Producer: Quicksilva
Retail Price: £8.95
Author: 1001 Ltd

In 1986 Ronald Reagan's Star Wars plan seemed like an impossible dream. By 2056 however, it was an established fact of life with a system of satellite defences protecting man, both from himself and the outside universe.

Under this technological shield, man was free to lead a life of leisure. This idyllic existence had to end, and on Christmas Eve 2056 things went horribly wrong. A warlike alien race took over the satellite defences, and turned the Star Wars system against the Earth's cities.

Earth's Council held an emergency session, and came up with one last plan for survival. The World's only hope was one man, the dashing Captain Nick Diamond (World Xeno champ for as long as anyone could remember).

You are Nick Diamond, flying an Eagle Class E751 fighter above the slowly revolving Earth. Accessing the main options window allows sound effects to be turned on or off, and the scores or scrolling message windows opted for. The score window, energy bar centre and message window appear along the top of the main viewscreen. Nick's mission is to destroy the eight satellites that are in geostationary orbits over cities.

Diamond is equipped with four different weapons which become available at different stages of the game. Firstly there's the COSMOGUN, which is always available and is capable of firing two shots at a time. The FAZALAZA is acquired after 12 targets have been destroyed and is armed with fifty shots, three of which can be on screen at once. Destroying a dozen targets earns you a DYNORAY that is equipped with ten rounds, fires three simultaneously, and can destroy alien bombs. Finally, the ultimate weapon is the E751's BLASTER. This is the only weapon capable of taking out the enemy satellites, and 144 aliens must eat vacuum before this enters the arsenal.

The E751 is under constant attack, and each successful enemy shot drains its limited energy supply. A complete loss of energy is fatal, but diminished supplies are replenished every time a satellite is destroyed.

Scrolling messages inform you of where the aliens are massing. Accessing the map from the main options window shows your position relative to the Earth's surface, and also the position of the satellites. Using this map you can easily locate your targets.

Once a satellite has been located and reached, it comes into view on the main screen. The cities start off with a rating of five, but this rating falls point by point as they incur damage from the alien-controlled satellites. If a city's rating reaches zero it has been reduced to rubble and when all eight cities have been pulverized, Nick has failed.

Come on Nick you can do it. After all the world Xeno championships wouldn't be the same without you!

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q up, A down, P right, O left, ENTER menu, SPACE fire
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor
Use of colour: limited to blue and black
Graphics: brilliant sprite animation
Sound: great 128 tune, otherwise rather average sound and effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: one

One thing I can really do without at the moment is a tacky shoot em up. Having said that, every aspect of Defcom is good except one - its playability. This is perhaps the most important feature in a game of this nature. I couldn't play this for more than half an hour as it gets extremely tedious and is very hard to play. The graphics and sound are good, which is what we have come to expect from BINARY DESIGN. I feel that the programmers have deliberately tried to make Defcom as difficult as possible. I can't really recommend it.
BEN

This must be one of the most boring games around at the moment - I literally yawned as I finished my first game. The screen is laid out in a very boring fashion, with at least 75% of it black. It's a pity however that the enemy ships move so quickly, as close examination reveals some very well drawn and animated characters. Defcom's main problem is its playability: having to access the menu so many times reduces play to a quick shooting session followed by a slow plod through the awkward menu. There is absolutely nothing here that would keep me playing for any length of time. Avoid it.
PAUL

The graphics in Defcom are enough to make you look at the game, and maybe want to play it. Indeed, it is alright for the first few goes, but it becomes monotonous really quickly. Colour isn't used too well, but the way in which the spaceships zoom in and out of the screen is interesting. The overlaid scores and so on are okay, but they do tend to clutter the playing area. There is little involved in this game which would hold the interest for more than about half an hour. If monotonous, boring. unplayable, but pretty shoot 'em ups are your scene, then Defcom is for you.
MIKE

Quicksilva
£8.95

By the year, 2056 all the world's nations had finally made their peace, and to ensure this happy state of affairs lasted, they erected a huge protective shield around the earth. With this Strategic Defence Initiative installed, all arms were rendered useless, and man's urge to fight fizzled away.

But just as everyone was settling down to a life of leisure and boredom, guess what happened. If you answered "the earth was invaded by aliens" take ten points and a gold star. Naturally there was only one man sufficiently strong, quick-witted and stupid to challenge the invading forces, and you are he.

Defcom is of course a shoot 'em up, but it's one slightly out of the ordinary. Instead of the normal side-to-side, up-and-down motion, you flip around on the spot from left to right. You can still move up and down, but only over about half the screen's width. Meanwhile alien ships attack you from all directions. They move amazingly fast and hitting them is a fairly random process. Occasionally alien satellites appear and bomb defenceless earth cities. You'll need special weapons to destroy bombs and satellites which you get by disposing of large numbers of alien ships.

It all sounds great, but in practice, it just doesn't work. Killing aliens is a matter of stamina rather than skill, and to et a blaster (which you need for the satellite) you've got to dispose of 144 alien ships. Yes, 144.

Defcom is certainly different, and at least Quicksilva is trying something new (well, newish). It's just a pity that as a game it's terminally dull.

Label: Quicksilva
Price: £7.95
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

Star Wars. America's wholly unsound Strategic Defence Initiative, is the subject of Quicksilva's new game.

