REVIEWS COURTESY OF ZXSR

Eliminator
by John M. Phillips, John Wildsmith, Nick Jones, Stephen J. Crow, Steve Weston, Tim White
Hewson Consultants Ltd
1989
Crash Issue 63, Apr 1989   page(s) 11

High quality blasting from Hewson

Producer: Hewson
ET Benefit: £7.99 cass, £12.99 disk
Author: John Wildsmith

Cor, this eliminating business is great fun! it all started six months ago when I saw a job vacancy in the window of the local Inland Revenue office: 'Young xenophobic maniac needed to travel to various planets and eradicate their populations. Certificate of mental instability welcome but not obligatory.' Well, I kicked in the door and shot the smiling receptionist (I always shoot first and ask questions afterwards, not that I get much sense then). After about ten minutes a young chap in a bulletproof vest turned up, 'You're applying for the Eliminator job,' he said.

I was, and ET (Employment Training) still had a place for me. So here I am, rocketing down the highways and zapping all that moves. Whenever I land on a new planet I start off with just a single-tire weapon, but pods can be collected to add-on weapons or replenish ammo.

Of course I always travel at top speed, and the chequered road zooms by incredibly smoothly. Watching the road disappear round bend is most fun. The aliens are pretty slick too, popping up off the road and swirling at me with all guns blazing. To start off with they seem a bit indistinct, but once you get used to them you just can't stop blasting 'em. Have to be accurate too though, there's not much ammo and no energy recharging until the end of the level. I also have to be careful about collisions - since I never wear a safety belt it's instant death if I hit an alien. Then there's all the barriers they put up, some of them block the road completely and you have to use a ramp to flip over and travel along the roof! Others have segments you can shoot out with a steady aim. It's a great life, eliminating things, and that's why I decided to take part in this ad for ET!

MARK [84%]

THE ESSENTIALS
Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: fast 3-D scrolling
Sound: loud 128k ingame tune


Eliminator looks a lot like Trailblazer, or even Plexar, but it's superfast and very slickly presented with a neat 128K ingame tune and some nicely-drawn graphics. My only reservation that, unlike other versions of the game, there's no password system so that once you've completed a few levels you no longer have to keep playing through them. A fun game for a while, it might eventually prove repetitive.
NICK [83%]


Although Mark loves this (probably because it's even faster than Afterburner) I've got my doubts. The graphics are fast and fairly smooth, but the screen often looks a bit cluttered. Still, the concept is OK, and the general feel is that of a well-polished and playable game which somehow falls short of being brilliant.
MIKE [78%]

REVIEW BY: Mark Caswell, Nick Roberts, Mike Dunn

Blurb: SKIP THOSE LEVELS Use the grid pattern to line yourself up when approaching the barriers. Lots of the later weapons are pretty useless really; collect lots of ammo instead! Don't waste ammo; you need some to shoot your way through some of the bafflers. Send ten million pounds In used notes to Skippy, CRASH, PO Box 10…

Presentation79%
Graphics78%
Sound79%
Playability81%
Addictive Qualities82%
Overall82%
Summary: General Rating: A fast and playable 'roadblasting'shoot-'em-up.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

Your Sinclair Issue 41, May 1989   page(s) 74,75

Hewson
£9.99
Reviewer: Sean Kelly

'From underground there came a machine encircled by death, that kills but cannot be killed... The Eliminator. A war machine whose solitary quest is to eradicate all forms of life.' Oo-er! Bit unsociable, what? Still, being an intergalactic games tester does involve battling some really evil types. Here... hang about though. I am the Eliminator. Gosh!

Playing Eliminator is a good way to achieve involuntary genocide. Finding yourself at the helm of the Eliminator you hurtle down the road at break neck speed - there's no accelerate or brake on this game, and just one speed - gigafast. As you will see from the screenshots, this is 'into the screen'scrolling, and the speed and smoothness of the scrolling in Eliminator is excellent. The chequered track fair zooms toward you, and the impression of speed, specially when the road is climbing, descending, or veering left and right, is very impressive.

