Producer: R & R, 16K
£4.95
Author: Jonathan Nixon

The maze in R & R's version is simpler than many but the reward is exceptionally clear and detailed graphics with very smooth movement. Various fruit appear to be eaten for extra points and this version doesn't suffer with virtually invisible edible ghosts. Power pills, tunnel and increasingly fast screens. Very positive keyboard action. Joystick option: Kempston but most importantly user-defined keys if you don't like the cursors. One of the best gobblers around.

Producer: R & R, 16K
£4.95
Author: Jonathan Nixon

The maze in R & R's version is simpler than many but the reward is exceptionally clear and detailed graphics with very smooth movement. Various fruit appear to be eaten for extra points and this version doesn't suffer with virtually invisible edible ghosts. Power pills, tunnel and increasingly fast screens. Very positive keyboard action. Joystick option: Kempston but most importantly user-defined keys if you don't like the cursors. One of the best gobblers around.

Producer: R & R, 16K
£4.95
Author: Jonathan Nixon

The maze in R & R's version is simpler than many but the reward is exceptionally clear and detailed graphics with very smooth movement. Various fruit appear to be eaten for extra points and this version doesn't suffer with virtually invisible edible ghosts. Power pills, tunnel and increasingly fast screens. Very positive keyboard action. Joystick option: Kempston but most importantly user-defined keys if you don't like the cursors. One of the best gobblers around.

ELECTRO GOBBLE - PACMAN TYPE GAMES

In our sixth comparison, reviewers CHRIS PASSEY and MATTHEW UFFINDELL snatch a glass of water and a handful of power pills and prepare to do battle with a legion of ghosts...

Pacmania came over from the States quite a while back. Initially the game was regarded as odd in that it was relatively non-violent for a computer game, but it rapidly established itself as the number one arcade favourite. Although the craze is over now, there are still a lot of pacfans around. As a classic maze game, Pacman was among the first arcade originals to be copied in numerous forms on to the Spectrum. Copyright owners, Atari International, have been promoting their expensive 'official' version since before Christmas, but it competes against some very strong 'unofficial versions. Some are good, some not so good, and there are some interesting variants.

In brief, the classic version should have a medium complex maze connected horizontally by a wrap around tunnel. In the four corners are a similar number of power pills. Each pathway of the maze is regularly dotted. In the centre is a 'home' for ghosts of differing colours and point values, which are released into the maze at intervals. The object is to take your Pacman, an orange ball with a gobbling mouth, around the maze and eat all the dots to promote to a more difficult screen with more intelligent ghosts. Eating a power pill will cause all the ghosts to turn blue and edible. In this condition they should run away from your approach at a slower speed than yourself, Strawberries appear at intervals and can be eaten for bonus points.

GNASHER
Producer: R&R
Memory Required: 16K
Retail Price: £4.95

We get off to a good start here with a nice loading screen (presentation is always a virtue). When the game started I was amazed! it includes a big, full-sized Pacman and set of ghosts - the only problem with this is that they are not as smooth and fast as they could be. The maze itself is a little simple but the general pacfeatures more than make up for this. For instance, you eat the ghosts (after a power pill) just like the real thing and their eyes even return home. The fruit is here too, plus some new ones like pears, all in excellent detail. All in all, this is a very close copy of the original, which I enjoyed. It is a shame that the movement is not just that bit better - but they have got it all into 16K too and included good key and joystick option.
CP

This version is much more true to the original with a large gobbling ball and ghostly looking ghosts. The maze is uncomplicated due to the big playing characters. The graphic characters move by the block, but this by no means spoils the playability of the game. Eating power pills changes all the ghosts to a deep blue and they start flashing when the power starts to wear off - good. Detailed fruit appear at random intervals to give bonus points when eaten. The sound and colour have been well used. The keys can be redefined and are very responsive. This game presents a difficult choice between itself and Ghosts Revenge.
MU

NEVER MIND THE QUALITY

GNASHER
Memory: 16K
Price: £1.99
Joystick: Kempston

SPECTIPEDE
Memory: 16K
Price: £1.99
Joystick: Kempston

BULLSEYE
Memory: 48K
Price: £1.99

Cut-price software inevitably begs the question of whether the games are any good. Mastertronic produces what, at £1.99, are the cheapest so far.

Gnasher is a Pac-Man derivative. The graphics are the conventional ones of maze, yellow Pac-Man and multicoloured ghosts. All the usual features are included - power pills, bonus fruit, two- player option and so on. The joystick response was slightly slow and sticky but if you must have Pac-Man in your lounge, you might as well save a few pounds and buy Gnasher.

Spectipede is rather more exhilarating to play, although that might reflect the virtues of the excellent arcade game Centipede rather than those of Mastertronic. Again, there is little of originality but the game is a fast version of the standard, with spiders, toad- stools and multiple levels.

Also available is a darts simulation, Bullseye. The game is slow to play, much of it being written in Basic, and it is not very user-friendly, as it is possible to get into Basic by making a mistake when pressing the wrong keys.

That said, the game provides five versions of darts including Cricket, 501 and Killer. There are also three ways of playing a shot; you can either state what you are aiming at, position a cursor on the appropriate part of the board, or enter the angle and distance of your shot.

The cover picture shows three dart-shaped spaceships homing-in on a red star, When you realise the nature of the game you can understand the point of the cover but it might well tempt the incautious lover of space games into buying something unwanted.