Is TNT2 - Double Dynamite the most explosive compilation ever, or has it got half the blasting power of a damp firework? We sent Ian Osborne to investigate.

Domark
£12.99 cass

TNT 2 - Double Dynamite has a lot to live up to: it s predecessor was rather brill. Has it got what it takes to blast aside the opposition, or will it bomb? I think we should be told...

Skull and Crossbones is a tale of piratical pillage and plunder - slash your way through eight levels of monotony, disemboweling baddies en route.

Pity it's such a dreadful game - you'd have more fun walking the plank or getting hauled round the keel. A bog-standard hack-'em-up with nothing to set it aside from the other three million on the market, how it scored 73% in issue 88 is beyond me.

There's no skill involved - all you do is stand in front of a baddy, hit the fire button until he dies, then find the next baddy etc. To make matters worse, your sprite regularly turns his back on the enemy!

The sprites are fairly well drawn but look like morris dancers when fighting and backgrounds are disgusting! I know the Speccy isn't exactly brilliant when it comes to colours but a little shading wouldn't have gone amiss.

HYDRA

It's the 21st century and world leaders seem to have lost their marbles! Not only have they allowed a terrorist called The Shadow to take control of the skies and seas, but when an important package needs transporting through hostile territory, who do you think they send? just you! Either the package wasn't so important after all, or your boss found out about the incident with his wife, a garden hose, and the jelly baby at last years' Christmas party!

Unfortunately, the game's just as bad as the plot, but this time you won't be laughing. Although set on a river, no attempt has been made to create a water effect - you could just as easily be driving along a road.

The graphics are awful: the river's just a solid strip, the scenery blocky and boring, and the sprites are so poorly defined its hard to tell the baddies from the power-ups!

BADLANDS

Mark told me if you remove the word 'lands' from the title, you get a fair description of the game. A multi-player racing game viewed from above, Badlands is basically a Super Sprint clone, even down to the spanner power-ups. The only attempt at updating gameplay is a cannon mounted on each car, which temporarily slow down opponents.

The computer-controlled vehicles have them but they're never fired. Control is the standard left right rotation with the fire button as an accelerator. This is always awkward until you get the hang of it, though Badlands handles better than most.

STUN RUNNER

Is this the worst coin-op conversion ever? It was great in the arcades, with sooo much character and atmosphere! Trouble was it featured a massive sit-on cabinet so few arcades bothered to stock it.

The Speccy version's a disaster. The main sprite looks like a curling stone with water wings, and the tunnel effects give no feeling of speed or even movement. The screen looks more like a backdrop from a badly filmed Sixties rock concert than a computer game. Playing it for more than a few minutes makes you feel physically sick, and that's not a facetious remark.

ROBOT MONSTERS

With its B-movie plot and ridiculously long title, Escape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters is one weird game. The Reptilions have invaded 'Synthetic Industrial Planetoid X' and enslaved the human inhabitants, forcing them to build robots for the planned invasion of Earth. Your task (as if you hadn't guessed) is to shoot the baddies and rescue the humans.

A shoot-'em-up in the Commando mould, Robot Monsters plays fairly well. The small sprites are ideally suited to the gameplay, even though some of the robots look like the Weetabix crew. The bullets are well defined, which is a blessing - there's nothing worse than the disappearing bullet syndrome'(except being force-fed three hundredweight of stewed prunes). Scoring 90% in Issue 62, the gameplay's dated considerably since then. It's well executed but too samey to hold your attention for long.

TNT II - Double Dynamite comes highly recommended - to programmers who want an example of how not to write computer games!

Domark
£12.99 cass (128K only)
081 780 2222
Reviewer: Jon Pillar

This could quite easily have been an intro packed with puns to do with explosives. However, I decided to let you off this time. (You lucky people.)

ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE ROBOT MONSTERS

Inspired by those spectacularly awful 1950s monster movies, Escape is a rather dandy 3D arcade adventure with a splendid dab of humour. As Jake and Duke Hero, you and that convenient second player sitting beside you have to dash around a space complex, rescuing humans and zapping aliens. The complex has been built on several levels, connected by lifts and escalators, so there's a lot of game to get lost in. The graphics are small, detailed and witty, with loads of rewarding when you shoot the wrong people, or fall off a ledge etc. Gameplay is nice and fast, very playable (especially with two players) and quite addictive. It does get a bit samey, but the all-pervading sense of fun keeps you plugging away at it. A spanker game - play it in short bursts for maximum effect.
72°

HYDRA

In the future, only one thing is certain - people will always a reliable postman. Except instead of that nice cheery fellow who loudly bangs the gate every morning, the postmen of tomorrow will pilot huge armed boats. Yup, you are one of those parcel warriors. Naturally the bad guys are out to stop you, but remembering the Postman's Motto ("We deliver"), you grit your teeth and get ready to fight. Hurrah! Or if you're talking about the game, oh dear. The nicest thing you can say about Hydra is that at least the loading screen isn't too bad. Ostensibly a thrilling water-based 3D shoot-'em-up, the game is in fact a damp Roadblasters, with one important difference. Whereas that game was a snazzy blasterama, Hydra falls down in every department. There's been an effort to liven things up with a regular visit to Ziggy's Weapon Shoppe (I kid ye not), but power-ups can't help the deathly dull gameplay. Hit amidships and sunk without trace.
30°