Hurtling along admiring the scrolling isn't all, however, for on your travels you will encounter many obstacles, which must be either avoided, or, much more fun, blasted, zapped, totalled, and wiped-out. Whatever you want to call it - just keep firing! Waves of aliens will annoy you by weaving and lurching all over the road and firing missiles which will deplete the shield of your Eliminator. And though walls are fairly easy to dodge the 'cones' on level one are a little tricky. Set up in a zig-zag pattern, getting round these entails split-second timing and tons of dexterity.

Of course, a shoot 'em up wouldn't be a shoot 'em up these days if it didn't have the now bog standard 'collect the blob to get a bigger weapon' system, and Eliminator is no exception. Occasionally, a revolving pyramid and cube on opposite sides of the road will be encountered, and only one can be grabbed. The cubes will boost the supply of ammunition, whilst the pyramid will give a bigger weapon. The weapons range from a single fire weapon, right through to a triple fire cannon, which uses tons of ammo dead fast. And it's best to see whether you need ammo or armoury more - before making your choice. There's also the occasional ramp, which will lift you over an otherwise impenetrable wall, or flip you up to the ceiling if in a tunnel section - most disconcerting.

I often find that 'into the screen' 3D limits shoot 'em ups, as there is not much room for manoeuverability on the road, and so trying to shoot at things and steer proves impossible. On first playing I suspected that Eliminator was about to fall into the same trap. Fortunately, after a few plays, the addiction was setting in and Eliminator was proving to be a happy exception. The vehicle has a high level of manoeuverability, there's plenty to shoot at and dodge, and many surprises along the way - you really don't know what's going to appear next.

Hewson has once again released an excellent game with everything a shoot 'em up fan will need - pointless and crap scenario, colourful megafast graphics, edge of the seat excitement and tons of carnage. Simply brilliant!


REVIEW BY: Sean Kelly

Life Expectancy87%
Instant Appeal82%
Graphics90%
Addictiveness90%
Overall90%
Summary: Hewson maintains its high standards with this rootin', tootin', killin', maimin', shoot 'em up. Not to be missed by arcadey types.

Award: Your Sinclair Megagame

Transcript by Chris Bourne

Your Sinclair Issue 63, Mar 1991   page(s) 81

Time to catch up with our 2 favourite barg hunters, JON PILLAR and RICH PELLEY, as we fix on our helmets and drop down deep...

BARGAIN BASEMENT

Players
£2.99
Reviewer: Rich Pelley

One good thing about Hewson is that almost all of their games have been and are of very high standards, and pretty original into the bargain. And luckily, their latest re-release, which has come our way with a little help from Players, is no exception.

It's an into-the-screen jobby, where for some odd reason you find yourself hurtling down a track in a strange-looking spaceship, both on the floor, and at times on the ceiling too. You have no control over your speed, so the idea is to survive as long as possible before crashing and losing a life. You'll no doubt encounter plenty of things as you go, some stationary such as walls and parking cones which have to be avoided, and some moving, mainly baddies which can be shot, preferably, before they shoot you. If you crash or your energy runs out then you lose a life - which is rather disgruntling as you get plonked back miles. You do fortunately have a gun, which can be upgraded to multi-fire guns and bombs, but the ebtter the weapon, the faster it uses up your ammo so for this reason you can swop between the add-on weapons you've picked up to choose when you want to use which one.

In its day, a mere two years ago actually, fact-fiends, this one was a bit of a corker, and a YS Megagame to boot. But today, and today being Tuesday, I can't help finding the whole thing just a little too boring - and getting sent back miles when you die is extremely frustrating. A definite "Try before


REVIEW BY: Rich Pelley

Overall64%
Transcript by Chris Bourne

Sinclair User Issue 85, Apr 1989   page(s) 33

Label: Hewson
Author: John Wildsmith
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

You are the Eliminator, a compassionless monster out to destroy destroy destroy! You race along an apparently infinite 3D track, round bends and up hills, past barriers, killing everything that moves while continually collecting more and more advanced weapons systems. Fab.

The nature of this sort of game prohibits any astounding graphics - since about ten sprites are needed for each shape of alien depending on how far away it is - though the bad guys look as menacing as they can. After a while you'll learn to live with the rather hypnotic eternal checkerboard effect on the floor and the ceiling.

