but if guns are your thing, you could do a lot worse than shell some dosh on this.

You've unloaded your wad into Arkwright's Hardware Emporium's cash register. You've ran home expectantly with your Sinclair labelled box under your arm. You kick open your door, you run up to your room and lock the door behind you. You pull out your Spectrum, set it up and plug in your brand new Sinclair Lightgun. Then, what do you do?

Easy, you load up one of the six free games bundled in with your plastic death machine. Here, we present a detailed look at the direction your first few tentative shots are going to be aimed, Some of the names might seem vaguely familiar, others are a totally new spectrum experience. Make up your own mind as to which is which.

OPERATION WOLF

Easily the star of the pack, and possible the sole reason a lot of people are going to buy the Lightgun. If you are a Zeeb from the planet PetShopBoys in the galaxy of Crappomuzik, then you're probably the only person who hasn't heard of this mega-sadistical Vietnam completeit-annihilate-em-up.

You are a Vietnam-posted soldier with a mission. More importantly however, you are a Vietnam-posted soldier with a gun and a stash of grenades. By cleverly utilising the two, your aim is to single-handedly win the war.

You only need to glance back a couple of issues to find that we thought the original, joystick controlled conversion of this completely classic coin-op was a monster hit. But still we moaned. Wouldn't it be nice, we said, if somebody could take the original control method of using a replica gun and playing like that. And now somebody has.

And it's every bit as good as the original Spectrum version. The game is the same, only now gone are the crosshairs and the keyboard entanglements. Now if you want to down a soldier, just level the gun with his head, and fire away.

It all sounds find in theory, but practice is another matter. Aesthetically, the game is spoiled by the ever present raster bars and the slowing down caused by constant firing of the gun. Small discrepancies in the accuracy of the gun also make the game very difficult. The other thing that makes the game difficult is the way that the grenades are still launched by the space bar. This wasn't much of a problem on the crass-hair orientated version due to the way you could stop the crosshair. Launching and aiming the grenades is a Case of reaching for the spacebar and keeping the muzzle of the gun pointed at whatever you want to shoot at.

Final verdict: Mixed opinions. Captures the general feel of the coin op at the loss of some small, gameplay discrepancies.

BULLSEYE

It's up to the oche with Bully, your money's safe and give em nice actually recall this appearing before, but perhaps that because it didn't really make the impact it should have. After all, everybody likes a bit of Bully.

Play Solo, or against a friend as first throw darts at a question selection board. Choose a topical field, and then use the gun to aim and throw the dart. Land the dart correctly and you receive a bonus, dependant on how far the dart landed from the bull. Answer the question correctly, end you receive even more points. Then go on a simple head to head darts match, finally finishing off with Bully's prize board. Remember, out of the black and into the red, you'll get nothing in this game, for two in bed.

Final verdict: An accurate conversion that successfully manages to capture all the excitement and adventure of the TV programme. Make your own mind up.

RAGE HARD!

Another load of babble from our resident technobore Phil Snout with Flexipage authoring system, plus news of the new Sinclair Magnum Lightgun.

CONTACT
Product: Magnum Lightgun
Contact: Virgin Mastertronic, 2-4 Vernon Road, 119 Portobello Road, London W11 2DX
Price: £29.95

Hot news has reached the YS TechnoCupboard of a fabarooni input device. The Speccy lightgun! Produced by Trojan Products for the Virgin Mastertronic Group, the Magnum Lightgun is to be marketed under the Amstrad/Sinclair livery as part of the ever-expanding Sinclair computer entertainment system.

Trojan is of course famed throughout the Speccy galaxy more for its excellent lightPENs than lightguns, but thinking about it I guess the techniques employed by both devices are similar enough. The Magnum allows you to shoot at the screen, from up to five feet away, making it a natural for games like Operation Wolf which used the technique on their original arcade machines. In fact, spotters, Op Wolf is rumoured to be sold with the Magnum, along with other delectable goodies like Starship Encounter, Robot Attack and Solar Invasion.

Unfortunately, you won't be able to use the gun with games which weren't made for it, but major software houses US Gold, Domark and Ocean do assure me that they'll be producing compatible versions of their games in the near future.

The initial release of this weapon will be usable only on 128K Speccies carrying the 'keypad' port, called 'Aux' on later models. This as you know is the serial port on the 128. The gun comes with a lead attached, on the end of which is a nifty little BT plug for the serial socket. As most 128K's have had the ROMs controlling the keypad ripped out before shipping., Trojan has written special code for inclusion in Magnum compatible programs which reads the port. Don't fret if you only have a 48K Speccy, as Trojan says it has a version which plugs to the user port of older Spectroids well in hand!

