Producer: Melbourne House
Retail Price: £7.95

Trading with the aliens is the only way to make a fast intergalactic megabuck these days. And as you're facing a massive prison sentence back home, the thought of trading minerals on 5.2 billion planets is more than inviting.

Your ship (stolen of course), moves left and right, up and down, accelerates, slows and rolls. The main screen shows surrounding starfields, but can be replaced by a map from which a prospective trading planet's honesty, economy, helpfulness and mineral class is assessed. If a planet is suitable, its coordinates are plotted and a hyperjump made.

Having pierced the atmosphere, a surface landscape appears on screen. To help your landing, onscreen prompts indicate when landing gear should be engaged and engines switched off. Additional information is provided by Yaw, Pitch and Roll indicators at the top of the screen and Speed, Acceleration, and Altitude readouts at its base.

Trading with aliens begins when a successful landing has been made. These fall into two types - those that are helpful and honest and those that aren't. Choose carefully with whom you deal, and beware of those that engage in idle chit-chat. To save conversational time, stock phrases can be called up.

The price of minerals is determined by their rarity and the trading planet's economy. Bargains can be picked up though, and bulk buying offers discounts. You can also buy food, fuel, insurance and ship repairs. All trades are logged into the ship's computer, and your bank account accordingly adjusted. Be careful that you have sufficient funds, otherwise you'll find yourself in trouble with the police, or wiped out by the Ron Nice Guy Credit agency. Though this nest egg may be earning you interest, it's also eaten away by the ravages of inflation, constantly increasing the wealth you need in order to retire to Paradise Planet.

Damage occurs to the ship's primary systems, with the fuselage the most vulnerable, expensive and potentially disastrous section to go down. When damaged, engines and boosters run less efficiently with increasing fuel consumption, remaining levels are shown at the bottom right of the screen; whilst impeded shields, landing gear and braking systems fail only with use; cargo doors can jam open; and faulty storage systems cause food to rot. Systems can sustain damage in collisions with minerals, police ships, or if left activated, during entry into a planet's atmosphere.

To give you some protection, seven types of insurance policy are available. The price of each is dependent upon a planet's economy and the status of insured items. Should a claim be made against the policy, the items are returned to you in the state they were in when the insurance was taken out.

In the course of your wheeling and dealing, it's all too easy to commit crimes: booster rockets damage nearby craft, and hyperjump rockets destroy them. A consequent arrest by the interplanetary police causes financial damage, along with a potentially problematic criminal record.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Cursors and other inputs
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 2
Use of colour: good
Graphics: some splendid effects, and neat characters
Sound: minimal
Skill levels: one

No it's not a Star Trek ripoff, but who's to say that you won't come across the USS Enterprise and her crew members somewhere between the four billion planets! The effects are pretty (although there could be a little more variation), and the way in which the planets and landscapes have been executed works excellently. However, Enterprise probably won't have a lot of lasting appeal, as it's basically an Elite variant without the extensive and all important shoot 'em up sections.
BEN

I was completely surprised by Enterprise, it feels somewhat like a less addictive Elite. The presentation is average and the sound effects minimal, which serves to create very little atmosphere. The only real fun part is the conversation with the trading aliens - it can prove very profitable or unproductive, but it produces a good bit of jovial banter with one of the locals. Enterprise makes quite a change, not mega, but worth a peek.
PAUL

There are some lovely effects in Enterprise - including a marvellous spinning planet - but it still doesn't generate much excitement None of the many tasks offered any sense of achievement - however swapping idle banter with the planet's residents became quite pleasant. If you want a game that doesn't just rely on killing off the universe, Enterprise is worth considering - but it's not the type that I'd really go for.
MIKE

Mastertronic Plus (rerelease)
£2.99

Enterprise is one of those games that takes absolutely ages to get into but is quite rewarding when you do: a variation on the Elite style of game, trading with aliens and flying about the universe visiting the 5,000,000,000,000 planets (how many?). The idea is to use the aliens to collect enough money to retire from the criminal, space hopping lifestyle you now lead and go to the planet Paradise. The only trouble is that inflation keeps pushing the price of Paradise up, so more and more money has to be made.

Some quite nice spinning planet sequences and effects are really good, but soon get boring when you are watching the same ones for the umpteenth time. The actual chatting with the planets' alien inhabitants is the best part. If you get fed up you can always start entering swear words and see how they react (as if I would do such a thing!).

Enterprise might keep fans of Elite busy for a few days, weeks or even months (these games take a long time to complete) even if it's slower moving. At 48K, it doesn't look very good compared to newer 128K games, but some playability is still there - somewhere.

Melbourne House
£7.95

Can't make your bread no way, no how? Unimaginative bankers holding a knife to your entrepreneurial jugular? Well, you'd better get an extension built on your wallet 'cos with Melbourne Houses Enterprise we're talking making mega-squillion cosmic buckeroonies. To them enterprise isn't just getting on your bike - its pinching a space ship and boldly going where no Arfur or Del Boy's gone before to strike up some pretty iffy deals with the aliens.