Ceiling? Yes indeed. During parts of the game you can jump off ramps in the road and cling to the ceiling. Since all the features of the ground-level game are included on the ceiling, life isn't any easier; there are still aliens and traps, but you may be able to collect some extra bonuses before bouncing back down to earth again.

Alien attack waves are pleasingly varied. Some swoop in quickly while others circle in the distance in front of horrid spiky traps, concealing them from view. Depending on which weapon you've got at which stage, you'll either be completely invincible or dead within seconds. A weapon that fires at 45 tangents to your ship isn't much use when the bad guys stream down the centre of the screen in single file.

The fact that every time you lose a life you go back to a specific market point is good. Obviously it's better than going all the way back to the start. Eliminator, though, seems to have the most madly selected set of start points ever. You always go back to the start of the most difficult bit you've passed. Once you've fought for hours to get past a tricky bit, it's unfair to be forced to go through it again. Not fair. Lucky owners of other machines will have a password system enabling them to jump beyond levels they've already completed. Not so on the Spectrum version of Eliminator.

During your mission of death and destruction, you will find pyramid shaped objects which allow you to use different weapons and square boxes which will replenish your supplies of ammo. Depending on the state of your energy/guns/ammunition, you'll have to make effective choices because these bonuses are set in parallel style on the track, making it impossible to get both.

The track winds and dips happily and without a hint of flicker. The movement of the player and aliens is iffy by comparison. The amazing smoothness of the backdrop highlights their "small" failings.

There are lots of good things about Eliminator; scrolling, speed, simplicity And there are a fair few niggling points too; lack of depth, silly "start" positions, etc. I'd check it out before you buy it.


REVIEW BY: Jim Douglas

Graphics65%
Sound50%
Playability68%
Lastability60%
Overall61%
Summary: Okay 3D game. Nice touches. Loads of shooting.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

Sinclair User Issue 108, Feb 1991   page(s) 64

Label: Players
Price: £2.99 48K
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

I dunno, there might have been a good idea in here somewhere, but it hasn't quite made it to the surface.

Eliminator is the heart-warming tale of a 'machine encircled by death, that kills but cannot be killed - the Eliminator!'. In fact, it's all too easy to get killed as you hurl your space flier left and right across a scrolling starlane. Basically, this is a car-racing game transferred into outer space, which has the advantage that the flickering raceway doesn't have to be accompanied by any background details. Every so often you get a password to the next level, but there isn't much variation between the various raceways and tunnels.

Destroying obstacles such as flashing beacons and floating aliens scores bonus points, and there are ramps to leap over, weapon and ammo bonuses to pick up, and extra weapons such as dual-fire cannon, side-fire, bouncing bombs, double-fire cannon and - guess what - triple-fire cannon, imaginative. It's not.

With bland graphics and repetitive gameplay. Eliminator doesn't generate much excitement, even on budget. Eliminate it from your shopping list.


REVIEW BY: Chris Jenkins

Graphics60%
Sound40%
Playability50%
Lastability51%
Overall51%
Summary: Unexciting space-race-shoot-'em-up fails to stir the adrenalin.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment) Issue 21, Jun 1989   page(s) 78

Hewson, £9.99 cs, £14.99 dk
ST version reviewed Issue 13 - ACE rating 904

Although the Spectrum copes quite well with the 3D nature of the game, the lack of colour often makes it difficult to differentiate between aliens, solid objects and collectibles. The coarser update also removes the pixel-precision which made the ST version so enthralling.


Ace Rating755/1000
Transcript by Chris Bourne

The Games Machine Issue 18, May 1989   page(s) 55

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £7.99, Diskette: £12.99

The atmospheric baseline and effects of the ST version are accurately reproduced along with the swift and effective 3-D 'road', albeit in monochrome. Aliens move smoothly and their missiles are easy to see, but the simplicity of movement options puts a question mark against the games longterm playability.


Blurb: ATARI ST Overall: 92% TGM011

Overall79%
Transcript by Chris Bourne

Your Sinclair Issue 55, Jul 1990   page(s) 33,34,35,36,37

THE COMPLETE YS GUIDE TO SHOOT-'EM-UPS PART 1

Where'd we all be without shoot-'em-ups, eh, Spec-chums? Well, we'd all have much smaller games collections, that's for sure! Join MATT BIELBY for an epic blast through nearly a decade of firepowered Spec-fun...

