The average age was n-n-n-n-nineteen - but you already knew that.

Producer: Cascade
Out of Pocket: £9.95 cass, £14.95 disk
Author: Tony Warriner, John Lewis, Sean Conran

Deep trouble, man, like, wow it's Viet Nam time - 1965 to be precise - and all-American kid that you are, you've just received a letter calculated to forever shatter the comfortable world you've always known - you've been drafted.

The one really annoying thing about 19 Part One - Boot Camp is the pedestrian multiload (+3 owners are extremely lucky). However, once the game has loaded, you realise that Cascade have come up with the goods and it really is worth all the waiting.

All over God's own country college kids, issued with dog tags and uniforms, are embarking on a period of combat training to get them ready for life in the battlezone. 19 Part One - Boot Camp takes the player through the rigours of basic fitness and combat training and is the prequel to the no-surprise-soon-to-be-released Part Two which will put the player right into the combat zone in Nam. The game was inspired by Paul Hardcastle's No 1 single of the same name: the average age of the American soldiers in Viet Nam was n-n-n-n-nineteen - but you already knew that.

It's a long time before draft dodging became the national American teenage sport, so you find yourself with up to three other draftees, clutching your individual draft numbers, getting ready to take part. Each one guides his rookie private through four multiloaded stages of training. The first task awaiting fresh recruits is a daunting assault course. There are walls to climb, ditches to cross, tubes to crawl through and the whole procedure must be completed within a set time limit.

The horizontally scrolling assault course contains plenty of different obstacles for the unfit recruit to clamber and jump over - mastering jumping is difficult at first as expert timing is necessary to set the power bar. To clear a hazard, you need to keep fire continually pressed to ensure that the power bar remains at the correct level. If power is too high or low, you just run slap-bang straight into the obstructing fence or set of monkey bars with no alternative but to go back, red-faced and stripey-bruised, and reattempt it, wasting valuable time.

At the end of all this, you may feel like collapsing in a shivering, shaking heap with a can of Colt 45 (OK, Schlitz if you prefer) ... No chance - forget your aching back and blistered feet and get down to the shooting range. Here, a series of cut-out figures pops up from behind a set of walls and bushes. In addition to pictures of the enemy, there are figures representing women and children. Shoot a civilian, and a massive 1000 points is knocked off your score.

Though the shooting event simply involves moving the gun target around the area and firing at the cut-outs, the section's playability is improved by the inclusion of the innocent women and children (although I thought American soldiers in Viet Nam were instructed to shoot anything that moved). Unless you achieve the target number of points within the given time limit, you're out of the course. (Back to civvies? Nah, unlikely, they'll probably bung you in the potato-peeling squad to learn how to make large French fries to go.)

The other two events contain plenty of great gameplay - the jeep driving is particularly exhilarating. There you are at the jeep's wheel hurtling down an obstacle-strewn road, which contains many hills and dips. Army paraphernalia, such as boots and helmets, litters the road and can be collected for a bonus. Hitting other obstacles reduces the jeep's top speed, reducing its chances of finishing within the time limit.

Having made mincemeat of a perfectly serviceable army vehicle you're let loose in unarmed combat. Various moves are accessed in traditional beat-em-'up style. Practise them deftly enough and you may even get to beat the drill-instructor in a moment of sweet revenge. Having participated in all the events, the solider is given a rating for each - these can be saved to tape for use in the sequel when it's released.

Although I consider none of the four sub-games is superb in its own right, together they make up a great package - I can't wait for the s-s-s-s-sequel.

