Elite
£12.99 cass/£17.95 disk
Reviewer: Duncan MacDonald

Hmmmm, Christmas is over, and a new year is already upon us. It only seems like two months since my pet badger Nigel passed away (it is only two months - and he hasn't passed away he's only hibernating. Ed). Poor Nigel. Such a furry little fellow, and he always seemed so healthy. Aaah well. I gave him a burial to be proud of, and I'll buy a replacement badger later in the year (Oh no. Ed) Anyway I'll wipe away the tears and console myself with this little offering from Elite: Frank Bruno's Big Box. What? A Frank Bruno Cricket Game?? Oh no, my mistake, it's a compilation of ten of Elite's past glories all scrunged together onto two cassettes. Hmm, ten games for thirteen quid - that sounds like good value, let's have a meatshop.

FRANK BRUNO'S BOXING

You're big Frank, you're in the ring and you're viewed from behind as you proceed to thump your way through eight adversaries. You've got all the moves (guard up, guard down, dodge, hook etc)and you have to knock your opponents down three times in a three minute round to dispose of them. Each opponent has his own special 'trick' to floor you with though, so watch out. The graphics are nice and big, and overall ifs not a bad little game. In fact it's got my adrenalin going. In fact you can tell Mike Tyson from me that he's a poof!

BATTY

Yo ho ho! Up it crops again - a game we gave away free more than a year ago. If you haven't played this then you're missing out: it's an Arkanoid clone with loads of twists and extras and some of the slickest graphics and gameplay the genre has to offer. It's absolutely brilliant Boing.

COMMANDO

Quite an old coin-op conversion, this, in which you play commando Super Joe (viewed from above), and you have to dash up the vertically scrolling screen handing out death to Johnny enemy. You've got a machine gun and grenades, and the action is frenetic as you rush under bridges, avoid tanks, and blast everything that moves in your hurry to 'reach the fortress' A bit dated, but jolly good fun nonetheless. Bang.

BOMBJACK

Platform game with very pretty backgrounds in which you collect bombs to gain points while avoiding the nasties. Collect the allotted bombs on one screen and it flips to another. And so on. Hair raisingly addictive stuff. Wooosh.

SCOOBY DOO

Fairly standard platformy game in which our canine pal must go up/down, left/right while punching the ghosts' lights out and following the trail of Scooby 'Snax', which should lead you to 'Shaggy' and friends who you've got to rescue. Yawn.

BATTLESHIPS

A computer game With a spooky past, but we won't go into that. Right. You know the game you play with a chum, on paper? Where you each place a fleet of ships on a grid, and then take it in turns to blast each other out of the sea? Well, here it is - but with animated 'firing' sequences added and the need for a pencil sharpener removed. This successfully transforms an incredibly tedious game into amerely boring one. Zzzzzzzz.

SABOTEUR

Ninja frolics galore as you don your balaclava and infiltrate a security building in this viewed-from-the-side flip-screen platform/maze game. You've got to find a computer disk, but there are dogs and armed guards out to top you. Lucky then, isn't it, that you're a little bit handy in the old 'Kung Fu' department. Nice sized sprites, and jutecent little bash. Aaaaahh ssooo.

1942

Vertically scrolling coin-op conversion from a couple of years ago. You control a little aeroplane and you've got to shoot down all the other little aeroplanes. Occasionally a bigger aeroplane saunters onto the screen. You have to shoot this down as well (before it shoots you). Power-up icons can be collected as you progress through the levels. It's pretty basic, but quite a hard little beggar to get through. Very hard in fact. Take this, son of Nipon!

GHOSTS 'N' GOBLINS

Viewed-from-the-side scrolling spook 'em up coin-op conversion. Hailed as something of a classic in its time, the game still packs an addictive punch, even if the graphics won't drag an amazed 'coooo' from your larynx. Heroic knight has to rescue beautiul maiden from clutches of demonic tyrant, enter the castle at your own peril kind of stuff. Jolly good kind of stuff in fact. Brrrrrr.

AIRWOLF

You're Stringfellow 'Mike Smith' (Yowch! Ed) Hawke, you've got your hands on a chopper (oo-er), and, in this viewed-from-the-side four way scroller, you've got to get it down to the bottom of a vast subterranean network of tunnels, where you will find five kidnapped scientists. These boffins must be rescued and returned to the surface. Once they're safe you can pop back down and blow the whole complex to kingdom come. Ka ka ka ka ka.

Well that's it. Phew! You know something? I feel as if I've just written the Bargain Basement pages. Actually that's not so surprising when you consider eight of these ten are available on the budget shelves at your local store. Oh dear, I'm afraid it's down to maths time. Let's see - if we say the average cheapie is two quid then this compilation gives you twenty quids-worth for under thirteen. Um, and there are six titles here that are very good budget value, i.e; twelve quids-worth. So what follows is that if you buy Frank Bruno's Big Box you'll pay full budget whack for six good games, but sort of get four not quite so good ones for free (You'd probably better read that again, slowly). Phew. Can I have my new badger, now? (No, go and dig up Nigel. Ed).

(Spec, C64 and Ams; £12.99cs and £17.99dk, C64 disk £14.99)

Take Frank Bruno's Big Box for example. The names sound familiar, and why not? They've been on Elite compos before, especially Batty and Battleships, and Scooby Doo and 1942 were already on one of its Hit Pak collections. (Who us? The same as Hit Pak? Nahhhh!!!!) Featured games on Frankie's Box are Frank Bruno's Boxing, Commando, Scooby Doo, Ghosts 'N' Goblins, Batty, 1942, Airwolf, Bomb Jack, Saboteur and Battleships. That's 10 originally full-priced games at 13 quid! The games haven't worn much with age. Look at Batty, for instance. Even on the Spectrum it's one of the best Arkanoid clones ever, and in a lot of ways more addictive. Battleships you may have seen reviewed in a couple of magazines at the time it was supposed to come out, but it never did. Elite's excuse was that it wasn't up to scratch, but how it levels that with the fact that the mags all gave it full marks I don't know. It's a reworking of the battleships game you play with pen and paper. You fire at the squares of a grid trying to guess where your opponent has placed his ships, you know the one! (Incidentally, if you see an Amiga version of this game, check it out as it's the best one of the lot!) Of the other games 1942, Bomb Jack, Ghosts 'N' Goblins, and Commando are fine examples of Elite's ability to spot a good coin-op license when it sees one. All four are not bad at all, although I particularly recommend Bomb Jack on the Speccy, and Ghosts 'N' Goblins on the C64. These two get my vote as past favourite games which I'd gladly play now.