Virgin/The Sales Curve/Teque
£8.99/£14.99

Continental Circus was covered in the Arcade Action section back in October 1988, and now here's the chance to enjoy all the thrills and spills of racing witi out needing pockets full of 10ps. Of course the coin-op had impressive 3-D glasses stuck on the front of it, and unfortunately the computer version's done away with this luxury.

To succeed in Continental Circus you have to complete each of the race tracks and cross the finish line well up in the ranking. You start off in Brazil where you must finish in the top 80 to go on to the USA. Get in the top 60 here to go on to Japan and so on.

This gets a little tricky later on when you're expected to finish in the top three! Good driving skills are essential if you want to do well, but conditions are not on your side. Some of the levels are graced with rain pouring down onto the track causing much slipping and sliding to and fro for that could have been my drving!).

Collisions with other cars in the race are not immediately fatal as in other simulations. In Continental Circus the car starts to smoke, and a sign comes up telling you to enter the pits. If you don't do that soon, the car catches fire and explodes, BOOM: one chargrilled driver!

All the sprites in Continental Circus are excellent, if somewhat reminiscent of WEC Le Mans. They include girls in skimpy swim suits running onto screen holding up cards and waving flags (fwoor!). The screen is split into two monochrome colours, with just a touch of red coming onto the car when it is on fire.

The hills, bends and perspective have all been excellently programmed, giving you the feeling of being thrown around every corner. Music and effects are also of a very high standard. Continental Circus was a fantastic arcade machine and it has now been brought onto your computer with hardly any loss of addictiveness and playability. Jump into a Formula One car and have some real tyre screeching fun.

NICK [86%]

I love the arcade game with its huge 3-D glasses and comfortable sit-down cabinet. Even without these extras this version offers a damn good racing game. Especially impressive are the neat little graphical and sonic touches that liven it up, as when passing a rival car hearing its engine sound approach and then recede into the distance. Varied weather, much screaming round bends at breakneck speed and the thrill of winning make Continental Circus well worth forking out for.
MARK [93%]

Mastertronic Plus
£2.99

Groovy Formula One racing game with lots of neat elements (like weather conditions). One of the best around!

Virgin
£9.99 cass/£14.99 disk
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies

An odd name for road-racing game, you might think. Surely they're not having to resort to shock tactics to sell the thing just because it's so much like the other racing games around?

Well, no, actually. My moles tell me (particularly the one on the back of my left thigh, which is most informative) that the game was originally destined to be called Continental Circuit, but while the chap responsible for promoting the game at Taito HQ was on the phone discussing the launch of the game he accidentally got a crinkle-cut potato chip that he was fiddling with stuck in his ear, dulling his hearing somewhat. Not wanting to make a fuss, he continued with the conversation but misheard the name of the game, innocently passing the revised title on to his minions in the publicity department. After undergoing emergency surgery to remove the foreign object, he returned some weeks later to find the office in disarray. Posters sporting the new name were covering the walls, and half the staff were discussing the future of our unfortunate PR man. Whatever the outcome of his tribunal was, the name stuck and the game will probably get a lot more attention because of it. (Okay, so there's a bit of artistic licence in there but you get the gist.)

Your aim, as the driver of a 400 kph racing vehicle, is to make it around the courses in Brazil, Japan and the other six in between, finishing in as good a position as possible. For each course there's a certain number of cars which need I be overtaken to move on to the next one, not to mention the time limit. You have a steering wheel, an accelerator and a couple of gears to waggle between, and all of these will need to be skilfully manipulated if you're going to get anywhere.

The only thing standing in the way of success, apart from your questionable driving technique, is the risk of other drivers swerving in front of you without warning. As you begin to sustain hits your car will begin to emit clouds of smoke. Unless you 'pit in' pretty sharpish you'll find the smoke turning to flames, and then you've got real probs.

It has to be said that from a visual point of view Circus isn't going to change home computing as we know it. The car sprites can only be described as functional, the scrolling isn't particularly smooth and the roadside decoration is so notably un-notable that I can't even remember what it looks like off-hand. Fairly drastic I would imagine.

Entertainment-wise things aren't too hot either. There's so little to do, just dodge from side to side and press the gear button, that races become almost a routine, broken only by pitstops and the random cloud bursts which make the roads go all slippery.