IT AIN'T HEAVEEE, IT'S MY LIGHT PHASER

FAX BOX
Product: Sinclair Trojan Action Pack
Designer: Trojan Products
Manufacturer/Producer: Amstrad
Distributed By: Virgin Mastertronic
Price: £29.95

Want the lowdown on the new Speccy peripheral pistol? David 'Davey' Wilson shoots from the hip and gives you his opinion of the Sinclair Magnum Light Phaser!

So what's the secret behind Swansea? A comfy, little university city nestling on the west coast of Wales, home to a shopping precinct, a swimming pool with one of those wave-making machines, Joe's Ice Cream Parlour and, more recently, some of the most exciting developments the Speccy's seen in yonks! Yep, Swansea is the home of Trojan Products, designers of light pens and of the first Speccy Light Phaser!

Anyway enough of the mysteries of West Wales and on to a close inspection of the Light Phaser. Basically the Phaser, designed by Trojan for Amstrad, will sport the Sinclair logo on the side and will be distributed by Virgin Mastertronic. It will be on sale around mid-August, priced at £29.95 and come in a special pack with six games (the Trojan Action Pack to be precise, fact fans).

The Phaser is not only 'light' by name but also by nature. It attaches to your computer via a cable approximately five feet in length (which is therefore the distance you can stand away from it). The plug on the end of this cable has been likened to a BT plug in several columns, although it's more akin to the old Spectrum QL jobbie. Don't try and shove it into a phone socket!

The plug fits into the Key Pad socket on Spectrum+ 128s and into the Auxiliary socket for the +2s and +3s. Oh, and don't worry, there'll soon be a 48K compatible Phaser as well.

Plug it in and load up the Action Pack tape. The first thing you'll see is a menu listing the three games on this side of the tape. Point the Phaser at the game of your choice and fire. Then you get your instruction to play the tape. On side A are Missile Ground Zero, Solar Invasion and Operation Wolf. On side B are Rookie, Robot Attack and Bullseye (smashin' luvvly). So how do they look? Read on, mes braves...

HOW IT WORKS

Er... erm, pom, pa-pom, pom... Everyone was a bit reluctant to tell me actually! Hem, hem. But this is the YS theory(!)... Your TV picture isn't a static image, is it? No, it's constantly changing! I know, it looks static but that's because it changes about once every twenty fifth of a second, quicker than the human eye can register! It's constantly being updated by a scanning line that starts from the top of the screen, then goes left to right and so on to the end of the picture. It then goes back to the top and starts again. Got that? Okay then, when you have your Speccy set up, the picture signal then comes from the computer. Because the computer is controlling the image it knows exactly where the scan line is on the screen. The Light Phaser will always have a beam of light shining on the screen, the position of which is read by the computer via the scan line (again, at twenty five times a second!). It then fires a pulse at the screen, the light bounces back and the position on the scan line is read by the Phaser and relayed to the computer. The computer knows where the targets are on the screen and where the Phaser has fired. If the two correspond then the trusty Speccy will initiate a death or destruction sequence for that character or object. Clever, huh?! So if that's the theory, how does it work in practice?

MISSILE GROUND ZERO
Lothlorien

Righty-ho, here's the first game. Programmed especially for the Action Pack by Lothlorien (better known to us for its war games), it's a basic version of that old arcade hit Missile Command. There are four bases on the surface of a planet, at which loads of objects start falling out of the sky, threatening to demolish them. Your task? To protect your bases by blasting the falling missiles. There is also a space ship that flies across the screen dropping bombs. The graphics are very crude, but I must admit the sound's nice. When you shoot there seems to be e line of fire that appears and wipes out all the bombs that are on it. Whether this is a case of Phaser interference or quite intentional is unclear, but it does serve to assist you in aiming. Trouble is there are just too many of these darn bombs flying down a trifle too quickly for it to work with only one screen. It doesn't last long, it's got some fairly basic single screen graphics but, oh well, I suppose it's quite playable.

SOLAR INVASION
Software Creation

Ah ha! A space shoot em up that's been specially programmed. Blimey, I'm orbiting Pluto apparently! What are those squiggly things then? Dunno, but I better shoot em! Oh dear, I've run out of ammo! That was quick! There surely must be more to it than this!

Right I can move around by shooting at the arrow icons in the top corners of the screens. This is quite a complex system here! Aiming at one arrow and firing turns you one notch clockwise (anti-clockwise with the other arrow). Since you're moving continuously, this then sets you going in the corresponding direction. All the wiggly things can be shot but some take a lot more hits than others so watch that ammo. If it runs out, you're dead!! Every now and then an icon appears. An 'A' will replenish your ammo, a 'B' gives a bonus score. If an 'A' icon whizzes past, get ready to chase it using those direction-changing arrows! The graphics are pretty slick, and the 128K sound is great. With the volume on the telly turned up you can really hear those ricochets and squashy hit noises!! Quite a goody, all in all.