No danger of pussy-footing around the subject here, I can tell you. Everything goes wrong right from the beginning. Instead of the commies being behind an evil plot, however, it's the oldest standby of the lot - the mysterious alien horde.

While the satellites go about their entirely peaceful business (yet they're choc-full of really big lasers), a huge green-headed boggly-eyed fungus monster creeps up on them and points the damned things toward various important places on Earth, and starts destroying cities.

Taking control of a spaceship. you fly over the Earth's surface, darting back and forth in order to save cities from destruction.

The screen is presented in rather impressive 3D, showing the world's rotation beneath you. and all the horrible little beasty aliens zooming around. The aliens look a bit like throat lozenges with water-wings, but they're quite impressive, all the same.

Your space-craft is viewed from behind, and moves around in a rather uncomfortable arc, a-shootin' and a-firin' for all it's worth.

And the music - like that on Quicksilva's other recent release. Glider Rider - is very good indeed. Very, um, 'spacey'.

Now, things would get purrrretty ruddy hairy if you had to dart over the planet without some form of assistance. Thankfully, a mappy thing can be dragged on to the screen indicating the locations of yourself, and the satellites.

When the message 'Gor! Luvva duck. Tokyo is having a bit of gip.' (or something) pops up, you can flick to the map, and work your way to Tokyo. The only problem is that, as it takes such an astounding amount of time to reach your destination, the aliens will have already moved on.

Defcom is 'classic' shoot-out with a few inventive touches and a completely wasted 'political' novelty angle. The 3D is nice but too superficial, though, to maintain one's interest.

Label: Bug Byte
Author: In-house
Price: £1.99
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

The year is 2056 and SDI has finally been switched on. It works pretty well. On the night before Christmas, a friendly bunch of aliens decided to take over the Star Wars technology and turn it against the Earth as a weapon. So, what does the Earth do? They send an anti-aircraft plane. Fine, and guess who's flying it?

Controls are standard left/right/up/down/fire and all you have to do is fly over a rotating globe, shooting the aliens. This isn't easy because the aliens move fast and you don't. Also, when you turn, your view doesn't change. Talk about cutting corners.

Another sub-standard cheapo. Avoid.

MACHINE: Spectrum/C64/Amstrad
SUPPLIER: Quicksilva
PRICE: £8.95
VERSION TESTED: Spectrum

This is one of those games that probably started with a programmer coming up with a nice routine and then trying to build an entire game around it. In this case the routine is the nicely animated space ships which zoom in and out of the screen at great speed. Trouble is the rest of the game just doesn't match up to the promise of the graphics.

The game is based around an alien take-over of Uncle Ronnie's current favourite toy - the so called Star Wars defence system. The aliens are using the system to attack earth - turning the atom weapons on suddenly defenceless cities. Your job is to take off in your second hand space ship and defeat the aliens by attacking their ships and blowing up the possessed defence satellites. You can earn different weapons by blasting aliens. The weapons have silly names and the only really useful ones are the Blaster which can be used to zap the offencing satellites and the Dyno Ray which knocks out any bombs which the satellites drop on an unsuspecting Earth.

It's not too difficult to get weapons - apart from the Blaster which requires 144 hits to obtain. This process is essentially tedious as the shoot 'em up skill required to kill off the aliens seems simply to be the ability to stay awake for the duration.

You also have to "turn-on" windows containing your score and the essential VDU message readouts. Quite why they aren't there to start with is a mystery as you need to seethe messages and score. Playing the game with them turned off just leaves a pretty empty screen full of the nicely zooming space craft.

You are supposed to navigate yourself around above the earth - represented by a crude revolving "half-moon" shape at the bottom of the screen. But as you don't get any real impression of movement - there are no stars - you have to rely on the map to discover where you are. This is called up from the menu - which you keep having to call up in order to change weapons. This holds up the action terribly.

Defcom, from Binary Design, the people who brought you the disappointing Max Headroom game, is dull and uninspired. It wouldn't be much of a bargain at a budget price - but at £8.95, it's something of a rip-off.

Quicksilva
£8.95

In the year 2056 it was complete. The Star Wars defence system was at last in position making war on Earth impossible. Weapons were scrapped as the Earth settled down to a lite of leisure.

The day before the scheduled white Christmas they came. An alien force that took over the defence satellites that were then turned into a weapon aimed at Earth.

One man could save the world. In Ouicksilva's shoot everything that moves game, you are Nick Diamond, Xeno champion and the only man left who can fly an Eagle Class laser firing fighter.

Saving the world isn't going to be as easy as it sounds as you must take out each of the eight satellites that are threatening the world's major cities. They can only be destroyed by a Blaster that is only obtained once you have destroyed a staggering 144 aliens and then you've only got one shot!

Until then you must zap aliens and restrict the destruction by intercepting the satellite bombs with a Dynoray (obtained after only 12 kills).

A menu of options can customise the bland display by adding a score and energy display as well as a VDU that reports of heavy alien activity and a map to plot your course.

The normal Spectrum blips and beeps as the aliens swirl past can be improved by the sound option if you have a Spectrum 128 or a Fuller or Timedata add-on.

However, most of these options are little more than standard features in other games and can't help a game that falls short of expectations and takes an age to play.