Producer: Electronic Arts
Retail Price: £12.99 cassette, £14.99 disk
Author: Dynamix

Arctic Fox is a tank simulation set in the tough terrain of Antarctica. The player controls the Arcticfox; an advanced tank armed with various weapons and equipped with many instruments.

The action is shown in 3-D vanishing point perspective with wire frame graphics. A radar screen gives the position of the Arcticfox and its enemies.

Charged with the objective of destroying the enemy's main fort, the tank moves across a terrain of snow and ice encountering ridges which can be climbed to obtain a strategic viewpoint, and slippery mud flats.

On the ground, hazards consist of slow-moving heavy tanks, light tanks, non-shooting reconnaissance sleds, stationary missiles and floating mines. There are also enemies in the air: fast-moving fighters and reconnaissance flyers.

The Arcticfox has the ability to burrow into the snow and hide from enemy forces. Its guided missiles can be controlled after firing and the inclination of the tanks cannon can be altered to allow it to shoot either ground or aerial enemies.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: archaic, wire-framed 3-D
Sound: scratchy spot effects
Options: training level. Enemy preview and beginner level on 128K

Arcticfox comes with the detailed instruction booklet necessary for a complicated game of this type, but the game doesn't really live up to the promise of complex strategy in the manual. Control is awkward and unresponsive, with the tank movement being very sluggish. The graphics are monochromatic and slow and indistinguishable from a distance. The guided missile option is difficult to use, and it's hard to after the cannon's inclination; a keyboard control would have been quicker than having to select a special function. Gameplay is fairly simple (like a slow Battlezone); the various strategic options don't seem to enter into play much, especially as they're so awkward. If only the programming had been up to the task of converting the promising game design it could have been so much better; as it is, it's unplayable and irritating.
PHIL [40%]

Arcticfox is just another 3-D line graphics game in the vein of Catch 23. Just like Catch 23, it's no fun to play and quickly gets incredibly boring. The graphics seem to have a different line thickness to other 3-D games and this makes them look blocky and unattractive. There's the odd sound effect here and there but no tune on the extended 128K version. The way it loads is terrible with all the borders in the game loading as SCREEN$ files and then being saved to memory. This takes ages and makes the front end of the game monotonous. Arctictox is a very disappointing release from Electronic Arts.
NICK [43%]

'Arcticfox reminded me greatly of that ancient blast from the arcade past - Battlezone. One thing I did notice, though: the vehicle is called Arcticfox, yet, according to the instruction manual the south pole is a mere 717 miles away. I think perhaps someone's geography isn't quite up to scratch. Graphically the game is mediocre. The interior display of the tank is impressive, but what goes on through the viewport isn't. Jerkily scrolling, wire-framed vehicles of destruction wobble around bland and totally uninteresting backdrops like motorists out for a Sunday drive. Trundle around a while, fire a couple of missiles, trundle about a bit more - that's the only excitement of the game. Either that or as soon as the game starts you have half a dozen missiles at your flank and one fried tank driver. I'm usually all for this type of game, but Arcticfox didn't impress me very much.
MARK [42%]

Electronic Arts
£8.95
Reviewer: Duncan MacDonald

Yonks and yonks ago (about a year at least), I saw a game called Artic Fox on a friend's Commodore Amiga. Solid filled graphics, squeaky 'tank trundling'sound effects and lot's of zaap-boom fighting action in the snowy wastelands. Great fun!... 'There'll never be a game as good as this on the humble Speccy', I recall myself thinking. And then what happens. Gor blimey, if Firebird doesn't release a game called The Sentinel - solid but slow. Then Driller blimey solid and not so slow. And then The Dark Side - solid and almost smooth. And what drops into my hand today? Only a Spectrum version of Artic Fox by cracko!!!!! I almost damaged my tape recorder as I jammed the cassette into its jaws in a state of hyper-expectant frenzy! I paced back and forth, palms a-sweat, until eventually Artic Fox had loaded and was waiting in my Spectrum.

Oh dear.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

Where can I start? Well for one thing the graphics are vector. Nothing wrong with that - I don't mind vector graphics (Elite, Starglider). Besides, vector graphics can move really fast! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

These ones don't.

Scenario? Well, you're somewhere near the south pole, inside a futuristic tank. You're surrounded by squillions of enemy craft, planes, tanks, rocket launchers and things like that. Your weaponry consists of cannon, droppable mines and guided missile, and with these you've got to make your way through the enemy lines and destroy the command HQ.

The 'action' takes place in a quarter screen sized window in the centre of the screen, with radar scanner and various iconry scattered in the surrounds. The graphics are small, scribbly and hard to make out. The animation 'up-dates' very slowly and everything jerks across the screen in what seems like character-square lumps at a time. The response from keyboard and joystick inputs is sluggish to say the least, and pretty soon total confusion and bewilderment sets in. Or it did with me, anyway.

