Producer: Microdeal
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £8.00
Language: BASIC

'You are about to fly the world's most sophisticated flight vehicle,' it says in the flight manual enclosed with the tape. This is of course the famous Space Shuffle. Your mission is to take off, park yourself in orbit, move yourself up to a malfunctioning satellite and retrieve it with the remote control arm, then fire the retros and descend back to earth. After re-entry is accomplished you must then land the Shuttle on a long runway in the desert before receiving your debriefing.

Space Shuttle is more of a simulation than it is a game. The opening screen depicts your view, as pilot, looking out of the shuttle port at the desert outside, backed by mountains. Some cacti and a gantry are visible, the countdown is going. When ignition sequence begins the view scrolls downward as you lift into blue sky, pass small clouds and finally climb into the black of space with a few small stars visible.

From the orbit you must move the shuttle forward to make acquisition with the satellite. When this is done the view outside shows the satellite in position nearby, and the bay doors, which may be opened. Then the remote arm may be activated and guided to make contact with the satellite and both withdrawn into the bay. There is a time limit on this section, after which the arm withdraws whether or not you have acquired the satellite.

Once the doors are shut, re-entry occurs automatically until the view clears to show you the desert landing strip approaching.

The tape is accompanied by a detailed manual. Instrumentation includes range and altitude, propulsion by reaction jets, real-time mission clock, range to the end of the runway, altitude, velocity and reaction jet fuel remaining.

COMMENTS

Control keys: cursors, plus = forward, B - back, O =open doors, C =close doors
Joystick: Protek, AGF, ZX 2, Kempston
Keyboard play: slow
Use of colour: average
Graphics: good resolution, smooth, but slow and lacking imagination
Sound: poor
Skill levels: 1
Lives:
Screens: 5

Don't forget that the most difficult thing is to land! The take-off looks quite detailed and is done quite well. Moving the shuttle around to acquire the satellite is a very easy performance and I do think the satellite could have been better drawn with more detail and colour. Landing is very hard, perhaps too hard. Throughout, the use of colour is only fair in fact, and although the graphics are smooth, they are very slow, and the sound is poor. On the whole the game is of a poor standard and not worth buying.

This game is a little similar to Flight Simulation and requires some skill although how you land I'm not sure, it's quite difficult. The instruments are well defined with hi-res graphics, but the sound is disappointing.

It says there are five phases which require skill. Take-off is all handled by the computer, as is re-entry. Parking the shuttle near the satellite is very simple, virtually automatic; getting hold of the satellite is also simple enough, with the only difficulty being that the end of your arm must make contact with the lower point of the satellite. Only landing poses any real problem. All the way through, the simulation is done using so few instruments that it barely deserves to be called a simulation at all. The graphics throughout are disappointing and simple with the drawing of the bay doors and the satellite looking as though they come from a game two years old.

LIMITED SPACE FLIGHT

MICROS: BBC B, Atari 16K, Tandy Colour, Spectrum 48K, Dragon, Electron, CBM 64, Oric
PRICE: £8.00
FORMAT: Cassette
MICROS: CBM 64, BBC B, Atari
PRICE: £9.99
FORMAT: Disk
SUPPLIER: Microdeal, 41 Truro Rd, St Austell, Cornwall

Having been treated to a welter of television advertising for this program I looked forward to seeing it.

The simulator comes with a 14-page flight manual containing the mission plan and control instructions for your flight.

The mission is to launch yourself successfully into orbit, fetch a malfunctioning satellite by parking next to it and then retrieving the device with your remote control arm.

After the satellite is safely stored, close the bay doors, fire retros and begin re-entry. Fly into a final approach window and perform a mock landing flare. Then start your final approach to the runway resulting in a safe landing.

The program is split into three main phases take-off, park and re-entry.

Before take-off the player is given the weather conditions for the proposed landing site: wind strength, direction, cloud ceiling and so on.

The take-off, plus some other parts of the simulation, are carried out under auto control where you may relax and look out of the window at the disappearing mountains.

Keyboard or joysticks may be used to control the flight into orbit and the parking alongside the satellite.

The retrieval of the wayward Sputnik is carried out by means means of an arm which is manoeuvred out of the bay until it touches the satellite and held in contact until it locks.

Having retracted the arm and stowed everything away, the player may activate the reentry sequence and try to navigate to the landing strip.

There are few controls to master, and just as few instruments in this package. The many aircraft simulators already available appear to be more sophisticated than this program.

The graphics shown through the window are white, flickering and crude. As this program is available for a number of micros I can only assume that it has been restricted by the limitations imposed on it by the other poorer systems it is designed to run on.

BBC micro users, who are used to much better, are not liable to be over impressed by much in this game.

Whether it be the childishly simple retrieval sequence or the blackout phase, where my interest also blacked out.