REPLAY

Old games never die. They just sit around for years doing nothing, then come back in a smaller box. JON PILLAR inspects...

CodeMasters
£2.99 cass
Reviewer: Jon Pillar

Here's another of those mega-successful four-packs from the Codies. Apparently, they're releasing one a month now. Let's 'Insert Coin' and see what happens...

PUB TIRVIA

Test your knowledge of completely useless facts with this Speccy version of the three-buttoned bandit. Choose from four categories and answer A, B or C to one of 2,000 questions. Get it right and... have another go. (Gasp!) With up to four players and spanky presentation (and about 1,500 spelling mistakes!) there's a lot of fun to be had if quizzes are your thang.

ADVANCED PINBALL SIMULATOR

Would you believe this has a plot? Some nonsense about evil wizards and oppressed peasants (or something). The pinball table has a good spread of colourful, animated obstacles, and the realistic bail movement is commendably nippy. A neat afternoon-filler, but be warned - it's horribly, horribly frustrating.

FRUIT MACHINE SIMULATOR

"The first true Fruit Machine Sim!" screams the blurb, and it seems a pretty good example of its type. Nudges, holds, double-or- nothing - it's all here. Fans will play until their eyes cross, but for everyone else (including me) it's out of the window it goes!

FAST FOOD

Dizzy meets Ms Pacman in this maze chase game as the eponymous egg legs it away from the nasties and after his lunch. With 32 levels, cartoon interludes and dazzling polish it should be a winner, but the flickery graphics and surprisingly repetitive gameplay mean it isn't.

Nope. I didn't like this one. It's of limited appeal with no great games. A bit disappointing all round in fact, and the weakest Quattro so far.

Label: Code Masters
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £3.99 Tape, N/A Disk
Reviewer: Big Al Dykes

Feel like a bit of gambling eh? Well this is the game for you in that case. If like our Garthy you're a bit of a big spender down the local arcade, but unlike him, you expect big returns for your time and money then this package may only be of passing interest - unless you really are the king of lounge lizards.

The four titles in this package are varied, with one common denominator - Pub games! Yes, all of the games can be found in most pubs and sleazy arcades from Leighton Buzzard to Las Vegas. We had differing opinions on the games however. Garth and I became addicted to the Fruit Machine, Andrea to the Pinball game and Jerry Hall our Ad Man, to the Pub Trivia quiz. The one game that seemed to not follow this tested formula was Fast Food - an unfortunate PacMan clone which held no interest for anyone.

Graphics and gameplay on the titles are rather variable. Fast Food, involves wandering around a maze collecting various high cholesterol foodstuffs has the least exciting gameplay and graphics but conversely Pub trivia and Fruit Machine are well drawn with realistic animation.

Pinball is a mixed bag. Any pinball game can get at least a little addictive and this is no exception even if it is far less than spectacular.

The biggest problem lies with Pub Trivia and Fruit Machine, they are both realistic and thus it is very disappointing when you win loadsa money but don't get any of it to turn into drinking vouchers at the end of the evening.

All in all though, if you can live with the idea of not winning any money for your efforts, then this really is the compilation for you. If you're the undisputed king of the (Pub) Lounge Lizards.