Producer: Quicksilva, 16K
£4.95

Almost every software house has its version of the arcade favourite, 'Berserk', which pits you against evil robots in a complex of simple mazes, representing the different rooms of some alien HQ. Life in these places must be hell because all the walls are electrified, killing you and the poor old robots. Quicksilva's version is very good of its type, with simple but smooth graphics. You lose a life if you collide with wall, robot or exploding missile. Avoiding the missiles can be done by leaping through an exit into another room, but as you do hordes more robots appear. The keyboard positions are rather odd, direction and fire being controlled by keys 6-0 which makes it difficult to use a joystick. Moderately addictive but not bad for the price.

Producer: Quicksilva, 16K
£4.95

Almost every software house has its version of the arcade favourite, 'Berserk', which pits you against evil robots in a complex of simple mazes, representing the different rooms of some alien HQ. Life in these places must be hell because all the walls are electrified, killing you and the poor old robots. Quicksilva's version is very good of its type, with simple but smooth graphics. You lose a life if you collide with wall, robot or exploding missile. Avoiding the missiles can be done by leaping through an exit into another room, but as you do hordes more robots appear. The keyboard positions are rather odd, direction and fire being controlled by keys 6-0 which makes it difficult to use a joystick. Moderately addictive but not bad for the price.

Producer: Quicksilva, 16K
£4.95

Almost every software house has its version of the arcade favourite, 'Berserk', which pits you against evil robots in a complex of simple mazes, representing the different rooms of some alien HQ. Life in these places must be hell because all the walls are electrified, killing you and the poor old robots. Quicksilva's version is very good of its type, with simple but smooth graphics. You lose a life if you collide with wall, robot or exploding missile. Avoiding the missiles can be done by leaping through an exit into another room, but as you do hordes more robots appear. The keyboard positions are rather odd, direction and fire being controlled by keys 6-0 which makes it difficult to use a joystick. Moderately addictive but not bad for the price.

MEET EVIL ORVILLE THE INVINCIBLE BALL

The latest Spectrum releases from Quicksilva bear a striking resemblance to original arcade games. The new offering is Astro Blasters and looks like a cross between two arcade favourites, Phoenix and Avenger.

Your spaceship is at the bottom of the screen and a squadron of alien birds wing their way through space, dropping clusters of bombs on you. If you manage to survive two attack waves, your spacecraft will run into a meteor storm which is sure to destroy it. The game is very colourful but the illusion of travelling through space is spoiled because the stars seem to appear on the screen at random and there is no scrolling effect as you move through space.

The second game is Frenzy and it looks like the arcade game Berzerk. You are in a maze patrolled by evil robots, a wandering ball called Orville and a mine-layer.

The robots can be destroyed but your laser gun will fire only in the direction in which you last moved. That can be awkward at times but it adds to the fun.

You will not be able to kill Evil Orville, so if you meet him it is best to dodge out by one of the four exits in the maze. You must also be careful not to step on the mines.

Astro Blasters and Frenzy are both available for the 16K and 48K Spectrum at £4.95 each.

They can be obtained from Quicksilva Ltd, Palmerston Park house, 13 Palmerston Road, Southampton.

PRICE: £4.95
Memory: 16K

As soon as you see a Quicksilva game on the shelves of a shop or advertised you do expect it to be pretty good - they have a name to live up to. In this game you have been placed in a room with walls segmenting it, which is also inhabited by robots. Unfortunately they seem intent on killing you.

There are various special features, including different levels of robots, exploding pods and minelayers. The main disappointment comes when you see the screen display, which is rather dull, with all the robots, etc, taking up exact character squares. If you hit a wall you die - though it is possible to escape through a hole in the outer wall and then you find yourself in a new room with more robots.

I didn't think Frenzy was really up to QS's usual high technical standard, though it is still quite fun to play.

Adaptations of arcade favourites are still a major part of the micro games industry, and with FRENZY, Quicksilva have produced a game that fans of the genre will recognise and enjoy.

There's an infinite number of maze-like rooms for you to guide your little man around, five levels of cunningly villainous robots, a minelayer, exploding pods - and, of course, the ultimate and unstoppable 'Evil Orville'.

