US Gold
£24.99
Reviewer: Ben Stone, Mike Dunn

Since its birth in 1984, US Gold has been responsible for rather a lot of Spectrum Software: some excellent, some, well, not quite so hot. It's also been responsible for a few headlines in the national press and an anti-computer game vigil or two by the CND.

And now as a bit of self-indulgence, US Gold has decided to bring out an anthology of 15 games which it released on the Spectrum between July 1984 and July 1987. The compilation is called History in The Making - The First Three Years and comes as a boxed set of four tapes with two accompanying booklets containing instructions and a bit of blurb about the label - all this can be yours for the meagre sum of (wait for it...) £24.99! Here's Ben 'n' Skippy to tell you more about it...

SPY HUNTER
First released: October 1984

Skippy: Arrr, this were the game of me youth! Played it for hours, I did! I wonder why? There isn't really all that much to Spy Hunter; you bomb down the same old road for hour after hour (okay, the roadside changes colour every ten minutes. But that's hardly variety, is it?), shooting the same old vehicles and traversing (wossat?) the same old bridges...? The graphics and colour are nice enough: the sprites are clear and well defined and it's good fun to play, but Spy Hunter has aged considerably, and though it makes a good addition to the 'nostalgia' value of the tape, I really don't think it's worthy material for 1989.

WORLD GAMES
First released: Early 1987

Ben: I wasn't very impressed by World Games when it was first released. Most of the events were unappealing either because they were too difficult to control or just badly put together. The graphics were far too blurry and when compared to the likes of, say, Hypersports it just didn't, and still hasn't, got the same degree of waggleability.

What really gets me about it appearing in this compilation is that the powers that be at US Gold didn't even bother to change the in game loading instructions to suit the new format of the casette; this will probably cause untold problems to many unsuspecting players.

BRUCE LEE
First released: late 1984

Ben: This graphically unappealing platform game earned itself a lot of 'very nearly firsts'. It was one of the very first games from the US Gold Stable, one of the first 'beat 'em ups' (certainly the first 'beat 'em up and romp around in a fun scenario'!) and, for buffs, Bruce Lee was one of the very first games to be derived from a licence deal. It also proved to be one of the most playable games of 1984 - there's something so satisfying about the bone crunching sound effects and the way your two opponents beat themselves up if they get in each others way, five years later it still earns a play or ten, every now and then.

BEACH HEAD
First released: December 1984

Ben: Blimey! I remember the stir Beach Head caused when it was first played by the then fresh-faced Spectrum games reviewers. People said things like "An excellent game of arcade skill and strategy", A lot of lager has passed over the stones of knowledge since then, and despite its crumbly look, Beach Head still plays very well.
The levels are just difficult enough to keep you tearing your hair out and just rewarding enough to keep you playing until you blast four colours of granite out of mount Kuhn-Lin, the enemy fortress. The first three levels are still fairly compelling but by level four, well... In those days I suppose you had to make do with three good levels and two naff ones per game.

BEACH HEAD II
First released: November 1986

Ben: About two years after Beach Head came Beach Head II - surprise! Spectrum owners missed out on the synthesised screams and general battle dialogue that was programmed into sonically more powerful machines and did we miss it? Well, yes actually we did. Not to worry though, Beach Head II offered other things, for instance in two player mode, one player could take control of the nasty side and try to stop the goodies - just the thing if you want to lose your mates!

I was never really impressed by this one, the controls are far too touch and go to enable you to play with confidence. The childish use of colour is off putting to say the least; I doubt that any serious gamester is going to take a pink cannon, a lime green tank and a cyan radar tower seriously enough to get hooked.

ROAD RUNNER
First released: 1987

Skippy: Presentation - absolutely remarkable! Road Runner contains some excellent tunes, an amusing, lengthy scrolling message, and some very impressive graphics, including accurate characters and brilliant title screens. I sound like some sort of advert! Cosmetic polish (or lipstick for that matter) apart, Road Runner isn't a bad game either. Admittedly, as with far too many games, the tape multi-load is a pain, and I can't really see that with a bit of memory crunching it was absolutely necessary, but it doesn't slow down the action too much. Addictiveness is pretty good, and it's quite playable - I would say that it's a pretty good seed-peck-and-coyote-dodge, a decent game in its own right, and consequently, one of the better games on the tape.

SUPER CYCLE
First released: 1987

Skippy: There's millions of racing games around and this is far from being one of the best! I know this for a fact, because, I'm staggeringly good at playing Super Cycle. Then again I'm quite sure a two-year-old brainless, limbless tortoise could go on playing for as long as I did (well, almost!).