That's the basic plot of this superior multi-faceted space flight simulator/text driven adventure. And despite its name it doesn't so much arrive before Star Trek as evoke fond memories of Elite. Facing a lengthy jail sentence for the starship's theft, you have no choice but to wander the universe hoping you can clinch the Big One so you can retire to Paradise Planet.

Enterprise's first screens give you scanner views of your cosmic position. Hitting Map gives you a more localized view and allows you to use the Cursor to choose the planet you wish to trade on. And with 5.2 billion to choose from (so the info I had reckons, anyway!) you won't whizz through this lot on a wet bank holiday. Hitting fire will help you decide if you want to make the long, long journey as it'll punch up details like the mineral grades available, and whether the inhabitants are helpful and the economy sound. If you decide to go for it, lock in your co-ordinates, watch out for the G-force and hyper jump away - ger-rooovy graphics, if Elite'll familiar.

Nearer the planet you'll exit hyper space and use your two sub screens to guide yourself and to look out for ships - especially of the police variety. Although you have boosters to speed your trip, illegal use of them will lead to the police nick, nick, nicking you. And though £16 doesn't sound much of a fine, it's crippling when the Ron Nice Guy Credit Co. only subbed your trip to the tune of £514 crinklies. If you successfully negotiate the descent through the planet's atmosphere, checking on your ship's yaw, pitch and speed, you'll go on to visual contact for the final landing sequence.

Having successfully flexed your arcade muscles you probably feel pretty cocky about ripping off those aliens. Trouble is, in the text Q and A section, when your log info says they're friendly it doesn't just mean they'll hand over the loot. It usually means they like a chat, and you'll need more rabbit than Sainsbury's before you get around to any dealing. And there's no cutting and running. You need these guys to close insurance deals, and to buy food and fuel to continue your trip. Suddenly the entrepreneurial boot's on the other alien foot.

Witty, concise and really rather wowie! Enterprise falls short of perfection only because it's an amalgam of previous notions rather than a whole new concept. But it certainly won't do Melbourne House any harm in the market place.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

It's time to tiptoe down those creaky old stairs again. JONATHAN DAVIES leads the way...

Mastertronic Plus
£2.99
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies

This one's reasonably reasonable, as budget games go. That makes two from Mastertronic in one month. Blimey. It's a sort of cheapo Elite - lots of flying around, trading, the usual stuff. There's a fair amount missing of course (stuff to shoot, weapons etc) but a couple of interesting additions. First of all, you can land on planets (after tackling a flight sim-style landing sequence) and then chat to the natives and maybe do a bit of trading. This involves typing in stuff and watching the alien's replies, which don't tend to be convincing most of the time. There are 5,000,000,000,000 (yes 5,000,000,000,000) of these plaents, and they're all meant to be different, so please don't start sending in maps!

Graphically it's, um, well it does the job. Just the usual stars coming towards you, some quite nice revolving planets and then the flying-over-the-surface part, where the only detail is the landing strip. What there is is nice enough, but don't expect to be overwhelmed or anything.

Although Enterprise is a fairly simple affair, it gives the impression of being really massive, which you don't normally get in a barg. And it's quite fun too. As a full-pricer it would get howled down within seconds, but it makes quite and acceptable cheapo.

Label: Melbourne House
Author: IC&D
Price: £7.95
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Jack Daniel

Enterprise - what a wonderful title for a game in these progressive times of the true-blue entrepreneur. Set your self up in business, apply for several million pounds worth of grant from a regional development council, get a workforce of YTS trainees in, exploit them, and then see how fast you can do a runner to the Seychelles. Right? Wrong - if only.

In fact Enterprise is a variation of that old game Trader - admittedly with a few flashy bits bolted on - but ultimately not as satisfying Sort of Elite-ish, but not that good.

What has happened is that having just got out of jail for transgressing some trivial law or other (well, borrowing some money from a bank without asking), you're looking for a way to make your fortune. Obviously, you've decided to go straight, and it's off into the wide open reaches of the galaxy to wheel and deal, dodge and weave, duck and dive, apples and pears, trouble and strife, etc, to make yourself an intergalactic pony, so as you can retire to the Paradise Planet.

The problem is that because of rampant inflation, the amount of money you want to make to win the game, goes up dramatically with time.

You begin orbiting a planet and admittedly the graphics on this phase, and almost every phase come to think of it, are quite pretty. The main section of the screen is made up of mono dots, but it's very effectively done, so the planet turns around quite neatly in a sea of stars.