If this was a budget title, I would probably say "Gosh - this is quite an undertaking for a cheapie. but that still doesn't make the gameplay any better." At full price, all I can say is, erm, 'Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.' And seeing that I'm the kind of cad who likes to kick a man when he's down, I can only add that a game set at the south pole should be called 'Antarctic' Fox. Nuff said.

Label: Electronic Arts
Author: In-house
Price: £9.95/£14.95 (disc)
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

How long is it going to be before people realise that it just isn't a very good idea to try and convert a game that was out about a year ago on the Amiga (and wasn't actually a technical marvel then) on to the Spectrum? Well, obviously never, because they're still doing it and there's no sign of them letting up.

Articfox is the first game to emerge from the Electronic Arts stable since PHM Pegasus - which was rather disappointing - and it's about as exciting as a cheesey Wotsit that's been dropped in a puddle.

The plot is one of those absurd ramblings that you could make up in fifteen minutes. Alien invaders have landed in the Arctic circle and are setting up an atmosphere processor which will make the Earth's atmosphere acceptable for their horribly sweaty, flappy alien lungs, thus rendering it unspeakably toxic as far as humans are concerned. And, as per, it's up to you to stop 'em.

So there you are, in your tank, driving around and shooting things. The tiny game-screen is filled with black wire-frame graphics on a cyan (that's blue for non-publishing types) background which move really quite slowly and look quite dreadful. Had they been blue on white, green on black or anything else they should have looked OK, but as they are they make the lines look even blockier than they really are.

Although there are degrees of strategy; the laying of mines to trap enemy tanks etc, the game really ends up being nothing more than a glorified Battlezone on ice.

There are numerous tweaks and touches that do manage to elevate Articfox above a simple arcade game - you've got to watch out for snow drifts which will screw up your speed, as well as keeping an eye on the radar scanner and the game screen. There are a number of opponents to combat, all looking like they've been made out of coat-hangers and not really moving very quickly.

And that's where the game really falls down. The speed is just not good enough. The only time when there's a half-way decent spell of graphics is when there is a single, basic object on the screen; only then does the game move itself around in a half-way respectable speed.

On the plus side though, there is a definite aim to your misson, and a real feeling of menace as the little black dots on the radar screen slowly gather around you. You can chase things around and use guided missiles to pursue the bad guys too. You do end up feeling that you're playing one of those Realtime games from years and years ago though. And one with a slow-motion device attached to the machine to boot.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure strategy buffs will find lots to keep them amused, and I've got nothing against wire-frame graphics - I thought Battlezone was one of the most incredible games ever, but Arctic Fox just failed to grab me there isn't enough of anything that you haven't seen done better before. (What does this mean exactly? - GT).

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £8.95

Dynamix, the people behind Skyfox II (reviewed in this issue on the PC) are the team responsible for ArcticFox in its original Commodore 64 form, then released through the now-defunct Ariolasoft at the beginning of 1987. It's taken a year for the Z80 version to surface with Mark Fisher of Comtec being responsible for the translation.

The ArcticFox of the title is a massive tank patrolling the icy wastelands around the Arctic Circle. An alien attack force has landed near the North Pole intent on reclimatising Earth's atmosphere to convert it into a deadly alien environment. ArcticFox is the only military hardware in the vicinity which can stop the process.

Using a first-person 3-D view, the commander moves the tank around the region, climbing hills, negotiating crevasses and destroying the alien force's light and heavy tanks in a style similar to Battlezone. Reconnaissance aircraft and sleds patrol, looking for ArcticFox, reporting its position to the communications fort in preparation for attacks by fighters. Rocket launchers are also sited at key points in the vast region, guarding not only the vital air converters but radar stations and the alien base itself - the Main Fort.

ArcticFox has at its disposal guided missiles which can be flown in the now familiar Starglider style, cannon shells and antitank mines. If it all gets too dangerous, the tank can dig in and hide under the snow, although resurfacing at the wrong moment can often lead to fatal results. The game ends if ArcticFox is destroyed or the Earth's oxygen level reaches zero.

The original Commodore 64 ArcticFox had a speed which crippled any lasting appeal or gameplay. This should have been rectified with the Spectrum version but in many ways the game has become worse. The multiload is still there on the 48K version proving an inevitable burden, there's an all-in-one load for the 128K version, but the lack of any sound whatsoever in either is a severe drawback to say the least.

Colour is ill-used, with nothing more than light blue and grey to create the effect of travelling through a polar landscape. Graphics are primitive wireframe shapes moving past, and while movement is faster than on the Commodore game, at times the graphics look confused in appearance as the computer desperately tries to maintain perspective, not always succeeding.

The lack of varying scenery, together with the long periods of inactivity between conflicts, only highlights the limited gameplay. This said, there's some atmosphere to the game, sneaking over a hill and observing a target in the distance guarded by rocket launchers and tanks brings forth tension and excitement quickly mounts. Unfortunately, it soon falls back into the depths of tedium once the target is eliminated and you are faced with the prospect of another long haul across the frozen wastes. ArcticFox is not a very successful format conversion of a not very exciting game.