It's fun... for a while. There is one aspect that stands out, though - the sound, which simulates revving engines very tidily without resorting to the usual flatulating noises and manages a couple of tunes too. Oh, and also the start sequence and the pitstop are kind of okay. And I like the way that you can send other cars spinning off the road when you hit them.

Continental Circus doesn't really contribute to the cause of the Speccy in any way. If there was a definitive average game this could well be it. Average look, average feel, average smell. Apart from the sound that is, which is above average (for its type). Although... no! I take it all back - that's average too. The whole thing - it's average.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

It's damp and it's dark
But it's always quite merry
When you're locked down the cellar
With PILLAR & PELLEY!

Mastertronic Plus
£2.99
Reviewer: Jon Pillar

Probably best known for the joke related by JD when he reviewed it all the way back in issue 47. Apparently it should have been called Continental Circuit but there was a bad telephone connection. Ho ho! Ho hum. The joke wasn't very good, and spookily neither was the game. (JD gave it 60%.) Has it done a Red Dwarf and improved with age? Er, no. Your basic drive-against- the-clock jobby, it has a fair smattering of good points (8 tracks, pitstops, the way your momentum can carry you over the line after time's run out, rainstorms, a credits system) but these are, alas, outsmarted by the bad bits (truly horrid sprites, the way the opposition frequently rams you before you can get started, the ridiculously severe time penalties and the general feeling you've seen it all before). Obviously a better buy than first time round, and okay if you're desperate for (yet) another racer, but it's a 'not that' game. You know, not that fast, not that playable, not that good... (oh dear),

Label: Virgin
Author: In-house
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Garth Sumpter

Arcade conversions are seemingly very popular at the moment and to coin a phrase, they're what yer right hands for which is exactly what the software houses seem to know as no sooner does a machine grab your attention and have you asking for your pocket money in ten pees, then several software companies will wrestle for the license, so that they can wrest a few more pence out of your pockets. This is actually good economics for games players IF the conversion is a good one.

So, what of Continental Circus? Could such a wicked arcade game convert to the Spectrum? The Sales Curve seem to think so who have done the converting on behalf of Virgin Mastertronic and I must say. It does look juicy.

For those of you who haven't played the Taito arcade machine (whaddaya mean you haven't played it!), here's the brief...

Continental Circus is a rubber burnin' race game. No elephants, no clowns and no-one in glitsy suits beating tigers into submission with large whips. No siree. This game is for real heros. You must race against other cars and improve your performance (fnarr), to improve your ranking which to begin with is, well pretty naff. In fact it's crap! You're ranked 100th which is last place. As a reader of Sinclair User this really won't do will it. So by getting around the courses within the allowed time and overtaking enough cars you will qualify to race on each successive track.

You begin the game in Brazil and work your way up the rankings and through six other countries' tracks until you finally reach Japan, where you must finish in third place or better. Ahh sooo.

Sound easy enough for you? Ha, just hold it right there Mr Mansell. Cars go wrong sometimes, just ask Jim if he's got enough oil in his engine and he'll scuttle off out and bang another pint in his lotus. Well, oil levels are no problem with Continental Circus but collisions are. If you decide a car's in your way, don't do an Alison on it. The merest nudge will cause smoke to pour out and, as in the arcade game, you will be advised to make a pit stop to repair the damage. If you decide to continue then watch out! If you run the car for too long the smoke will turn to flames and eventually the car will blow its rivets all over the track.

If that isn't enough, there is also rain which can happen at any time, just like the real thing. Be careful on bends in the wet as it becomes frighteningly easy to completely wipe yourself out and be left without a working motor. Losing a car isn't too bad because that can be replaced but the all too important clock will continue to tick away your chances of qualifying.

Control is by keyboard or joystick with forward accelerating the car and the fire button acting as shift between low and high gear and your current gear is displayed in the top left hand corner along with speed, present score and the highest score, to the left of which is time left which ticks mercilessly down to zero. Your current rank and the rank you need to qualify for the next race are also here to lay testament to what a brilliant (or useless), driver you are.

It looks like we've got a winner here - okay so the 3D effect can't be implemented on the Spectrum but the 3D effect on the arcade tended to give people severe headaches and if Taito saw fit to introduce an on/off option then just think of the Spectrum version as being that much better than the original.

