Grandslam
£9.99/£14.99

There have been two The Hunt For Red October games. The first was based solely on the excellent Tom Clancey novel (essential reading), while this latest offering is based on the recent Sean Connery movie (essential viewing).

The story goes something like this: Ramius (Connery in the movie) is the commander of Russia's most powerful submarine, the Typhoon class Red October. But Ramius is disillusioned with the Russian way of life so plans to defect with the submarine, and has help from the west in the guise of CIA operative Jack Ryan.

The game is split into six sections. The first sees you guiding Ryan, who's dangling from a helicopter, onto the conning tower of the USS Dallas.

When Ryan has landed safely, the scene shifts to a horizontally scrolling undersea section where Ramius has to guide the Red October past Russian subs, depth charges and guided missiles and out to the open sea. You have depth charges, torpedoes and homing missiles to return fire, and a range of bonus items can be picked up on the way.

Once in the open ocean Ryan can transfer from the Dallas to the Red October via a mini-sub. This section isn't quite as finicky as the helicopter drop - you can hit the submarine slightly off target and still survive.

The next section quickly follows with you waggling the joystick like mad to open an airlock. Fail to do so and you'll soon be waterlogged. Level live is another 'blast your way through the Rusky submarines'section as the Red October heads for the good old US of A. But disaster strikes when the chef decides to be a mutineer and attempts to detonate the nuclear warheads the sub carries, so you must stop him in a Cabal-style shooting scene.

And there you have it. Sounds packed, doesn't it? Unfortunately, although there seems to be lots to do, the gameplay is pretty shallow. I mean, it's not crap or anything, just a bit easy.

However, the graphics are very good - the title screens look to be digitised and promise a great deal. The sprites aren't digitised. of course, but they're colourful, fast moving and well drawn. It's a real shame the gameplay doesn't measure up to the graphics because both the book and the movie are first class.

If you're looking for something simple and entertaining, this could be it but so mach more could have been achieved with this licence.

MARK [60%]

I haven't seen the film but I've seen Doctor No. starring Sean Connery - that's near enough (no it is't - Ed). Graphically this is an excellent game. Right from the beginning, with the digitised pictures from the film, you're given lots of colour and great animation. It's a pity there isn't the gameplay to go with it. The main part of the game is the sub speeding along in a shoot-'em-up situation. You fire lots of torpedoes and hope you'll blow away the enemies. This makes a reasonable shoot-'em-up but nothing earth shattering. In between these levels are sub-games (ho ho!); these are really well done but simple to complete.
NICK [79%]

Grandslam
£10.99 cass
Reviewer: James Leach

I watched this movie on tenterhooks, nervously wondering when the Russians would spot Sean Connery's Scottish accent underneath that rather crap Russian one he put on. Of course, they never did, so he got clean away with one of their massive nuclear submarines stuffed up his jumper. What a guy. (And he was the best James Bond as well! Ed)

Anyway, Grandslam, who I'm sure were sitting a couple of rows in front of me, throwing popcorn at other and giggling, were obviously impressed enough to go and write a computer game about it all. And here it is in all its glory.

The game is split into 5 levels which loosely follow the plot of the film. Level 1 sees you controlling a helicopter hovering over the surfaced Red October. Dangling down on a rope is a little American man who wants (for some reason) to jump onto the top of the sub. The rough sea and strong winds mean that you must juggle the copter's controls until the poor bloke's hanging over the conning tower, You then hit Fire to release him and watch as he tumbles to his death on the side of the sub. What's worse is that you've got one chance at this. Fail and it's Game Over. (There's a knack to doing this bit, and, until you learn it, you'll get very annoyed - it can really get on your nerves!)

RIGHT - WHAT'S NEXT?

Well, Level 2 is actually. And it's a horizontal right-to-left scrolling shoot-'em-up. You control the sub as it enter underwater caverns filled with enemy torpedoes, mines and subs, all of which are doing their best to spring leaks in your hull. Blast your way through, avoid the rocks and, er, that's it. Although simple and rather old-fashioned, this bit is actually very playable. It's fast, fairly slick and it's got that I-know-I-can-get-further feeling which keeps bringing you back to it just when you thought you were completely fed up, and just decided to go and watch the TV instead.

After that, you've got to dock a small minisub up to the hatch on the back of the Red October. It's pretty much the same idea as Level 1 really (whcih means it's just as frustrating). It all takes place on one screen. Easy, you might think. But the sea current ius wicked, the minisub is nearly uncontrollable and time is running out. It's tear you hair out time! (It makes you wonder whether people in the Navy have to go through this every day in real life.)

But eventually you'll get the hang of it. Or, if you don't, your grandchildren might. Then, tired and aching, you'll look forward to a nice rest. But what happens? A furious joystick-waggling sesh, that's what! Having docked the little sub, you've got to open an airlock with your bare hands. This simply means waggling the stick until your energy bar reads maximum. No skill involved and not much fun (unless you love waggling). Then the door creaks open and you get sucked through. Phew!

Now it's time to get out while the going's good. Once more in control of Red October, it's back to the horizontal blasting. More enemies, more missiles and smaller caverns more sweat), but the level is pretty much the same as before. Although I think that this is the best part of the game, it would have been nice to see a few added features the second time round. As far as I could tell, there was nothing new to be seen, just more of the same.

AND FINALLY...

After all the effort you've put in, one of your crew decides he's going to muck everything up. He runs off through a small door marked 'Never, ever go in here, ever' which leads into the nuclear reactor room at the back of the sub. And, being a real idiot (and unaware of the dangers of radiation), you follow.

Inside, you see the reactors lined up and, every so often, the ship's cook (for it is he) peeps round one of them. You must shoot him with your trusty pistol, having first centred the cross-hairs (ideally on his bonce). If you miss, you'll get one of the reactors, as they contain enough radioactivity to melt the entire solar system into a hideous porridge, you'd better be pretty careful. It's a sort of mini Op Wolf-ish bit, so it's something you'll have seen before (but probably done ever-so-slightly better).

Anyway, with some impressive marksmanship, you'll hit the cook a few times and kill him, miss the reactors, sail to New York and get outrageously drunk on foul-smelling rum (like sailors are supposed to).

And there you have it. The Hunt For Red October is quite nicely done, but all its sections have been seen before in other forms. What's more, it's all rather bitty. And it's also got of a 'small-time' feel to it that makes it pale quite a lot next to bigger games from the likes of Ocean or US Gold. But it's not dire or unplayable, so you can have some fun with it. (Probably.)