Producer: Pirate Software
Retail Price: £2.99
Author: Sam Garforth

With package holidays in vogue this month (see the review of Players's Supernova...), here's another game with a moral for joyous travellers.

Never, ever, EVER go on a package holiday with Costa Galactic Travel - they'll go bust and leave you on a place like Sumaria.

That's where Sid is stranded - a planet under compulsory purchase and soon to be destroyed. Sidney's only chance of leaving this doomed world is to find the Grail Of Gackara and use it to fire up an ageing matter-transporter. This accumulation of geriatric electronics is hidden in one of Sumaria's castles, but the historic piles are populated by poisonous bats and minotaurs. If our troubled tourist lets them get too close, they nick one of his lives.

Sid's sole chance of Grail-grabbing is by making like a Blue Peter presenter and using objects he finds as he shuffles and jumps through the obstacle-ridden castle rooms. Only one item can be carried at a time, but this could give vital information about nearby monsters, or provide protection. A sword kills attackers, the cloak frightens them away, dropping a clock freezes time, and teleporters transport Sid to other sections of the Sumarian kingdom.

And there's only Sumerian minutes to go before the planet is lost .

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: poor forced perspective
Sound: excruciating to the eardrums
Options: definable keys

Well, I knew that this would happen - that as soon as CRL released 3D Gamemaker (reviewed in CRASH Issue 43) there'd be a rush of rubbish little 3-D games. Here the graphics are thoroughly trashy, bugs appear all the time, gameplay is at its minimum, and the sound - well, the sound could be made by a orang-utan on a ZX81! And the character set has been defined into really CHUNKY letters to polish it all off.
NICK [17%]

This is a REALLY boring game. The graphics are basic forced perspective and the way the character slows down when he passes behind a piece of scenery is unbearable. The tune is awful, and everything that CRL's 3D Gamemaker doesn't do for you has been done minimally. Even in the budget price range, you can do a lot better than buy this.
MIKE [26%]

What can you say about this type of game that hasn't already been written? I've seen a few slow and flickery games in my time, but Holiday in Sumaria takes the biscuit. Everything is appalling: sound, graphics, playability, absolutely everything. It is utter dross.
PAUL [4%]

There are mounds of cheapies on the racks this Chrimble, some good, some indifferent and some terminally pitiful. We asked the Joystick Jugglers for their thoughts (the printable ones, at least) on some of the more recent offerings...

Pirate
£2.99
Reviewer: Gwyn Hughes

Yup, it's another 3D arcade adventure. But where you battled with Batman or fought for Fairlight, this is a decidedly dodgy package of a holiday. The landscape itself is odd enough, and dark blue on black doesn't make for maximum visibility. And when two monsters appear on the screen and everything slows down, you'll wish you'd stayed at home.

Label: Pirate Software
Author: In-house
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Gary Rook

Arghh I've seen some poor games in my time mate but this just about takes the biscuit.

The idea and most of the graphics are just poor quality versions of chunks out of far, far better games. You guide Sid through the maze of rooms (all from the familiar top right-hand corner three dimensional view point) he jumps on to things that look suspiciously like giant crisps, pouffs (the things you sit on) and mushrooms. Pick things up, drop them, push things around, avoid the monsters. Yes, we've been here before and it looked better last year. The programmer has even had the gall to introduce a monster that looks incredibly like the Sabreman's wolf incarnation from Knightlore but jerky and crudely drawn!

The graphics are disappointing, too - because you know what they should look like - and the response is basically yawn making. Even at £3.00 this one isn't worth it.