BIGBOX THRILLS!

What's the best way to catch up on all the great games that appeared on the Spectrum a while back. One: go out and buy every single one and spend a fortune? Tow: pop around to your mate's house and nick his copies? Or three: take a trip down to your local software shop and snap up one of the great new compilations? Well, one's only for the stupid, two's only for complete basts, so it must be three! NICK ROBERTS gives you the low-down on the current hits in compilation land!

4Most Packs
Alternative Software
£2.99

For those with a limited budget, there are more compilations on a smaller scale with Alternative Software's 4 Most packs. Each pack costs only £2.99 and has four action-packed games on it. Hire we've got 4 Most Action and 4 Most Sport.

The Action pack includes Strike Force Cobra, Control Zone, Gun Boat and Dead Or Alive. Each game doesn't have the same theme like most compilations, either. You get great value for money with a 3D game, wild west shooter, war ships and space shoot-'em-up.

Time to catch up with our 2 favourite barg hunters, JON PILLAR and RICH PELLEY, as we fix on our helmets and drop down deep...

BARGAIN BASEMENT

Alternative
£2.99
Reviewer: Jon Pillar

Four (four! Four!) games for £2.99! Blimey, what is going on? Lets take a quick look at each of them, shall we?

COMBAT ZONE

A vertically-scrolling shoot-'em-up cunningly disguised as the other 47 billion you've got. Complete with hidden-bullet syndrome but with a new twist - blast at least 20 baddies each wave or else re-do the level again. What an idea! Novel, frustrating and crap. Rather like the game as a whole (except for the novel bit).

DEAD OR ALIVE

Bandits run rife in Dodge City (which seems to consist of three buildings and a cave) so, er, shoot them. Dinky graphics means lots of room to manoeuvre. Highlights are pinching ammo from dead baddies and tricking the inept villains into shooting each other. Very simple and a lot of fun.

GUN BOAT

Use some really nasty Asteroids-type rotation controls to pilot a heavily-armed gunboat along enemy waterways. Get shot at by everything from gun emplacements to aircraft carriers, nab fuel and blow up the main base. Chubby graphics, trickier than Paul Daniels, but a good laff.

STRIKE FORCE COBRA

A past master ("a YS Megagame!" trumpets the inlay) where you control a crack commando squad attempting to break into the HQ of a wannnabe Bond villain ("nuclear blackmailer", you know the type). You know it's big because there's a Save Game option. Kick down doors, dive through windows, outwit electronic defences and accidentally shoot each other, all in gloriously coloured isometric 3D. Two quibbles - if the team you've selected turns out to be useless you can't choose again, and it's a mite unfair the way you lose huge chunks of energy just by bumping into furniture. Other than that - a classic. Best played while wearing a balaclava.

So, worth it just for Strike Force - with 3 freebies bunged on as well - it's a reet good barg (as they say).