PHIL [90%]

THE ESSENTIALS
Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: well-designed sprites plus plenty of graphical variety in the four events
Sound: great Rob Hubbard soundtrack on 128K plus a snippet of digitised speech
Options: up to four players, and save scores for the sequel

N-n-n-no doubt about it, this is a brilliant game. Each training event could be released separately as an individual game and it would still be worth the money! All the graphics are excellent, especially the 19 logo and the title screen by Conran (wasn't he in Skippy's On The Screen?). The 128K tune is of course the Paul Hardcastle hit and with digitised speech on top of that, the soundtrack is an audio masterpiece. Some events are quite difficult to begin with - especially the assault course which is the most frustrating section - though the jeep training in particular is just good fun. Unfortunately, 48K users all the excellent audio but everything else is the same. As with almost any game today, 19 Part One is a multiload, but this doesn't spoil its addictiveness at all. Like the others, I can't wait for the sequel, Combat Zone, even though in 1965 I'm sure the real all-American kid had quite other feelings!
NICK [92%]

'Get ready soldier,' growls the voice of the drill sergeant as the brave private subjects himself to the rigours of basic training in this Combat School-esque game. A great deal of hand and eye coordination is needed to survive the training necessary to turn you into a lean, mean fighting machine and though at first the sergeant's stopwatch will beat you, a little practice soon does wonders. All the events are well presented (my favourite's the shooting range) and provide a great challenge. Cascade have even gone out of their way to construct a link between the two parts of the game. Knowing that your performance at Boot Camp can affect your performance in Combat Zone gives a strong incentive to do well. Ten'hut! - by the left - ker-weeek march... left, left, left-right-left.
MARK [90%]

Cascade
£9.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann

N-n-n-n... and so on. Actually it's quite hard to get out of the habit of n-n-ing all over the place when talking about this game, and it'll get even worse when part two pops up later in the year.

Eh? I hear you cry. Part two? Yes, Cascade knows where its bread is buttered, and I'd say it's on the side that's not stuck to the carpet. Why write just one game from an expensive and potentially lucrative licence, when you can do two... three... four... or even 19?

This one's the first, though, and in many ways it's typical of Cascade's games - not bad, perfectly playable, but just lacking that killer touch to make it a real humdinger. Part One is subtitled Boot Camp. It's a course in basic training, the results of which you can take through to the next game to help you survive against those slithery Viet Cong. Which means four parts, each entirely separate, but all of which 'take you through a series of exercises each assessing different characteristics: co-ordination, stamina and morale', as the blurb tells us. Sound like Combat School to you? Yes, it does to me too.

Fortunately the game's designers and programmers have avoided the temptation merely to ape that splendid Imagine title, and have tried to do something a bit different. It certainly succeeds in that but as a game (or rather series of games) I'm not so sure. There's too much here that's been done better elsewhere.

Stage One is the Assault Course, a far more complex and challenging test than in Combat School (one notable difference between the two is that you don't have to qualify as such for the next round - you get to try out all four rounds but your achievements and points in each are added up to make up your final score and rating). Running is straightforward enough - you just press right - but jumping is incredibly difficult. To get enough power you have to keep fire pressed down for half a second or so, and let go just as you reach the correct spot in front of the obstacle. Fine in theory but in practice, very tricky indeed.

Stage Two is far more user-friendly. Here you have a shooting range set in a forest, the lighting low, with targets popping up before you which you have to pop off. Or at least some of them you do, because mixed in with the genuine targets (soldiers) you'll also see women and children. Hit a soldier and you'll get up to 50 points, hit a woman and you'll lose 1000. It all makes for a stern and very addictive little test, with eight such ranges to get through.

Stage Three, Jeep Training, isn't bad either, although it's all a wee bit familiar. There can't be many other game companies who would dare being out a car racing game on the Speccy, but this one's perfectly respectable as far as it goes. Here you worry more about missing obstacles left in the road, as well as picking up useful things like ammo boxes, jerry cans and, for some reason, boots.

Stage Four, Unarmed Combat, is a return to Dullsville. It's Fist time again, except that it's rather shoddily programmed and incredibly boring to play.

So, a mixed bag. Of the four bits, two are all but redundant, one's okay, and it's only the Shooting Range that's really special. For a tenner, you do expect more than a 25 per cent success rate. Which is, of course, better than a mere n-n-n-n-n-(Oh shut up. Ed).

BARGAIN BASEMENT

As those modern philosophers Status Quo once said, "Down down deeper and down, down down deeper and down." MARCUS BERKMAN trips in the stairwell...

