Domark
£14.99/£19.99

Apart from being the title of a David Bowie album Heroes is the latest four game compilation from Domark. For those of you who've been off-planet for the last few years here's a rundown of the lab four games that will set your Spectrum alight!

Licence To Kill is a six level 007 game where Bond must apprehend evil drugs baron Sanchez. The six levels split into three scenes in which Bond chases Sanchez around most of North and Central America in a range of vehicles, takes swimming lessons, is shot at a lot and finally laces Sanchez on an 18-wheeler truck.

In Barbarian II you choose to play either the tough Barbarian or Princess Mariana. Trudge across wastelands, caverns and dungeons until you reach evil Drax's inner sanctum and lop his head off once and for all. Drax isn't at all sporting: he sends a range of his most evil denizens to stop you. But with a range of devastating combat moves at your command, he'd better watch out.

Next hero in the line-up is Arnie Schwarzenegger as The Running Man. You control Ben Richards, participant in the future's top TV game show where punters are ripped limb from limb by paid assassins called Stalkers for the entertainment of the masses. With five sections to the game, there are four zones where you're attacked by Stalkers. Survive that and the fifth level takes you back to the studio to face Killian the smug MC of the programme.

The fourth game is Star Wars. Guide Luke Skywalker as he flies his X-wing fighter into the Empire's most devastating weapon, the Death Star. Three sections await: the dogfight in space with the TIE fighters, the death defying slalom through the laser defence towers and finally a flight through the trench to hit the impossibly small exhaust port.

Most compilation games verge the average because they generally contain one good game and several turkeys. It's nice to see a compilation with three good games and only one dud. The Running Man is the fly in the ointment as far as I'm concerned: the sluggish control and un-Schwarzenegger like main sprite turned me against it when it was first reviewed. Four games for fifteen quid is good value for money, even though they are getting on a bit now.

MARK [87%]

It's a bit of a bargain this Heroes thingy. Top of the pile is Licence To Kill, a redhot shoot-'em-up played against violent attackers cover a scrolling landscape. Barbarian II is neat too, but not wholly playable until the many attacking moves have been mastered. Once you get the sword swipe just right, ploughing through the original array of monsters and mutants is great fun! Star Wars is enjoyable enough, though simplistic play and dated action may not have you returning to it often. And what of The Running Man? It's a case of good presentation covering a rather unplayable game - and the multi-load on the cassette version's a pig to use.
RICHARD [76%]

Domark
£14.99 tape/£14.99 disk
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies

Heroes, eh? Every game's got one or two (apart from ones with heroines of course, but they're a bit thin on the ground) and on the whole they're pretty fab. But some heroes are just that little bit more heroic than the rest. Domark has obviously reaslised this, and has selected four of the most hero-packed games around. And then put them onto a compilation. (I think we ought to take a gander, really.)

LICENCE TO KILL

Domark didn't really 'score' with the first few Bond games, because they were all totally nob. So it's just as well that they got their act together and did Licence To Kill, or we'd be probably be faced with something horrible like Living Daylights at this point. In fact, Marcus was really quite impressed by this scrolling shooter back in issue 45, awarding it a respectable 79°.

He was right, you know. In stark contrast to the rest of the Bond games its got a decent set of graphics, variety (a bit, anyway) and it's actually quite fun to play. A minor success. In other words.
1990 Rating: 74°

BARBARIAN II

Blimey. Heroism is certainly where it's at in this one. And loads of it, too. Once again, Marcus passed sentence on it (in issue 37) but this time he wasn't so happy. "It's not terribly exciting," he thundered, and slapped a '6 out of 10' on it. A little harsh, I think.

The hero in this case is a muscular fellow with a huge sword, or alternatively a female-type person (a heroine, in fact). And his (or her) task is to explore a whole load of rooms and beat up all the monsters contained within. Definitely worth having, but not the out-and-out corker that this compilation so urgently needs.
1990 Rating: 77°

THE RUNNING MAN

But this one might be, though. (The corker, that is). It's got a real hero: Arnold Schshw... Shgwch... Schwarze(nggh...)negger (or 'X' as he probably signs his cheques). It got the thumbs up and 90° from Dunc back in issue 42. And it's really rather good.

It's a beat-'em-up again (do heroes ever do anything else?) that's made up of a whole series of levels with a logic puzzle at the end of each one. Perhaps Dunc went just a little bit over the top with the saliva, though. While it's competently programmed and quite a nice tie-in with the film (there was a film, you see), Running Man isn't really all that different from any other beat-em-up you might have come across. Good. But not that good.
1990 Rating : 79°

STAR WARS

Er, this one's a bit old isn't it? And you don't even get to set eyes on the hero. He's all tucked away in an X-Wing Fighter, of which you're in control. And I'm sure you know what happens next (the arcade version is one of the most famous games ever).

Eh? You don't? Well, it's one of those wire-frame graphics affairs, in which you've got to take on the whole Imperial Fleet (or whatever it's called) and generally bash them about a bit. First of all there's the flight to the Death Star, then a low-level pass over the surface, and the grand finale is a trip through a sort of tunnel thing, which has quite an important bit at the end which needs to be blown up. Great fun (for a while) but a bit creeky. The worst of the bunch by a narrow margin.
1990 Rating: 63°

And I think that makes, er, four. Not too painful, was it? Star Wars is a bit ancient of course, but the rest just about lie within living memory. None of the games are likely to set your joystick on fire, but they're generally pretty impressive. Individually, at full price, they probably wouldn't be worth looking at seriously these days, but on a nice, cheap compilation... um, it's not that cheap, is it? Fifteen quid is rather a lot for just the four of them, don't you think? Well I do. All the same, Heroes is probably one of the better 4-packs around at the moment, and would make a lovely Christmas pressie if you're buying early).