Producer: Silversoft, 16K
£5.95
Author: I Hayward

Despite its title this is a centipede game instead of one fragmenting creature, you are presented with individual rats which work their way down from the top of the screen and there are even faster purple ones. They hide behind clumps of grass, and once they reach the lower levels of the screen you are hard put to avoid them. Cursor keys for movement and limited upward motion, no instruction on inlay card for firing (it's 0), but Kempston, Protek or AGF joystick option. Because the game is simpler in layout than most centipede games, it is also much faster. One or two players. Average value for money.

Producer: Silversoft, 16K
£5.95
Author: I Hayward

Despite its title this is a centipede game instead of one fragmenting creature, you are presented with individual rats which work their way down from the top of the screen and there are even faster purple ones. They hide behind clumps of grass, and once they reach the lower levels of the screen you are hard put to avoid them. Cursor keys for movement and limited upward motion, no instruction on inlay card for firing (it's 0), but Kempston, Protek or AGF joystick option. Because the game is simpler in layout than most centipede games, it is also much faster. One or two players. Average value for money.

Producer: Silversoft, 16K
£5.95
Author: I Hayward

Despite its title this is a centipede game instead of one fragmenting creature, you are presented with individual rats which work their way down from the top of the screen and there are even faster purple ones. They hide behind clumps of grass, and once they reach the lower levels of the screen you are hard put to avoid them. Cursor keys for movement and limited upward motion, no instruction on inlay card for firing (it's 0), but Kempston, Protek or AGF joystick option. Because the game is simpler in layout than most centipede games, it is also much faster. One or two players. Average value for money.

ANIMALS AND VEGETABLES

Muncher, Slippery Sid and the Cyber Rats are all arcade creatures from three new games for the 16K Spectrum. The games are from Silversoft, no stranger to the Sinclair arcade scene.

Cyber Rats is the most impressive of the three. The game is a little like Centipede but instead of one long worm there are dozens of metal rats moving down the screen towards your laser base. The hopping spiders of the centipede game are replaced by deadly purple rats which appear from nowhere.

The second is Slippery Sid. You must drive your snake around the screen, eating the mushrooms as you go bu not hitting the stones. You must also beware of poisonous toadstools which cannot be eaten unless you have first devoured a mushroom.

When you have cleared one screenful another screenful appears with more obstacles between Sid and the mushrooms.

The final new release is Muncher, which is almost a standard Pacman game. There are a few subtle differences between it and the traditional game. The Pacman is a skull and the ghosts are slimmer than normal. The centre of the maze is no longer the home of the ghosts - it houses a prize cherry. During the game two doors will slide open, giving Muncher access to the prize.

All three games are excellent but there are a few errors in the documentation accompanying them. In Cyber Rats the location of the fire button, the space key, is not disclosed and in Muncher the down key should be 'N' and not 'M'.

Each of the games costs £5.95 and they are available from Silversoft, London House, 271-273 King Street, London W6.

RAPID RODENTS WILL RUN YOU RAGGED!

Rats, rats, rats! Yes, there will be a lot of cursing in Spectrum owning households once they get their hands on Silversoft's latest release - called Cyber Rats.

You are presented with a field full of the "meanest metallic menaces" ever let lose to plague mankind. They dash around the screen swarming down at your exterminator. They can hide behind clumps of grass which block your fire as they rush down at you. There's also the deadly purple rats which head downwards faster.

Once you finish off one wave of the rapid rodents another bunch spring out to do battle. If one catches you at the bottom of the screen its bite will finish you off.

You can move up and down the screen to fight off the approaching rats as well as left and right - but watch out for sneaky rats catching you unawares in the mazelike grass clumps.

This reviewer had to make do with the keyboard control option to play the game but it is also joystick compatible.

The tape loaded first time and comes with a good set of instructions - the only thing that baffled me for about five minutes was the fact that the instructions didn't say which key to use as the "fire" button.

I'm sure that the game would be even better with a joystick.

Cyber Rats comes from Silversoft of London and sells at around £5.