On loading, Frenzy goes into its attract mode which consists of details of play keys, a score breakdown and a sample screen of yellow, first level robots. Controls are straightforward enough, although I would have preferred bottom row keys in place of the selected cursor ones. Later copies of the game will have a built in Kempston joystick option, but if your game does not have this, don't despair - Frenzy is included in Kempston's "Conversion Tape 2".

Depending on how nimble-fingered or otherwise you are, it might take you some time to get the feel of the movement keys. For the first few plays, I found it annoyingly easy to confuse 'up' with 'down' - in spite of the QS key overlay which is included here - thereby dooming myself to premature electrification and losing one of my precious three lives. A joystick should make a big difference to the game's playability.

This brings me to my major complaint against Frenzy. The game has a high score table which allows you to put a name to five high scores. However, there is no preset low limit and so Frenzy thinks anything you score after loading is a "GREAT SCORE!" and announces it accordingly. It's more than a little frustrating to have to sit through the routine, colourful and tuneful as it is, even when you've only managed to score 40 points or so in the early stages of getting to grips with the game. As the table works for the five highest scores in any game session, you are going to have to put up with this for at least your first fives games, and very probably, considerably more often.

Is a score table such a good idea anyway? I would hazard a guess that most people play computer games on their own, and so have no real need to enter their initials as they almost certainly already know them. A 'Hall of Fame', allowing you to make a copy on a printer, might have been a more interesting alternative, giving you the opportunity to brag about your superior skills to your wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/mother/father/friends or anyone else you could persuade to listen. In any event, the Frenzy score table should have had an inbuilt low limit of, say, 800-1000. Then, having a "GREAT SCORE!" would really have given you a glow of pride instead of, as at present, giving you a red glow of seething frustration.

The game itself is all about getting the robots before they get you. They certainly look menacing enough with their eye-scanners sweeping left and right watching your every move. The robots are intelligence itself, particularly at the higher levels. Reacting to your movements, they have no intention of being 'sitting ducks".

You are allowed to fire only in in the direction that you first moved, so skillful play is needed to wipe out even all the first level robots. Higher levels contain higher scores (but more devious and deadly) robots, mines and exploding pods. Beware of 'Evil Orville'. He materialises from the screen centre and proceeds to head straight for you, and your blaster doesn't worry Orville one bit. Escape is possible through one of the exits, but there is also the temptation to hang around and try to finish off those last couple of robots...

Frenzy, at £4.95 is an enjoyable game experience and has some smashing sound effects which add greatly to its appeal. It's a game that rewards repeated play, giving you a real chance of building up your ability. The screen layout, even after several hours play, never seems to repeat itself and so you have an infinite number of rooms to explore.

Pity about that score table though...

Quicksilva
13 Palmerston Road, Southampton
16/48K Spectrum
£4.95

FROM DEEP-SPACE ADVENTURES TO WORLDLY BOARD-GAMES IN MEIRION JONES' SURVEY

Less than a year ago the appearance of Scrabble on disc for the Apple caused consternation among micro owners. The program defeated three-quarters of the humans who challenged it to a dual of words. At least Scrabblers could comfort themselves with the knowledge that they had been beaten by a £750 disc-based system. Now Psion has taken even that consolation away by launching an improved version of the game with a bigger dictionary and better graphics which will run on a £150 system - the 48K Spectrum and a cassette recorder.

This illustrates the rate at which Spectrum software is improving. The latest releases include clever implementations of board- games like monopoly and arcade favourites such as Scramble, long and complicated Adventures with names like Knight's Quest and combinations of arcade and Adventure like Pixel's Trader. While serious and educational material software is still thin on the ground, programs like Hewson's Countries of the World show how much useful information can be packed into the Spectrum.

MORE ORIGINALITY

Unfortunately the standard is not uniformly high. Sometimes imagination is lacking. Bridge software still insists on marketing what it calls "an exciting game for two to six players". Yes, you guessed, it is boring old Hangman.

At other times graphics are weak. Micromega sells a version of Roulette which features a roulette wheel which looks more like a flying saucer on an off day. There is still too high a percentage of unloadable tapes and of tapes which you wished had been unloadable. Davic Games Tape 1, for instance, features a game which has Tooth Monsters instead of ghosts, which is probably the dullest-ever version of Pac-Man. The Tooth Monsters themselves are about as threatening as a pair of jelly babies.