Blimey! The complete guide to shoot-'em-ups, eh? A bit of a mammoth task you might be thinking (and you'd be blooming right! It's taken me absolutely ages!). It's so blinking gigantic in fact that we've had to split it in two to save the whole ish from being packed to the gills with ancient shooty-shooty games and very little else!

So how's it all going to work? Well, this issue we spotlight those hundreds of games where you control a little spaceship, aeroplane or what have you, while next time round we'll be wibbling on for ages about those blasters where you command a man, creature or robot - things like Operation Wolf, Gryzor, Robocop (the list is endless, I'm sorry to say). Yes, I know it's a bit of an arbitrary way to divide the whole subject up in two, but it's the best I could come up.

Anyway, if you 're all ready, let's arm the missiles, oil the cannons, buckle our seatbelts and go kick some alien ass! (Or something.)

SO WHAT EXACTLY MAKES A SHOOT-'EM-UP A SHOOT-'EM-UP?

Well, at the risk of stating the obvious, it's a game where simple reaction times count for (almost) everything, and the actual shooting of various baddies constitutes the major part of the gameplay. It's just about the oldest form of computer game going (Space Invaders was pure shoot-'em-up, for instance), short of mad Victorian chappies crouching down inside big wooden cabinets and pretending to be chess machines. It's one of the most enduring forms too - hardly an issue of YS goes by when we don't review at least a couple of newies, and it's the rare arcade-style game (sports sims and puzzlers excepted) that doesn't include at least a small shoot-'em-up element in there somewhere as part of the gameplay.

But back to the case in hand. What we're talking about here are the pure shoot-'em-ups - games where the wiping out of waves of aliens or other baddies is everything (though let's be fair, the violence in most of these is very abstract and minimal). They easily divide into four major types, depending on how you view the action. And you can read all about them over the page.

THE FIRST EVER SHOOT-'EM-UP

Goodness knows - Space Invaders is the obvious answer, but most of the other early arcade games were shoot-'em-ups too - Defender, Asteroids, Galaxian and the rest. To find out what made it onto the Speccy first, well, we'll have to look back in the vaults and see what we come up with, shan't we?

Right, here we are with the very first issue of Your Spectrum (later to evolve into Your Sinclair), cover date January 1984. Flick to the review section and we have two Space invaders-type games, both from long-forgotten Anirog Software - Galactic Abductor and Missile Defence. The second issue (Feb 84. believe it or not) brings us such delights as Xark (Contrast Software), a Defender-type game and Alien Swoop (a Galaxians rip-off), while in issue three had Bug Byte's Cavern Fighter (a tunnel-based jobbie, like an early version of R-Type).

Hmm. Let's go back a bit further, shall we? All the early computer games mags were listings based (ie had lots of crap Basic games printed out line by line over oodles of pages, as if Program Pitstop had run rampant over the whole mag!) so we might find something in there. Believe it or not find something in there. Believe it or not, I have the very first issue of the very first computer games mag in the country sitting right here on my desk, cover-dated November 1981. There's only one Sinclair game in here (for a ZX80 or 81 - a Speccy forerunner - and taking up a whole 2K!). It's called City Bomb, and it's a sort of shoot-'em-up. Apparently you're in a plane at the top of the screen and have to bomb the city beneath you, flattening out a landing strip so you can put down safely. Thrilling stuff, eh? As for commercially available stuff, it's all lost a bit too far back in the mists of time to be sure. Still, shoot-'em-ups started emerging for the Speccy pretty soon after the machine came out, certainly by the end of '82. Throughout 83 people like Quicksilva and Bug Byte were churning out Space Invaders, Asteroids and Scramble clones advertised as 'being in 100% machine code and in colour' too, so perhaps it was one of those. Exciting stuff, eh?

RATINGS

In the great YS Guide To... tradition, for a one-off-only special occasion we've adapted our normal rating system to accommodate the shoot-'em-up theme. Here's how they work...