All the tracks are quite pretty; lots of jolly changing scenery, but does it have to be so incredibly easy? The only raceway with one ten billionth of challenge, is the one with barriers across half the track. It's not the pits (good friend of Oscar Wilde, me), but I honestly wouldn't have played it twice by choice!!

GOONIES
First released: September 1985

Ben: Oh no! I feel an attack of 'great-film-shame-about-the-game-syndrome' coming on! Goonies the film, starred seven cute little American kids (Are there cute little American kids!) and a horrible blobby character who all fell down a pit, found untold treasure and saved their parents from being thrown out of their homes for not paying the rent money. Goonies the computer game stars seven horrible blobby characters who were dreamed up in a pit in a bid to extract untold riches from an unsuspecting public to pay a huge licence fee...

Simplistic puzzles, primative graphics and virtually no appeal here. Shame, really.

EXPRESS RAIDER
First released: mid 1987

Skippy: Now, this is one which I never actually played when it first came out, so I can only tell you how bad it is now! There isn't all that much to be said, in fact. The predominant feeling is one of monotony (argh!), once again, it just goes on and on... In all honesty, it isn't worth loading up, let alone spending money on. The shoot out and run along the top of the train is good fun for maybe half a minute, but after that? Well, it dies a bit of a tragic death, I'm afraid. Take a birrov advice, don't waste your time. (I did, but then I get paid for that sort of thing!)

RAID
First released: Early 1985

Ben: This one was initially released as Raid Over Moscow but the CND Chairman, Bruce Kent, made such an outcry that the name had to be shortened to Raid, to accommodate his killjoy views (quite right too!).

Despite its excessively violent and war provoking nature Raid is a damn good game, it has that rare instant grab characteristic. The levels are varied and very playable; it's a shame that there are only six of them as each is fairly easy to master (this makes Raid's appeal short lived). Not too bad compared to some of the others on the anthology.

KUNG FU MASTER
First released: July 1986

Skippy: I remember being spectacularly disappointed by this one when it first punched the pavement. The arcade machine was one that you could, at one time, have expected to see in all the best (and worst!) places, but it was a welcome waste of the ol' 10 pees! How US Gold managed to shift so many copies of this rubbish is a mystery to me: still, I suppose that, in itself, is enough reason for inclusion on the tape. The graphics are grotesquely gargoylish and the colour is... well, to put it mildly, bleurgh! Playability isn't bad but it's just soooo annoying: addictiveness flies out the window like... errr something that flies out of windows rather fast. Not a good game, but probably worth the 75p or however much each of these games works out at!

LEADERBOARD
First released: Early 1987

Skippy: Yep! A classic golf simulation, this one: there's been nothing (except the official follow-ups!) to touch it since it was released. The build up of the graphics is slow: like something out of The Hobbit (remember that?), but the perspective is remarkable and the whole feel of the game is quite excellent, There's undoubtedly an art to placing shots, as it requires skill and speed on the button; as well as some accurate judgement taking into account the wind factors, the slope of the hill and the right club for the job! This certainly isn't a game that's restricted to golf fanatics only, 'cos I like it, and I would hardly know which end of a golf stick (club?) to hold. Well worth full price and certainly wangs up the ol' value for money points of the package.

INFILTRATOR
First released: 1987

Skippy: Now, I don't remember this one at all, so I found it very complicated. It's basically a flight simulator which involves shooting lots of things and making lots of people die. Sounds like fun to you? Hmmm. It's not all bad, in fact some bits of it are quite good. Sounds a lot of fun on the inlay too. Trouble is, the first bit is far too difficult so I (erm...) haven't quite got that far yet... (Skippy you're a wimp - Ed).

GAUNTLET
First released: November 1986

Ben: Gauntlet 'clones' sprang up in their hundreds after this got to number one. Even the more 'sensible' software houses jumped onto the variant bandwagon. None of them got it right though - they all lacked the original magic still to be found in Gauntlet. Even the multiload was bareable - it must be a good 'un!
I'd say it was the best of the fifteen and probably the most likely to capture the attention of the player for months rather than weeks.

IMPOSSIBLE MISSION
First released: 1987

Ben: Impossible Mission was the pioneer of the tumble jump, as used in games like The Nodes Of Yesod and the latter couple of Monty Mole games. It was a real struggle to re-learn all the techniques used to play Impossible Mission and what for? Running around trying to find bits of puzzle ain't much fun because the game's works are far too klunky and poorly put together. Solving the puzzles is a little more fun, but it does get repetitive after a while.

Sorry, but mastering a basically boring, over complicated platform game isn't one of my main goals in life.