If you want real tooth monsters try Imagine's excellent Molar Maul. This is a real nerve-tingler from the moment that an enormous set of gleaming teeth appears on the screen like something out of jaws. Armed only with a toothbrush and toothpaste you have to defend these dentures from swarms of evil bacteria.

These germs go by the name of Dentorium Kamikazium which allows Imagine to talk about "the DK Menace" - a triple pun partly at the expense of Imagine's Ipswich-based rivals DK'tronics.

Imagine's punsters are at work again on the cover of Arcadia where we are told we are fighting against the "deadly menace of the Atarian empire". Perhaps this explains why Sinclair owners have shown such enthusiasm for Arcadia because the game itself is just a lacklustre version of Galaxians. Much better is Imagine's Schizoids.

If, like me, you have always wanted to be a bulldozer, Schizoids is the game for you. You are a bulldozer in outer space and your job is to push tumbling cubes and pyramids into a nearby black hole without falling in yourself. Perhaps this nearby anomaly in the space-time continuum affects the wavelength of light. At any rate the game itself is only in black and white.

Pixel is another company which cannot resist veiled messages. Trader is part space Adventure and part arcade game. The Adventure, trading commodities between different worlds, is more convincing than the crude skill tests such as finding the right orbit when approaching a planet.

Trader may well be bought as much for its attractive packaging - which includes a survival guide for the would-be Trader - as for the game itself. After buying supplies for your first trip you set out for the planet Psi where the inhabitants - yes, Psions - who look like a cross between Clive Sinclair's beard and a muppet ask you tiresome questions such as "What is the formula for carbon monoxide?" or "What is your first name?". Entering "Clive" as an answer elicits the response "What a strange name". So, for that matter, does any other reply.

If disaster should strike, a caption will appear saying "Is this the end...?" The answer is "No" because Trader is a trilogy so there are another two complete parts to load from the tape. There are many more traditional text Adventures of the "Go south, open door, take gold" variety but the narrowness of the replies they will accept is often irritating.

DOWN THE MINES

Mikrogen's Mines of Saturn starts with a cheery "Have fun" and then proceeds to ask questions like "Tunnels lead N, S, E and W - what will you do?" Attempts to answer "N" or "go N" or even "go n" will not wash. It must be "go North" or nothing. At least Phipps' Knight's Quest has a 120-word vocabulary to help you on your damsel-ridden way to a castle in the air.

Everest by Richard Shepherd Software is more of a strategy game than a straight Adventure. You have to take enough food and rope to climb the mountain and cope with every hazard. I enjoyed the climb but I never reached the summit - partly because the Sherpas are not what they used to be.

When Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Everest for the first time he managed to find a Sherpa called Tensing. The time when you visit a Nepalese hill village to recruit porters you are asked to choose between Sherpas with names like Keith, Brian, Ron, Tim and Paul. Presumably they are ex-hippies, lost on the road to Katmandu.

Things obviously still are what they used to be down at Mikrogen. If Andy Capp sends you into fits of laughter Mad Martha might just raise a smile. It is the same old story, boy meets girl, well, hen-pecked husband meets axe-happy wife - all very predictable. Mikrogen also sells arcade games like Cosmic Raiders - a competent impersonation of Defender with a long-range screen and grabbers.

Melbourne House's variation on the same theme is called Penetrator. The display looks more like the arcade version of Scramble. A training facility to help you build up specific game skills is a good idea. C-Tech's Rocket Raider is yet another competent variant on similar lines.

Artic offers a suicidally fast asteroids game called Cosmic Debris. Still in the arcades, both Elfin Software and Quicksilva produce robot battles which are of the Pac-Man-meets-Tanks variety.

Elfin's Tobor has the more exciting opening titles but loses on points to Quicksilva's QS Frenzy whose exotic science-fiction plot seems to offer a better justification for the game.