Virgin have a good product here (hurrah!), and it will be no surprise to me when it roars into the charts in a flash of smoke and hopefully, doesn't disappear in a ball of flames.

Virgin/Mastertronic
Spectrum £9.99, C64 £9.99, ST/Amiga £19.99

As you probably know, Taito's coin-op was originally meant to be called Continental Circuits, but wires got crossed and the translation came out as "Circus"! Strange, but true!

Anyway, the 'circuits" in question are a series of eight tracks set around the world: Brazil, America, France, Monaco, Germany, Spain, Mexico and Japan. Each has their own hazards, and some are more difficult than others; Monaco, for example, is almost entirely made up of bends and chicanes, whereas Japan is full of lovely long straights.

On every track you've got to race your way through the field to achieve a qualifying position. At Brazil you start off in 100th place and have to make your way to 80th; by Japan you've got to finish in the top three. Each course also has a strict time limit; crash once and you'll be lucky to finish.

If you hit other cars or roadside obstacles, you set your vehicle alight, and its time to enter the pits, where the clock is stopped until you're fully repaired. If you don't make a pit stop, you'll eventually blow up, spin off the track and lose valuable seconds.

Although the original coin-op is an enjoyable game, the 8 bit versions have failed to capitalise on the machine's fast action, and the end results are rather routine Pole Position clones which have been seen before in various guises over the last four years. The pit stop is a neat idea, but really there's little else that's new.

The 16 bit versions look and play similarly to the arcade machine, and are enjoyable and addictive. The only problem is that there isn't a lot of variety in the gameplay, so lasting appeal is questionable. Still, if you're a fan of the original coin-op you should love both versions - those not so sure should check out other racing games on the market before making a purchasing decision.

Mastertronic Plus
Spectrum £2.99

Ready yourself for plenty of high-speed thrills, spills 'n' automobiles in this re-release of the Sales Curve's version of the 3D Taito coin-op. Obviously, the "real" 3D and the superb graphics are missing, but this game is still pretty playable and ranks as one of the better road racers that we've seen of late. Check it out.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £14.99, Diskette: £19.99
Commodore 64/128 Cassette: £14.99, Diskette: £19.99
Atari ST £19.99
Amiga £19.99

BECOME AN F-1 CHAMPION WITH...

Ever fancied becoming a Formula One champ, standing on the winners' podium with a gleaming trophy in one hand and a beautiful blonde in the other. Well there's little chance you will be able to do this in real life, but with Continental Circus from Virgin you can have second best. Taken from the Taito coin-op that features huge 3-D glasses, the computer version lacks the three-dimensional view, but is a tough and challenging eight-track racing game.

After displaying a bird's-eye view of the next track to be attempted (the first is Brazil) the view changes to a lone car sitting on the starting grid, a scantily clad blonde holds up a board which informs you that five seconds remain before the race starts. Then as the final seconds tick down, the lights on the overhead gantry flash 3-2-1, and with a screech of rubber you're off. Opposition isn't long in showing up because other cars appear with annoying regularity trying to cut you up and force you off the road.

You start the race at the back of the pack in 100th position, but to qualify for the the next track you must finish the race in 80th position or better. So step on the gas and rip past the opposition. As with most racing games a high/low gear is accessed by pressing fire. At around 200kph change from low to high because you won't go very far otherwise - and the race is against the clock. Checkpoints are scattered around the track which must be reached in the allowed time, with extended play the reward for passing them.

As you tear around the comers watch out for the computer-controlled cars. Collision with these (or the billboards at the trackside) isn't immediately fatal - the back of your car starts to smoke, leave it too long and flames burst out, making it time for a pitstop where mechanics swarm out with fire extinguishers. On later tracks dark clouds gather and rain pours down, making control of the car more difficult (the arcade version asked you to pitstop for wet weather tyres).

Further into the game you visit America, France, Monaco, Germany, Spain, Mexico and Japan. Each track is tougher to complete because every second counts and finishing positions get tighter, for America you need to be in the top 60, and from then on it drops steadily until you get to Japan where you must be in the top three to win the championship and the Formula One crown. The time limit on the first couple of tracks is quite generous, however, so you can concentrate more on jostling your way into a winning position rather than worry about how much time is left.