And thassit! On the whole it seems unfair to award History in The Making - The First Three Years an overall mark. The games range from very good to poor and the chances are that you already have some of the more desirable ones - in which case the whole compilation represents far worse value for money than if you didn't. Well £25 is a lot of money to spend on software all in one go - think wisely before wapping your wad...

COLLECTABLE CONSUMABLES

One of the most popular complaints in LM's forum has always been the price of software, and it's often been used as justification for pirating software. People falling into this reprehensible habit should now make a New Year's resolution to stop because the excuse is utterly pathetic nowadays. Virtually all the big games, and many of the lesser ones, now seem to be automatically rereleased either on budget, or in a compilation. 'Wait and ye shall receive' seems to be the motto for anyone wary of splashing out £10 on a single piece of software.

While compilations are around most of the year, Christmas and the New Year naturally draws the biggest releases with software houses showing off their 'greatest hits' - often with other companies' games to pad out a package. This practise is clearly vital to Gremlin who have no less than five anthologies coming out.

GREEDY GREMLIN

Perhaps due to the number of releases, Gremlin's titles show a distinct lack of imagination. 10 Great Games 3 is obviously the third in a ten game compilation series, but if the title doesn't set the blood racing some of the games should. From Hewson there's two written by Steve Turner; the acclaimed 1985 graphic adventure Dragontorc and the more recent Gauntlet-clone, Ranarama. Also from Hewson is Steve Crow's Firelord, a slightly more conventional arcade adventure.

Somewhat more surprising inclusions than those from Hewson, for whom Gremlin are now distributors, are two Spanish games. These are the boxing simulation, Rocco by Dinamic, and a 1987 US Gold game, Survivors.

Making up the rest of the tape are the classic flight sim from Digital Integration - Fighter Pilot, Leader Board,Impossaball and the disappointing 10th Frame. While most of the big games here are rather old, if you haven't already got them this is pretty good value. Imaginative Gremlin title number two is Ten Mega Games which is a little more up to date with releases such as the flawed beat-'em-up Hercules and the well received Blood Brothers. The top two games are probably Northstar and Cybernoid, but Deflektor is an intriguing puzzle game well worth a look.

Strangely, both Cybernoid and Northstar are also featured on Gremlin's Space Ace collection. The five other five games include the excellent Exolon, Dominic Robinson's horizontally-scrolling shoot-'em-up Zynaps and the third MASK game - Venom Strikes Back. While fairly expensive, and with some rather mediocre games as padding, the good games more than make up for this.

Another theme-based collection is Gremlin's Flight Ace. Also around the £15 mark this has just six games, most of which are quite long in the tooth. The only fairly recent game is the outstanding ATF which, with the helicopter sim Tomahawk, make this fairly respectable. Somewhat more dubious in value is the third in the 'Ace' theme trilogy - Karate Ace. This has the classic, clone-inspiring Way Of The Exploding Fist, the excellent two-player Bruce Lee and the epic Way Of The Tiger, but these are all quite old. Much of the rest of the games are not much more recent, and generally of distinctly inferior quality. Uchi Mata is truly awful for example. Unless you're a die-hard beat-'em-up fan, it's probably not worth the £12.95 asking price.

THE MIDAS TOUCH

US Gold may have just two compilations out, but one of them is the massive History in The Making, which at £24.95 is probably one of the most expensive Spectrum releases for ages. With 15 games the price-per-game is fairly reasonable, though, and the packaging with four tapes and a booklet is impressive. Unfortunately the games as a whole are weak. CRASH Smashes like the ancient Beach Head, Raid Over Moscow and the more recent Gauntlet fail to compensate for the mediocrity of the rest. This is an admirably wide-ranging history, but £24.95 seems a lot for the eight or so fairly good games - especially when most are now on budget.

Also from US Gold is the boastfully named Giants collection. Although all of the games are fairly recent releases, you only get five for just under 13 quid (tape version), while +3 owners have to fork out an extortionate 20 quid! Moreover the five are, under closer examination, a little dwarfish with only 720° and Out Run of much interest.

A TOUCH OF CLASS

Fists 'N' Throttles is the tantalizing title for a potpourri Olive popular programs from Elite. You can bounce down the courses in Buggy Boy or perform dramatic motorbike leaps in Enduro Racer. Those feline cartoon stars, the Thundercats, also make an appearance. If you haven't got any of the games included then Fists 'N' Throttles represents good value for money. Unfortunately, if you live in Germany, you won't get Ikari Warriors, as it was banned by the West German government (yet German instructions for the game are included in the package!).

