Producer: Avalon
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price:
Language: Machine code
Author: M.L. Knights

Pit-Stop is a new version of a very old and standard racing game, the sort of concentric grid game where you must drive around four lanes connected at the main compass points, avoiding chasing vehicles which travel in the opposite direction.

The object is to leave the central pit area and collect the four tools lying in the far corners, one at a time, and return them safely to the pit. There are two chasers, one running in the outer two lanes and one running in the inner two. They only change lanes at the top or bottom, Your car may change two lanes at once. Points are scored for collecting tools and for dropping them. There is a time limit imposed by fuel supply, which will be replenished if you get all four tools back.

COMMENTS
Control keys: 1/2 change lane left/right, 0/O change lane up/down, D to drop collected tools
Joystick: none
Keyboard play: sensible controls, but two for direction would have been better, responsive
Use of colour: below average
Graphics: small, rather jerky, reasonable explosions
Sound: continuous, fairly good but repetitive
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 3
Originality: some new frills on an old, old game

This type of game is very old and out of date - no matter how many frills are added, the game is still boring. Collecting tools is a novel idea but no different to eating the more usual dots. Chaser cars always tend to get in the way (although that's the central idea of course) and make it difficult to play. The trouble with the basic idea behind this sort of game is that luck plays the bigger part. If you crash then a stupid remark appears in the centre of the screen. Colour is not really well used because the cars don't show up at all when playing from a distance. A poor, old and unaddictive game.

This is a fast type game at which some people undoubtedly get good, but can you be bothered? The programmer has chosen to have four directional lane change control which is very confusing instead of having a simple 'in' or 'out' control. If the game is out-dated, the sound track is positively antediluvian with that dread Death March tune when you lose a game. The explosion is quite effective, but overall the graphics are small one character-sized, and boring to look at, with poor use of colour. A waste of money.

There's always a good argument for bringing out new versions of old favourites, because newcomers get a chance to see them and usually with improved routines for better graphics. Unfortunately this game does not stand up, neither in the graphics department, nor the fact that I doubt it was ever an old favourite really. It's the sort of game which has hard to control features and totally lacks either content or real playing appeal like, say, 'Asteroids'. Not recommended by me anyway.