US Gold
£12.99/£17.99

Lookit this! It's a compilation from US Gold bearing our very own name, and indeed five fab US Gold games therein! The five smashing games were picked by CRASH game players going back to the dawn of time and all are Smashes!! Well, except for 720°, but we reckoned it should have been a Smash after playing it for months! Anyway, this is what you get for your dosh:

BIONIC COMMANDO: Loads of platforms across heaps of levels as you leap and bound through the scenery, bopping off the alien invaders. Equipped with handy telescopic arms you swing from pinacle to pinacle, pulling your way to the exit at the top of each level, and then onto the next. Endless fun, with smart graphics and excellent sound and a veritable mountain of playability.

720°: Skateboarding action at its very best! Take your 'board into the brilliantly drawn park and its four separate stunt courses to become the champion. Fabulous playability, and enough to keep you playing for months!

WINTER GAMES: A compendium of winter sports featuring seven events: Figure Scaling, Free Scating, Speed Skating, Hot Dog Aerials, Ski Jump, Biathlon and Bobsled. Very slick presentation and game lay throughout each event and definitely the best of the 'Games'series on the Speccy.

IMPOSSIBLE MISSION II: The original was naff but this is the bee's knees in action-packed espionage. Run through Elvin Atombender's maze-like tower, destroying robots and collecting codes to let you into the main computer to stop the bomb exploding. An all-time great from US software house Epyx, very addictive with great depth to keep your interest sustained.

SPY HUNTER: This is my favorite game ever on the Speccy! Continuous adrenalin pumping action in car and boat chases up and down colourful landscapes. Incredibly simple to play, but the fun just doesn't stop as the roads get busier, bridges start collapsing, and the enemy cars and boats get more devious! Brilliant!!!

It's silly to rate this pack, because it's obviously a CRASH Smash - else why would those games be there?! Miss this compilation and you're as useless ass a whoopee cushion in a baked-bean factory!

RICHARD

US Gold
£12.99 cass/£14.99 disk
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies

The only real surprise in this compilation is the name - I always thought a crash was fairly undesirable among the computing fraternity. Still, all the titles contained on it seem to load okay and each was highly rated by YS in its day, so you shouldn't have anything to worrry about.

BIONIC COMMANDO
This is probably the best of the bunch. Bionic Commando notched up an easy Megagame when it appeared 18 months or so ago, and hasn't really aged at all. Aided by your telescopic bionic arm, the idea is to swing from platform to platform nuking baddies, presumably with some ultimate goal in mind. The five scrolling levels are colourful and varied and you'll never find yourself taking the same route twice. A very nice conversion indeed. Tragically, they've only included the 48K game - the music in the larger version is fab.
'89 Rating: 91°

720°
Another conversion and another former Megagame which perhaps looks a touch better than it plays, but is thoroughly triff all the same. The plan this time is to skateboard around Skate City trying to clock up enough points to enter each of the tour parks where assorted stunts must be performed. Although spookily monochromatic, the graphics are superlative (gurt lush as we say in Bristol), right down to the little animated break dancers and body builders. And if you get bored with sticking to the straight and narrow there are plenty of opportunities for inventive mucking about. Essential, really.
89 Rating: 88°

WINTER GAMES
Just when we were doing so well the compilation takes a chronological leap backwards, with a bit of seasonal misapplication thrown in for luck. Winter Games was originally one of the better sports sims, but it's looking distinctly wrinkly now. Much of its success, I reckon, can be put down to the attractive backdrops. Take these away and the game seems very shallow. Just for the record, the seven events are Figure Skating, Free Skating. Speed Skating, Hot Dog, Ski Jump, Biathlon and Bobsled. Quite a compilation in itself. Better with lots of players (up to four), but you'll probably end up getting out the Scrabble instead.
'89 Rating: 59°

IMPOSSIBLE MISSION II
Rather more thought is required for this one, so it makes a pleasant change from the rest of the pack. Unfortunately that means that I'm completely crap at it. It takes the original Impossible Mission theme and bolts on lots of extra goodies. As well as the straightforward platforms, lifts and robots there are moving platforms, mines and, ooh, millions of other things to fiddle about with. The graphics are excellent and the challenge is enormous. Yet another Megagame, IM2 makes the compilation seriously worth considering, even if only a couple of the other offerings tickle your fancy.
'89 Rating: 90°

SPY HUNTER
Carbon dating reveals this one to originate from the early cretaceous period. Spy Hunter seems amazingly crude today, which is a shame as I can remember playing it for hours as I sat on my potty. It's the original scrolling road game which at the time was pretty innovative, what with those add-on weapons and the mutation into a boat. Spy Hunter still retains a fair amount of its playability and shouldn't be written off entirely, but it seems like a bit of a space-filler to me.
'89 Rating: 56°

Not, perhaps, the ultimate compilation but The Crash Collection contains three superb titles and a couple of bearable ones. Be aware, though that two or three of them are either out on budget or have been featured on other compilations so the chances are you could pick them up cheaply without having to fork out for a load of others you don't really want. Otherwise, at (erm... prod, prod, prod) £2.59 each, they cost less than yer average budget game and, on average, are a lot better.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £12.99, Diskette: £17.99

Like ZZAP! Sizzlers, CRASH Smashes isn't exactly accurate, 720 - the fab Atari skateboard coin-op - wasn't a Smash, but it deserves to be here.

Bionic Commando, from the Capcom coin-op, is an extremely addictive platform game. Equipped with your bionic arm, you must climb to the top of each level in a hope to advance. Great graphics and very playable.

Spy Hunter, from the Sega coin-op, is a classic not to be missed. Jump in your car, viewed from above, and race through land and water blasting all-and-sundry.

Next comes Impossible Mission II. More super graphics, with excellent animation. The game's very tough; a real challenge for puzzle fans. And finally we travel to snowy slopes and prepare for plenty of wrist ache in Winter Games. With a double loader on 48K machines, it's tough to decide which four of the eight to play. All the games may be old, but they're all real classics. A super compilation - great value for money.