Not to be outdone by their competitors, Ocean and imagine have some sumptuous compilations of their own. The sequel Game Set And Match 2 includes nine games ranging from a relaxing game of cricket in Ian Botham's Test Match to the bone-breaking grid iron action of American Football in Superbowl. Jon Ritman's fantabulous footy sim, Match Day II is also included along with the conversion of Sega's Super Hang-On. Burdened with some old and rather weak titles to fill it out this is still well worth considering.

Two sets of coin-op hits are being issued by Imagine. The first, Konami Arcade Collection, has been available for a few months now, and encompasses ten hits of yesteryear, numbering no less than four CRASH Smashes among them. At £9.95 it offers attractive value for money.

Also from Imagine comes a slightly newer selection of games, all Taito coin-op conversions. Taito Coin-op Hits contains eight such games, of which two - Flying Shark and Bubble Bobble - are fairly recent, highly-acclaimed Firebird releases. Breakout fans will be tempted by the inclusion of Arkanoid and its sequel, Revenge Of Doh, while beat-'em-up fans should be excited by Renegade.

The final Ocean release, The in Crowd, contains a real collection of street credible games. Primarily there's the beat-'em-ups Target; Renegade and Barbarian, along with the militarish, but very different, Combat School and Platoon. With Karnov adding a touch of colour, and Gryzor and Predator more jungle action it's well worth the usual Ocean asking price.

Lastly we come to those consistent suppliers of annual anthologies, Beau Jolly, 10 Computer Hits - Volume Five brings together ten middle of the road offerings, with only ...Traz standing out due to it being reviewed in this very issue! But Beau Jolly's pride and joy must be Supreme Challenge, a superb collection of three true mega games (Starglider, Elite and The Sentinel) plus one puzzling (Tetris) and, of course, the obligatory flight sim (Ace 2). At around £2.50 a game it can't be bad - even if you were only getting those three biggies! I dread to see what the documentation will be like: both Starglider and Elite had novellas and very detailed instruction manuals, in an A5 box!

CRASH ISSUE FEATURED IN, AND REVIEW PERCENTAGE GIVEN. N/R DENOTES NOT REVIEWED.

HISTORY IN THE MAKING
£24.99c
US Gold
Beach Head 10/79%
Bruce Lee 16/91%
Spy Hunter 16/89%
Raid Over Moscow 15/92%
Goonies 35/65%
Super Cycle 37/63%
World Games 40/71%
Express Raider 41/47%
Infiltrator 35/72%
Beach Head II 24/74%
Gauntlet 37/92%
Road Runner 43/73%
Impossible Mission 22/76%
KungFuMaster 31/56%
Leader Board 39/80%

Label: US Gold
Author: Various
Price: £24.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

History in the Making contains no less than 15 little gems from the archives of US Gold, everbody's favourite software house. Such wonderful things as Kung Fu Master, Goonies, Express Raider, Super Cycle. Well, maybe not all gems.

What you get in this attractively packaged box (check out the moving sunbeams) are a random smattering of classic games, most of which were very good. On the C64. What you have to remember is that a lot of the software that used to be put around by USG was C64 only, only to hit the Spectrum a while later. When it hit the Speccy, it wasn't all that good. KFM was appalling. What else do you get?

Leaderboard, all right, but gets monotonous. Express Raider, crap. Impossible Mission, OK. Super Cycle, crap. Gauntlet, ace. Beach Head 2, OK, but where's the speech? Infiltrator, yawn. KFM, yuk. Spy Hunter, brill. Road Runner, hmmmm. Bruce Lee, a classic, shame it's cack Goonies, ugh. World Games, errrr. Raid, not bad. Beach Head, all right.

The only thing that would put me off buying this is the fact that every game on it is A) already on another compilation, B) on budget or C) both.

(Spec, C64 and Ams; £24.99cs and £29.99dk)

History in The Making is the most extraordinary compilation, featuring an incredible 15 games. The collection purports to be a potted history of the great label. What it is in fact is a REALLY good excuse to flog off almost every success it has had, persuading almost everyone with a computer to fork out huge wads of cash. It has got some impressive titles on it: Leaderboard, Express Raider, Impossible Mission, Super Cycle, Gauntlet, Beach Head, Beach Head II, infiltrator, Kung Fu Masters, Spy Hunters, Road Runner, Bruce Lee, Goonies, World Games, and Raid. Some of these are a bit creaky in the light of today's widespread sophistication, but for the most part they're still playable. And some of them are complete stunners; Impossible Mission remains an all-time favourite of mine, as do Leaderboard and the Beach Head twins. But there are also some unexpected pleasures, like Spy Hunter, which is an early vertically scrolling shoot-em-up, based on a coin-op I believe. Spy Hunter, although a bit of a throwback technically, is brilliant fun to play and, for those of us who vaguely remember it the first time around, a nostalgic experience.