Alien-Death-Scum-From-Hell Factor
Are there oodles of inventive, nasty and extremely difficult-to-kill baddies all over the place (including the biggest, meanest muthas ever at the end of each level) or do you end up fighting a fleet of Trebor Mints?

Shopability
Are there oodles and oodles of well-thought-out and spectacular weapons available to pick up and use, or do you have to make do with the same crap little peashooter throughout the game?

Copycat Factor
Unusually, the lower the score the better here. Basically, is this exactly the same as every other shoot-'em-up ever (in which case it'll get a high score for being chronically unoriginal) or does it have something innovative and special about it to set it apart from the crowd?

Visibility Factor
Does everything make a degree of sense in Speccyvision, or is it all a jumbled mass of pixels, with bullets, missiles and even little spaceships winking in and out of view willy-nilly?

Eliminator
Hewson

The sort of 'into-the-screen'scroller that does in fact work quite well, this was helped a great deal by the rolling road arrangement at the top and bottom of the screen that added a sense of speed. Movement was fairly restricted though, so quite why it earned a Megagame first time round I don't know.


REVIEW BY: Matt Bielby

Blurb: VERTICAL SCROLLERS One obvious option for a shoot-'em-up, and one that's used all over the place, is the vertical scroller. This is where the action is viewed from a God-like perspective above it all, looking down on everything from a distance. The action scrolls up (or on the very odd occasion down) the screen. This has some advantages - it's easy to lay out complicated attack formations and the little spaceships can he the simplest blobby shapes and still function quite well but it can suffer from some rather major flaws too. The first is that the shape of your average TV or monitor is all wrong. Think about it - you're trying to present portrait-shaped action (taller than it is long) on a landscape-shaped screen (wider than it is tall). In a coin-op, which is where 85% of vertical scrollers originate, there's no real problem with this because you can easily build a cabinet with a tall thin screen to contain the action, but in Speccyvision the programmers have to waste large portions of the side of the potential play area to reproduce it Subsequently, all the sprites have to be fairly small to fit in, and on most TVs become next to invisible. You've effectively castrated the game before you've even started. There's one other major problem too - the background. Since most scrolling Speccy games have to be largely monochrome, any sort of backdrop (say a forest which you're flying over) can cause real problems. You'll be safe (but probably rather bored) if the programmer opts for a simple black starfield over which all the sprites will show up well, but anything beyond that courts disaster. All too often overzealous background artists, small sprites, even smaller bullets and the sort of slightly crappy TVs most of us use with our Speccies conspire to render your brand new vertical scroller virtually unplayable. Don't think I've got a total downer on them though - despite all the limitations some of the real classics use this design. Xenon, anybody? Clear backdrops, that's what vertical scrollers need. (So Gemini Wing's a sorry loser.)

Blurb: THE 'INTO-THE-SCREEN' JOBBIE Although occasionally attempted with reasonable success by budgeteers like CodeMasters, these often constitute a less than satisfying experience. All too often someone responsible for coin-op licence acquisition will pick out an arcade favourite with a giant hydraulic cabinet - say an Afterburner or Thunder blade - with little thought as to how it's going to translate to the home computer. (Not very well, usually.) Thus most 'into-the-screen' shoot-'em-ups are technically impressive and rather brave attempts to reproduce the thrills and spills of the original, but almost inevitably doomed to failure. Robbed of 3D, moving cabinets, and whizzo graphics, the limitations built into the game become abundantly clear - there's little real feeling of speed (difficult enough to create even with a rolling road as reference point, let alone without one), oodles of almost identical levels and very little to actually do. Boring. Videodrome, here we come - it's 'into the screen' time with F-16 Fighting Falcon.

Blurb: THE FLIP-SCREEN Not all that common, but these can work very well indeed - check out Raf Cecco's Cybernoid duo, for instance. The thing seems to be that if you dispense with trying to write decent scrolling routines (since the background doesn't move at all - you simply progress across the screen until you get to the far end, when a new one flashes up with your little ship in its new starting position) you can spend a lot more time making everything else very pretty and colourful and inventive. Thus flip-screen games have some of the best, clearest, most colourful graphics ever seen on the Speccy. On the minus side however there's the disconcerting, disorientating bit where your ship flickers off the right hand side of the screen, only to reappear on the far left of the next one. But they can be incredibly addictive (it's always a temptation to try for 'just one more' screen to see what it looks like) and, in the case of the Cecco games at least, can strike a fine balance between mindless blasting and working out the best route past each new obstacle. They're still pure shoot-'em-ups, but slightly more cerebral ones. Flip screen a la NOMAD - no place to run to, no place to hide. (It's a bit like playing Murder In The Dark really.)

