Spectrum, Commodore 64, £7.50

Sparklers Special is a "best of" the Sparklers range of pocket money games available for the Spectrum and Commodore 64.

The Commodore collection has Slurpy, a strange creature with a huge appetite who muches away at Glowbugs and Cave Birds for points. Then there's Orc Attack where Wric the Brave must kill all the Orc invaders or die, Black Hawke, an action and strategy rescue game with 30 levels of play, and River Rescue, another rescue game where scientists are at risk.

The Spectrum collection also includes Orc Attack and River Rescue. Added to them are Stagecoach, a perilous Western shoot-'em-up where the stage must get through, and Tower of Evil an arcade adventure ranging over 40 rooms in search of lost treasure.

Each compilation represents fairly good value, remembering that each game originally sold for £2.50 each.

Creative Sparks
£7.95

Creative Sparks have joined the compilation brigade and lumped together four of their old titles as a sort of software Christmas Stocking.

The four titles, which are held in a two cassette package, are; Orc Attack, Stage Coach, River Rescue and Tower of Evil. They're all quite old titles, and none of them were really state-of-the art even when they were new. Orc Attack is probably the most addictive of the games, in which you control a little knight who is at the top of a castle wall and being besieged by hordes of Orcs. The Orcs have got little ladders with which they attempt to scale the walls, and you must fend them off with rocks, sword and burning oil. The screens aren't very varied, but it is one of those simple games that can become quite frantic as the skill levels get harder.

Tower of Evil was a forerunner to Atic Atac in which you have to guide your character through the rooms of a tower, collecting treasure and keys to other rooms. It's mildly enjoyable, but unsophisticated compared to more recent games.

Stage Coach seems to be unplayable, since, try as I might, I couldn't get my cowboy figure to jump successfully from his horse onto the stage coach in order to try and collect the passengers dotted along the route.

River Rescue is a very simple game which allows you to guide a speedboat along a river as you attempt to collect passengers and avoid the alligators and logs bobbing about in the water. The scrolling river doesn't have much variation in detail, and it gets to be a bit of a strain on the eyes after a while.

All in all, though I'm not particularly impressed with any of the games, they do seem the sort of thing that might appeal to younger children who aren't yet up to games as complex as Marsport, so the Sparklers' Special might make a reasonable present for youngsters around the age of ten.