Summit
£2.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann

N-n-n-n-... and so on. Back in '88, this was one of those games we'd heard about for SOOOOOOOOO long that when it finally spluttered onto the shelves no-one was all that interested. Cascade it was who bought the licence, and in many ways Boot Camp is typical of Cascade's games - not bad, perfectly playable, but just lacking that killer touch to make it a real humdinger. Basically it's a course in basic training, the results of which you are supposed to take through to the next game in the 'Nineteen'series to help you survive against the slithery Viet Cong. (Was there a next game? I really can't remember.) Which means four separate exercises, each assessing coordination, stamina and morale'. Sounds like Combat School? it does to me too.

The problem here is that Stage One Assault Course, is virtually impossible to complete. It's only when we get to Stage Two, the Shooting Range, that we really get into Fun City. You're in a forest, at the right end of a gun, and targets pop up which you have to pop off. At least, some of them you have to, because mixed in with them are women and children - hit them and you lose points aplenty. It's a stern, addictive little test, and the best bit of the game.

All in all, though, Boot Camp is a mixed bag, with three out of its four sections well below standard. But for three quid you may regard the shooting bit as worth the outlay.

Label: Cascade
Author: Paul Laidlaw, Tony Warriner
Price: £9.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

It's 1965. You're 19. You're content and comfortable. The last thing you expect is to be torn away from your home and your friends, have at your hair shaved off and transported seven thousand miles to Vietnam. Yup, you're drafted! No wonder the poor beggar on the title screen looks so miserable.

19 Part One - Boot Camp is based on the hippetyhoppety scritchy-scratchy pop songette which was such a big hit for Paul Hardcastle a couple of years ago. In case you don't remember, it used extracts from the documentary Vietnam Requiem to lament the fate of the 19 year olds who were drafted into the Vietnam war, made to endure a year of hell then shipped back home to general indifference. Cascade's game doesn't even get as far as Vietnam (that's being saved up for the sequel), instead, it concentrates on the arduous combat training, and, very much like Ocean's coin-op version Combat School, consists of several sub-games which must be completed in order.

There are four main sections to the game, and while none of the ideas are terribly original, they're all executed with some flair. The first is the Shooting Range, where you peer through a sniper scope which magnifies a section of the wooded landscape. On the treeline and from behind bunkers pop up shadowy figures. You must scroll in four directions until you have them in your sights, then blast away. The view through the sniperscope scrolls with astonishing speed and smoothness, but as the scope itself doesn't move at all, you may lose track of which part of the landscape you're aiming at. Some of the targets represent hostages and innocent bystanders, and shouldn't be hit. Sad but true. You have a limited amount of ammunition and a limited time in which to score enough to take you through to the next section.

The Assault Course is another challenge. here you have to steer your running figure across obstacles including plank walks, posts, barrels and monkey bars. This is a test of co-ordination with keys or joysticks, and again you're up against a time limit.

Unarmed Combat comes next; here you have your chance to get your own back on the sadistic master sergeant (not Sargeant - programmers please note...) The two combatants face each other across the gym, and have a variety of fighting moves with which to clobber each other. Energy bars to each side show your progress, and again you're playing against a time limit.

The final section is Off-road Driving, in which you jump into a jeep and steer it through a landscape of boulders, oil drums, barricades and fuel cans. Bonus stars, fuel drums and time tokens can be picked up, but you must be careful not to steer into obstacles which will bring you to a halt and lose precious seconds. The background scrolling is well done, and the landscape rises and falls, a la Super Hang On.

The music and sound effects are well up to standard, and the 128K version of Paul Hardcastle's original 19 has to be heard to be believed. There's some nice sampled speech, and as a special bonus you get a 12" remix of the song on cassette. Considering that each of the sub sections is better than many a full-price game, you can't beat 19 for value. If you don't mind the inevitable wait for the multiload, it's a corker.