Blurb: THE HORIZONTAL SCROLLER This is the other main option, and usually a much more sensible way to go about things. Not only is the screen the right shape, but you can have a very complicated and pretty bottom and/or top bit to it (the ground, or the edges of a tunnel, say), while leaving the bulk of the play area relatively free from obstructions. Most the great shoot-'em-ups (but by no means all) are built like this, including the Your Sinclair all-time fave raves like Uridium and R-Type. Game over, man! (Well, Game Over II to be precise.)

Blurb: GIANT ALIEN MUTHAS FROM HELL A few good end-of-level baddies can make a shoot-'em-up, a lack of them break one. Let's look at a few typical monsters, shall we? Dominator: Impressive pink mouth affair firmly in the R-Type mould, and nicely animated too - the eyes blink and teeth move. Unfortunately the rest of the game didn't live up to it. Mr Heli: A giant eye thing with lobster claws - not bad, the grey and yellow graphics don't help it to stand out as much as they might, do they? Silkworm: This is the other way to do it - not a giant fixed mass (like the other two) but a moving baddy in the vein of stuff you've already met on that level, but bigger. This super chopper is delightfully guppy-like.

Blurb: HOW TO DESIGN A SPACESHIP We cant really express how important a good central sprite can be - after all, other sprites may come and go, but you're looking at this one the entire time! Halaga: Hmm. Your basic Space Invaders/Galaxians thing - not too impressive, is it? Sidearms: Anyone able to tell me what's meant to be going on here? It just looks like a bit of a mess to me! Answers on a postcard please. Dark Fusion: A-ha! Now this is more like it - simple, clean design, easy to see but not too distracting. It's the biz.

Blurb: SO, YOU WANNA WRITE A SHOOT-'EM-UP? Would you believe it's not as hard as it looks? (Actually, the way loads of people seem to write shoot-'em-ups it doesn't actually look all that hard anyway!) Here are a few of your central ingredients... The Main Spaceship A little square box thing with another square box on the front will do fine here - nice and simple and to the point. Alternatively you could go the whole hog and stick as many spikey bits as possible all over it so the sprite looks 'interesting' from all angles. Enemy Spaceships Nothing wrong with a whole squadron of polo mints zooming through space towards you - after all, it's the cunningness of the attack formations that counts! The Name Something gun-like sounds good and hard (say Side Arms or Armalyte) though anything vaguely aggressive-sounding will do (Eliminator, Dominator, Xecutor, H.A.T.E). If you're desperate you can always go the pseudo-scientific route (R-type, P47, Ultima Ratio), opt for an animal name (Salamander, Silkworm) or go for that old standard, the meaningless, vaguely futuristic-sounding word (Triaxos, Xeno, Zynaps, Xarax, Sanxion, Uridium, Xevious). Lots of 'Z's and 'X's are good. Background Nice and complicated is fine - let your imagination go wild. Don't worry about bullets (or even smaller enemy squadrons) getting lost amongst the mass of background detail - you can always pass it off as 'challenging gameplay'. Collision Detection Don't make it too easy for them! It's perfectly all right if any alien coming within inches of the player kills him dead, while he needs to blast baddies six times for any effect to be felt Again, it's all in the cause of challenging gameplay!

Blurb: EVERY SHOOT-'EM-UP EVER Ha! You've got to be joking - I started working on it and got up to 150 names - and I was only half way through the poxy thing! Forget it!

Blurb: SHORTS Blimey! Space doesn't go very far when you've got a subject as big as this, eh? So, dotted across the next four pages, we've squeezed some mini (mini) reviews into snazzy white blobs (just like this) - not wham-bam classics, but all good representatives of a type…

Transcript by Chris Bourne

All information in this page is provided by ZXSR instead of ZXDB