Speaking of Tanks, DK'tronics 3D Tanx was one of my favourite programs in the whole batch. You can track you gun barrel from side to side and adjust the elevation as you lob your shells at four lines of moving tanks which can fire back at you. Although the opposing tanks at first appear to be crawling across a structure that looks more like Brighton's West Pier than a battleground, this is one of my four games you might catch me paying to play in an arcade.

JOIN THE PROFESSIONALS

Artic's Combat Zone is another ambitious attempt at a Tank game. Your target and the landscape - a few pyramids on an invisible plane - look like refugees from Psion's Vu-3D program. They are very simple three-dimensional shapes but they change position smoothly and realistically as if you were walking past them in some world inside your Spectrum.

You and your opponents fire fragments of cubist paintings at each other but the abstraction is not so important as the fact that you are playing the first real Spectrum game in three dimensions - Vu-3D itself is a Psion program which allows you to build up three dimensional objects on the screen and then rotate them, or float them towards you and back again. In effect it is a crude version of the mainframe programs which create the effects for films like Tron.

ET makes an appearance too in an Abbex Adventure with voices called ETX. Unfortunately after loading pages of instructions about how I should phone home ending with the advice that I should treat any MI5 man who appeared as an enemy, the tape self-destructed.

This left me with an unnerving impression of "the strength of Britain's security services.

The secret police are certainly important in DK'tronics strategy game called Dictator. The setting is a banana republic. The instructions ominously point out that "your rule is measured in months". You have to balance political factions, army, secret police, peasants, landowners, guerillas and superpowers if you are to survive.

Breaking into embassies would doubtless be all in a day's work for a dictator. So for all prospective saviours of the nation, Sinclair's Embassy Assault will come in useful. It is very much like those maze games which present your view. standing in the maze. Instead of trying to avoid a minotaur, this time you are looking for secret codes and the like.

All this is enough to send you back into the arcades but Jet Pac's creators have moved from the arcades into home computing.

Ultimate Play the Game's Jet Pac puts you into the position of an astronaut who has to build a rocket from the pieces he can find sitting on clouds around the screen. The scenario is not entirely convincing but it makes for a good game. The same cannot be said of the simulations by CCS.

CCS's representations of the oil business, Dallas, running a printers, Print Room, and of international aviation, Airline, may be realistic but they are not very exciting. Although these were originally designed as training for middle management, livelier presentation would not necessarily have made them less useful. Hewson's simulations of air-traffic control, Heathrow, and the Nightflite flight simulator are more convincing.

Board-games seem to transfer particularly well to the Spectrum. Psion's Scrabble has already been recommended. With its four levels of play and 11,000-word dictionary it can offer almost as tough opposition as you could want. There are also two different approaches to that old favourite Monopoly.

Automonopoli offers a continuous display of the part of the board around your current position. This display moves smoothly when the dice are thrown. Do Not Pass Go from Workforce has a less interesting display but at least shows the whole board all the time. Automonopoli allows you to personalise the program with the names of players and both programs give the option of being either a board for humans to play on or of letting the computer join in as a player. In each case the computer becomes a soft opponent once you have reached the stage of building houses and hotels.

If you have ever wandered into a rundown dockland hotel or pub and been confronted by the sort of balding drunk who says he used to sail the seven seas and boasts that he can name the capital of any country you care to choose, I can reveal his secret. At home he has a Spectrum with Hewson's Countries of the World up and running on it.

At the touch of a button it will remind you that N'djamena is the capital of Chad or that Yaounde is the capital of Cameroon. In the corner of the pub someone with probably be playing a video game not unlike Firebirds.

Softek's Firebirds is a Galaxians-type game distinguished by good croaking noises from the birds. Still on the subject of sound effects Workforcé's Jaws Revenge is very noisy and fun. The graphics are great. You are a shark and you are after the divers and- boats which are after you.

Mined Out from Quicksilva is a very strange version of Mines. It is subtitled "Rescue Bill the worm from certain old age" and if you find a way through the first minefield you then have to rescue damsels in distress. Someone at Quicksilva has been playing too many Adventure games and it is beginning to show.

The last words on the cassette packet read "the image fades to soft focus which is replaced by waves falling on a rocky shore, except in Bill's dream there are no waves or soft focus..." It is certainly time that software cassettes carried a government health warning.