MACHINES: Commodore 64, Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Cascadde
PRICE: Spectrum £9.9/£14.99 disk, CBM 64 £9.99/£14.99 disk, Amiga £19.99
VERSION TESTED: CBM 64/Spectrum

It's been a long time coming, but 19 is finally here. By the time it's in the shops, it will have been a year in the making - from one PCW Show to the next - and while this four-event military training simulation has several good things going for it, given that much time it should have been not just acceptable, but astounding.

Inspired by the Paul Hardcastle song of the some name. 19 is the story of a draftee drawn into the Vietnam war. He looks pretty miserable about it on the title screen, but so would you if you'd had all your hair shorn off.

You don't get any of the battlezone atmosphere here, though - in part one what you get is several training exercises, similar in style to Ocean's coin-op conversion Combat School. After an astonishing Rob Hubbard rendition of the music, complete with synthesised helicopters, gunfire and screams, you can select and name up to four competitors. In each of the four training exercises to come, you will be assessed in three areas. Your accuracy in shooting, jumping obstacles, driving and fighting give your co-ordination rating, your stamina is calculated from how long you compete in each routine, and your morale from your overall performance. After each event you earn a rating from 1 (Abysmal) to 10 (Exceptional), and your overall score can be saved and used in the forthcoming sequel 19 Part two - Combat Zone.

First, the assault course. On this left-to-right scrolling event there are eight courses, each to be completed against a decreasing time lint,. The trick is to gauge your position and time your presses on the fire button correctly so that, as you run up to each obstacle, your power meter rises to the correct amount to get you through. Among the challenges is a brick wall, vaulting horses, stepping posts, ditches and monkey bars. Animation is fairly good, but control is a little tricky - you find yourself plummeting off the bars as soon as you build up a decent speed.

Part two, the shooting range is impressive technically, but a little dull to play. An enlarged section of the background is shown through your infra-red sniper scope as you pan around the view. Using your limited ammunition supply, you must knock off the pop-up soldiers, while avoiding taking out women or children, which will decrease your score by 1,000 points (unlike in the real war, where they gave you medals).

Next up is the jeep driving section. We've seen plenty of these scrolling-roadway efforts in the past, and this is basically just more of the same thing: accelerate along the road, pick up helmets, boots, ammo boxes, dog tags, jerry cans and stars for bonus points, avoid the sides of the roads, haybales, cones, tyres and fences which slow you down, and the rocks, logs, tree-stumps and fences which bring you to a standstill. Each bit of damage slows your jeep down, and if you sustain total damage you're out of action.

Lastly, unarmed combat. Though this is a decent one-to-one beat-'em-up routine, there's nothing new to it: fight eight bouts with the instructor against a time limit, using offensive moves including kicks, butts, jabs and hooks. If you knock him down you get a bonus: it his energy level is higher than yours at the end of a bout, you're out.

As you often find, the Spectrum version of the game has a nicer feel to it, despite the colour and sound limitations. The real problem, though, is that 19 Part One is basically a compilation of four unremarkable games rather than one good one. Maybe the proposed 19 Part Two The Combat Zone will prove better value for money.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £9.95, Diskette: £14.95

The Game of the hit record rolls on with the Spectrum version following its Commodore predecessor (62%) a month later. We got a picture in last month, but not a Spectrum review.

Vietnam is where you're going, but first the training camp. Four appropriately tough stages consisting of eight sub-stages, fail to complete one sub-stage and you're on to the next multiloaded event.

The assault course, with brick walls, monkey bars and ditches, is surprisingly sedate, not a hint of frantic joystick-waggling. Graphically this is good, with the soldier's gasping for breath beautifully animated, unfortunately it's also very tough. Timing the jumps and so forth is exceptionally picky, conveying little of the atmosphere of the event.

Far more effective is the second stage shooting range. Jeep training, the third stage, is graphically nice, but suffers from the jeep obscuring much of the course ahead - frustrating. The last training session is with Sergeant Steele for unarmed combat, a rather sluggish beat-'em-up.

Undoubtedly the best section of Nineteen is its most original part - the shooting range. Other events lack originality, but presentation and playability is significantly improved from the Commodore, making it well worth a look.