OPERATION WOLF
Ocean

At last, the game I've been waiting to see. Just after loading. you are offered the opportunity of 'calibrating your gun'. This process involves shooting at several targets in order to ensure that the point of aim and the area hit match up. I found it best to actually place the Phaser against the TV targets so that there was no mistake about where I was aiming! The game looks exactly the same as the original version, only without an on-screen gun sight of course, and when you shoot a nasty black and white bar appears momentarily on the screen. Well, at least it shows you where you're shooting! Apart from this and the not-too-bad-but-not-too-brilliant accuracy of the Phaser (so don't stand too far away), the game plays very much like the original, is slightly less accurate than the keyboard-controlled cursor but more realistic in that you're shooting a gun.

ROOKIE
Lothlorien

First up it's a shooting gallery game in which various targets pop up out of tree trunks for you to blast away! There are arrow icons in the top corners of screens which, when shot at, move you onto the next screen to the left or right. The sole attraction of this game hinges on the accuracy of the Phaser, but I found it played quite well. I managed to hit all the targets except this bird thingie that flapped across. Cor lummey, flaming indestructible it was, even when I held the Phaser one femtometre from the screen! Anyway, achieve a certain score and you'll have finished that round. You then get to shoot again on exactly the same range until you fail to achieve the score. For some reason, the Phaser seemed to be quite accurate on this one. I suppose this is exactly the sort of game you'd expect to play with it and as such it's a nice version. But as a seasoned Speccy games player it looked a little limited.

ROBOT ATTACK
Software Creation

Here's the next one up and it's another newie. This time you see several platforms, with boxes and a big space on the left. Loads of little robots then start appearing and running along the platforms. Their intention is to unpack the boxes and build a massive robot, so you'd better stop em or it's curtains for you, amigo! When shot, they change colours as they lose strength, but the red ones just break down until a yellow aerobie-type thing comes out and repairs them. There's a power meter on the bottom of the screen so this means that rapid fire is 'out the window'. If you keep missing them, then the big, bad bot starts being built from the feet up. And that's it!

BULLSEYE
Domark

Ding ding, ding ding dah ding dah ding, ding ding dah ding, deedle deedle dum. Hurrah! It's everyone's favourite telly game show and the second conversion in this pack. Mooh! Luvvly, smashing, fantastic, and Bully's special prize!!! You can either play with the computer or your mate (oo-er) so here's what to do... First you shoot at a special dartboard, choosing subject categories and then answering questions on that subject (or the subject that you hit!). Next up, you shoot at a normal dartboard. The highest scorer gets to answer the next question and getting it right gives you the points scored. This one had a bit of novelty value included 'cos I played it against Dunc. Needless to say the game was rife with Jim Bowen impressions and those favourite Bullseye memories. Anyway, unfortunately, unlike the other games, not all the commands could be operated via the Phaser. This meant that I had to keep leaving the 'ockey' and go back to the computer to type answers. From my modest 'ockey' position (about three feet from the computer) the Phaser wasn't too inaccurate, and it seems like they've built in something to prevent you from cheating and holding it a millimetre from the screen. The best results were achieved by shooting once at the target and then correcting my aim for each following shot but after the first three games the same questions kept on cropping up. Apart from the staunchest of bendy Bully fans. I suspect a bit of limited appeal here.

AND THERE WE HAVE IT

And why not? The first Spectrum Light Phaser complete with a six-game Action Pack. A slight disappointment, but fun to play. The games seem to be largely on a par with the original ones given away with the Speccy itself... not too brilliant! Op Wolf is the best of the bunch, because it's an up-to-date game and, as such, features the skill graphics and scrolling that we've come to expect. Others, especially Rookie and Solar Invasion, are well playable, if a bit limited. I wasn't keen on the fact that all the games suffered from a bit of interference when you pull the trigger, but some are worse than others - from a single horizontal bar across the screen in Op Wolf to the whole screen black with white blocks for targets in Rookie. Funnily enough, this interference is much worse when you watch other people play than when you are playing yourself. Hopefully this is a symptom of the Phaser's infancy and will disappear as new games are produced and the technology improves. The Phaser is most interesting for its future possibilities - already lots of major software houses have expressed an interest in writing compatible games. Could well be the beginning of something good.

Light Phasers? Tomorrow's technology... today!! There should shortly be another one on the market too, the Cheetah Defender. Watch this space!! (And all the other spaces in your fave Spec mag that we might happen to write about it in!)