Below the main display are gauges showing how fast you're going, your altitude, amounts of fuel on board and total time elapsed. Above are shown your co-ordinates, plus the pitch, yaw and roll of your craft All jolly helpful. You accelerate/decelerate by pressing Fire and moving up/ down... so off you go to land on the planet. Unless, that is, you'd rather check out other systems, in which case you can press M to display a map of the nearest stars.

You dial up information on each system by moving a cursor over a star, then pressing Fire. Then you get a full screen's worth of data showing its co-ordinates (irrelevant), distance from your present position, then the four ratings of Economy, Helpfulness, Honesty and Mineral Base. The latter tells you which type of the 16 minerals you will pick up if you buy metals on that planet. If you want to visit said planet, press H for hyperspace and you'll be deposited within the system.

Accelerate towards the planet and the screen will change to a visual representation of the planet surface itself, again in mono, with a foreground of dots (showing things like the landing strip, etc) and a background of mountains. They call this bit a flight simulator... something akin to comparing a cream egg eaten at a bus shelter to a five course meal at The Ritz. Not that there's anything specifically wrong with that - but a full blown flight simulator it isn't.

Once you land (don't forget to put the landing gear down, will you), turn the engines off and you're immediately in text communication with a little green alien (shown weebling away in the bottom bit of the screen).

Text communication... come on. It's an Eliza program - the sort all of us have typed in at one time or another from a mag, and been massively unimpressed with.

For those who've had their heads in a bucket for the last few years. Eliza-type programs attempt to have a conversation with you - responding to stuff that you type in. Generally they are infuriating. This one, high-cal though it may be, is no different.

You have to try and trade with the aliens via this method, and it's dashed hard work, even using the ten or so preprogrammed phrases that are brought up by pressing Symbol Shift, plus a particular letter.

OK, so you buy the minerals (flood, or fuel, or insurance yet. Insurance), get your repairs done (hard landing was it?) then off into the wild blue yonder to try and make a trading profit on another world.

So what about the combat, ah... surely must be some combat somewhere.

No. No combat.

No blasting - a feature that might have livened the proceedings up a little.

Over five billion worlds to visit they say. I'd be surprised if you made it to more than three.

Enterprise isn't Melbourne House's finest hour.

MACHINES: Spectrum/CBM 64/Amstrad/IBM PC
SUPPLIER: Melbourne House
PRICE: Spectrum (£7.95), Amstrad/CBM 64 (£8.95)

Question: What is the name of the game in which you zoom off into the depths of space, trading with aliens, buying food, fuel and dodging the interplanetary police? Answer: Enterprise.

That fooled you. Hands up everybody who said Elite. Thought so. Well you would be forgiven for Enterprise is unbelievably like the classic Elite. If I were unkind I'd say these games could be identical twins.

In Enterprise you play the part of an entrepreneur or. to put it more accurately, a crook.

Having decided to set yourself up as Interplanetary Merchant Pilot you find you haven't got the readies to buy a space ship. So you whip one which displeases the law and means you're in for a stiff prison sentence if you stick around. Then it's off to deep space with the aim of earning enough money to retire to the Paradise Planet.

You do this by collecting minerals and selling them to anyone who's fool - or desperate - enough to buy them.

As well as selling to them, you can buy food, fuel, and insurance from the traders and get your ship repaired. Some traders are more friendly and more honest than others. The price you receive depends not only upon the state of the economy, but also the rarity of the minerals on that particular planet. Most traders offer discount on bulk items and be careful not to lose your no-claims bonus on the insurance.

Despite receiving interest on your money from the "Ron Nice Guy" credit agency the amount of money required to retire rises incessantly with inflation.

You also have an Inventory which provides you with all the information about your current status, bank balance, retirement target, insurance cover, insurance premium, food supplies, and amount and type of minerals carried in the cargo bay.

A damage report gives the status of all the ships primary equipment. Engines, boosters, fuselage, landing gear, photon shield, cargo bay door, food storage system and braking system.

Damage may be done to the ship either by collision with minerals police ship or during entry into the atmosphere. Damage to the engines or boosters will cause them to run less efficiently, using more fuel until their eventual failure.

To claim on your insurance policy you must first take out a policy from one of the aliens. The price is based on the status of the items being insured and the economy of the planet you buy it from. If you issue a subsequence claim on your policy then the item claimed upon (Ship, Food, Fuel) will be returned to the condition it was in when the policy was formed.

Moving the cursor with the joystick onto any of the planets shown on the screen that are within your hyperjump range. Press fire on planet to see the characteristics of that planet and set the hyperjump coordinates, fire to return to map.

When trading with alien you may say anything you wish. They usually enjoy idle chat and the less helpful of them often try to digress, but by chatting to them it is possible to ascertain more about their general character and lifestyle which will be useful to you in future.

A dictionary definition of Enterprise includes the following phrases "daring spirit" and "a bold attempt." Neither fit this Enterprise. It's directly from the clone zone.