SKULL AND CROSSBONES

Were there ever any polite pirates? I mean, they can't all have been uncouth villains with straggly beards, unfashionable waistcoats, questionable personal hygiene and parrots. There were? Ahem. Skull and Crossbones is, as you're probably at this moment ruing, a pirate game. Playing either Red Dog or One Eye, two unshaven rascals with all the trimmings, you have to elbow your way through eight levels of sword-fighting and sparklie-nabbing. Apparently an evil sorceror has made off with your entire fortune for some unexplained reason, so you're out to regain your ill-gotten loot. On the way you'll take on not only ragged-trousered sailors, but also Spanish soldiers, magical henchmen and the sorceror himself. Sounds fun? Well, it is, for a while. There are some neat features, but these are outweighed by the probs - for one thing, with two players you take turns rather than playing simultaneously. There is a head-to-head fight at the end of each level, but it doesn't really make up for the loss. Most annoyingly, the game's far too easy. You could quite easily complete it on the first day. Looks meaty, but the addictive qualities are skeletal.
50°

BADLANDS

Blank your mind and propel yourself forward three hundred years into the future. Now come back again, because I want to tell you about Badlands. Fast and slick, with a nice line in post-apocalyptic graphics, the essence of the gameplay can be captured in a mere four words - Super Sprint With Guns. A clever idea, you have to admit - the main fault of SS was that you couldn't stop the other cars. With Badlands you have a variety of terrible weapons to literally blow them off the track. Much fun to be had here methinks, although I'd question the lasting appeal.
70°

STUN RUNNER

Now this is a classic case of I Told You So. The arcade original was one of those fall-off-your-hydraulic-seat polygon shoot-'em-ups which owed its success more to the graphics than the game. However (you can see this coming can't you?) when translated to the Speccy it loses its impact somewhat. Horrible graphics and horrible gameplay add up to, well, something that's really horrible. Basically.
10°

Hello, you've reached the outro a bit too soon. I wasn't actually expecting you for another few minutes. Oh heck. Look, why don't you go back and read the review again, so I have time to tidy the place up a bit? Thanks.

Ah, that's better. (Cough.) TNT 2 is a mish-mash of the fairly good and the rather bad, with three of its five games falling the wrong side of that oh-so-important line. Bluntly, it doesn't represent value for money. Unless you're desperate for a copy of Escape or Badlands, pass it by friend, pass it by.

Label: Domark
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £12.99 Tape
Reviewer: Garth Sumpter

Boom! When Domark released yet another five game TNT collection to spice up the cold 1992 spring air we decided to really test it by locking it up with Phil Phisch in SU's specially padded games room for three days with 16 vindaloo curries, five gallons of Dr. Pepper's and a microwave. Mahn did things get hot and sweaty in there!

This is essentially an odd gaggle of games with three action racers, a shoot 'em up and a beat 'em up. Some of the games are good, very good, but as usual one stinker has been included.

Hydra was first released last July - the story of a high tech water-bound courier delivering in danger zones around the world. Action is fast and dangerous in each of eight missions shooting as many baddies along the way as possible. Delivering goods and disposing of the enemy gets loadsa' money which is spent in 'Ziggy's Weapon Shoppe'. It's not an original game and can become boring and repetitive but nevertheless, it demands fast reactions and driving skills. (Like dodging Garth's car).

Escape from the Planet of Robot Monsters, has up to two players working their way through the Reptilians' stronghold on planet X, as either Jake or Duke who can rescue hostages as they go. Rescue enough and you can even get extra lives and when you shoot some of the Reptilons, they leave behind little energy blobs which if you collect, will recharge your gun to give you bigger, longer blasts.

Badlands was actually an excellent race game when it first came out. It's only real problem was that it was released last Christmas at the same time as Virgin's most excellent, Ivan Stewart's Off Road Racer. Badlands is an overhead view race game. A sort of cross between Death Race 2000 and Mad Max, you are a sprint car racer in a post-apocalyptic society, who must earn points in order to further customise your car between races, with turbo's, tyres, missiles and even shields. Once you're juiced up, it's back onto the track. A great game and surely one of the best white-knuckle, nerve snapping racer 'cum blaster available.

In short, Skull and Crossbones is the stiker on the collection. It's a sad, sad tale of piracy, theft and maiden rescuing japes that's let down by poor graphics and very little gameplay and is best left alone. It's only redeeming feature is the two player option but unfortunately even in this mode it won't keep you going for long.

And neither will S.T.U.N Runner. Unfortunately, it's just not my cup of tea at all. You pilot a Spread Tunnel Underground Network Runner through 24 levels of various tunnels. You can pick up turbo speed up-pads, smart bombs and can even pass out into the great outside, but wherever you find are, the action remains repetitive and dull. This latter two games are the ones to watch on this compilation. Although I didn't like STUN Runner, as a conversion of the successful Atari coin-op, it will have its own fans it's very difficult to say the same for Skull and Crossbones however.

For those of you who are willing to pay 13 for three games that you'd definitely like, then TNT 2 is for you. If not, then you should approach the compilation with a little caution, although remember that Domark don't release any of their titles on budget...

BIG AL':
At the price, Domark are offering a reasonable pack here. With games that were all full price within the last 13 months and the fact that Domark do not release onto budget, then the pack represents good value for money.