MAGNUM FORCE

It's black, looks mean, is made of plastic and plugs into your Spectrum. It promises a new kind of fun and isn't cheap. It's the new Sinclair Magnum lightgun, and MIKE DUNN is the man with his finger on the trigger.

It's a long time (more than five years!) since someone last had a go at producing a light gun for the Spectrum. The Stack Light Rifle, as it was called, was a bit of a failure; there was next to no software support for it, and at thirty quid, it was very expensive (this was at a time when most games cost four to five pounds), Both the Nintendo and Sega console systems have recently popularised the handheld gun game, and evidently Sinclair have decided the time is right for the Speccy to get its own light gun, the Sinclair Magnum.

The suitably futuristic looking gun plugs into the 'Keypad/Aux' hole in the back of the machine. Most of these guns (and also light pens) work on the same principle; the gun senses the television scan beam which renews the picture fifty times a second; by locating the position of the beam, the computer can determine where the gun is pointing.

The gun is available in three Sinclair packs: with the new Action Pack (made up of a +2 or a +3, one of those appalling joysticks which you're much better off leaving in the box, the light gun and six fun gun games), or you can get just the gun and games for £29.95. If your local shop doesn't stock the gun 'n' games pack, check with Virgin/Mastertronic for availability, But enough of this teccy stuff - what about the games?!

ROOKIE

Rookie is probably the best of the six games. The concept is ridiculously simple; shoot the targets when they spin round. The arrows at the top move you onto the next screen when you shoot them, and occasionally a '10' target pops up, which can be blasted for more bullets. Each level has a number of targets to shoot before you can progress further, this goes up with each level. The scenery is attractive, but the main problem is the activity on screen - it flashes white with every shot. Apart from making it more difficult to see what's happening, Nick moans it gives him a headache and sore eyes (that's because he's so rubbish, but it's a point, I suppose). Very addictive and enjoyable.

Overall: 90%

ROBOT ATTACK

This must be a contender for the worst game on the tape. You have to destroy fifty robots before they make a big mega monster. Different coloured robots arrive on the screen, and every time you hit one, it changes colour, until it becomes purple. One more shot and it blows up. Robot Attack is deathly boring, the graphics are naff, and although it doesn't appear to suffer from the flashy screen disease, it's not worth playing.

Overall: 35%

BULLSEYE

Having just said that Robot Attack might be the worst game on the tape, I must eat my words, because Bullseye simply defies belief! The graphics are reasonable enough, but the sound is terrible, the game's much more fun without it! Naturally, the game is based around the TV quiz, the object of which is to throw darts at special boards and answer some trivia questions. You use the gun to fire the darts, which is quite good fun; you aim the gun steadily at the bullseye and wonder whether it's going to hit the board at all. The darts are very inaccurate, the question answering method is awful, with keyboard responses too slow to get answers in quickly. The whole game is dull, flat and feeble. Just like the TV show, but this one hasn't got Jim Bowen to take the p... (SNIP! -Ed)

Overall: 20%

MISSILE: GROUND ZERO

This is a basic version of the old Missile Command type game. Things fall out of the sky, and you have to shoot them before they land on your cities, blowing them up in the process. This game could have been really good, but it's ruined by the fact that it's impossible to shoot accurately. The gun has a 'scatter' effect, which basically means it fires anywhere except where its being aimed at! Graphically okay, but generally disappointing, really.

Overall: 56%

OPERATION WOLF

The arcade machine was great, the Spectrum conversion was pretty good, but I'm afraid it just doesn't work with the light gun at all. This version of the Ocean game replaces the joystick control with the light gun, so, theoretically, it should be even more like the arcade, but unfortunately, the flashing screen ruins it. The gun calibration sequence, peculiar to this game, also doesn't appear to work very well: the firing remains a bit inaccurate, no matter how careful you are. Still, its a variation on a very good theme, so it isn't that bad.

Overall: 65%

SOLAR INVASION

The solar system is under attack from a swarm of alien invaders, and you have to use your light gun to fight them off! This is probably the most challenging game on the tape, because you have to shoot the alien mothers (no, no, I didn't mean it like that; the big aliens which produce more little ones!) millions of times to kill them, and the little aliens are so small, you have to be really accurate with the shooting. Nonetheless it's quite playable and averagely addictive.

Overall: 71%

WHAT'S THE VERDICT?

The light gun is a good idea. But without good games to go with it, it'll remain a gimmick to be dumped in the cellar. Either enough people splash out the thirty pounds for it to encourage software houses to produce decent entertainment suited to it, or Sinclair must invest in producing better games for it themselves.

At the moment, Rookie is the only one which makes the grade, the rest are worth trying, but otherwise the Sinclair Magnum isn't all that magnum.