Producer: Go!
Retail Price: £8.99 cassette, £12.99 disk
Author: Probe

Fresh from its success as a light game, Lazer Tag makes its appearance in computerised form.

One or two alternating players take the part of a cadet undergoing rigorous instruction at the Lazer Tag training school. Training is divided into two disciplines: Shoot Out and Target. Both take place against the background of a vertically scrolling, futuristic practice arena.

In Shoot Out, 'tagger' opponents advance from all sides firing leers. The player attempts to make his way through the complex within a given time limit, shooting as many of his opponents as possible.

The arena features spinning terminals which deflect the lazer and double or quadruple the beam when hit, and certain walls ricochet shots around the arena.

Target is designed to test shooting accuracy. The player is automatically transported through the arena and attempts to shoot as many taggers as possible. He controls the direction in which he fires but not the route taken through each room.

At the end of each practice session the player is given a rating: his skill determines the degree of promotion obtained.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Grpahics: poor on the first stage, but improve as you progress
Sound: average title tune and spot effects
Options: definable keys

Lazer Tag is an extremely plain game that holds nothing new - a few little nasties that look like garden gnomes shooting at you isn't my idea of fun. The whole play area is monochromatic which merely changes to red when you've been tagged. The majority of the graphics are simply made up of different types of shading and the tiny enemies and vehicles make it look worse. The only way you can tell where you are on the screen is by looking for the lazer tagger with the flashing helmet, otherwise you look like the opponents! Coming from Probe, who also did Trantor The Last Storm Trooper, this is a great disappointment. I'd stick to the real thing if I was you!
NICK [44%]

Perhaps GO! Should have renamed this Rubber Bullet - it seems to be closer to firing rubber projectiles than the sophisticated later system on which it's based. Lazer Tag is no more than a monochromatic Ikari Warriors - albeit an above average one. The main section of the game is fun to play and mildly addictive, but the real skill is exercised on the target section, in which accuracy takes over from mayhem. Here lies a competitive and compelling test of skill and judgement. Lazer Tag is immediately addictive and enjoyable to play for a couple of hours (which cannot be said of most games nowadays) but whether it'll hold an attraction for more than a few weeks is another matter.
PAUL [70%]

When they were first introduced, light games like Lazer Tag came across as a comparatively original concept. In the form of a computer game none of these innovations really have much impact and Lazer Tag turns out to be a fairly standard shoot 'em up. The graphics are finely detailed but create no real sense of tension. The original Lazer Tag simulates the sound of a beating heart - had this been included it might have contributed to a more motivating atmosphere of suspense. Target practice is the only slightly unusual feature and even this only generates a small amount of curiosity. Otherwise Lazer Tag is carefully programmed, scrolls smoothly and plays quite well. You could do worse than this unexceptional, but competent tag 'em up.
KATI [60%]

Go!
£8.99
Reviewer: Ben Stone, Mike Dunn

Has anyone ever noticed how Gateway supermarkets seem to have been designed specifically as Lazer Tag arenas? Forget the Saturday morning trip down to the shopping centre for your Sunday joint, vegeburger or whatever - replace your shopping lists with the latest in infra-red technology Granny; we're talking targets not trolleys herre! The creepy mist, the atmospheric music and the slippery floors, it's all at Gateway. The only problem is the store manager brandishing a leg of frozen lamb! Yes Ben 'n' Skippy are well and truly veterans of the light fantastic (albeit infra-red!). But what has blasting with Lazer Tag go to do with Go!'s game of the same name? Good Question...

The year is 3010 and you have roe been enrolled into the Laser Tag Training school - in the hope that, just maybe, one day you may be good enough to carry the title of Duelist and be entered in the Laser Tag games.

As all other cadets before you, you have to prove yourself in the vertically scrolling arena and thus be promoted through the six levels, from Neophyte to Duelist. Each level has a sightly different playing area and is played in two phases: the first, called Rabitoid, is a straight shoot out with other cadets, who are all just as eager as you to climb the ranks and just as nifty with their Laser Tag weapons too. Here the player races against the clock to the end of the arena, to gain a whopping great bonus tagging out as many opponents as possible on the way, and icons can be picked up for extra points, time, lives or increased firepower. The second phase, called Target, is a lot less hassle. The players follows a fixed path through the arena and picks off targets, who don't shoot back, as they pop up around the place. This time the bonus is calculated from the shooters accuracy.

On the whole Laser Tag plays like a mediocre Commando variant with insipid opponents (even on the higher levels), and a boring section in the middle that breaks up the gameplay drastically. The bouncy bullets/Laser blasts are a nice touch (and one of the few tie-ins with Laser Tag proper), but more often than not it's very difficult to see the surfaces that you can bounce your blasts off, or the things that you're supposed to shoot at, because the graphics are poorly coloured and detailed.

When you consider that with a bit of shopping around, you can pick up an original Laser lag set for around twenty quid, the price tag of £8.99 on this seems to be well wide of the mark. I know which I'd rather spend my money on.

Label: Go!
Author: Probe Software
Price: £8.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

Now, we all know that the public image of the typical computer user is a small, spotty youth in an anorak and tatty trainers, hunched in a semi-darkened room trying to blast the last space pixie on level 99 of Alien Brain Gobblers at one o'clock in the morning. But you're not like that, are you? (Cries of "I am, I am!" - shut up, Dillon.)

No, the real computer user is a tough, macho type who enjoys healthy physical exertion and getting duffed around a bit, 'cos it's all very character developing. So answer me this; what IS the point of taking an exciting, energetic game like Lazer Tag, which encourages you to get plenty of fresh air and exercise, and turning it into a spotty, pasty-faced computer game?

Not that the game doesn't capture the spirit of the original, which, as you'll remember, involves jamming on big plastic helmets, light sensors and bandoliers, and racing around shooting light-pistols at each other or at robot targets.

In the game, you take the role of a lowly cadet at the Lazer Tag Academy, whose aim is to progress through the ranks so that you don't have to spend your free time cleaning other people's boots. To do this you must demonstrate your proficiency at two disciplines; Rabbitoid, a free-for-all shooting contest, and Target, a test of accuracy and skill.

In each game, you move through the lazer Tag arena, shown in a top-down perspective view with disappointingly little colour or detail. Your hero must blast the opposition as they emerge from cover. At this, they throw up their hands in horror and scuttle off the screen; no-one gets killed, remember, 'cos this is all very right on and socially conscious and not at all violent.

In Target, you progress under computer control, and aim your gun manually to zap as many targets as you can along the way. Shooting spinning mirrors can increase your firepower by twice or four times, as ricochets zip around the arena. In both games, you're playing against a timer, and are awarded bonus points for speed and number of targets hit. You lose one of your six lives every time you are shot or run out of time.

Technically competent, Lazer Tag misses out on any sort of exciting or involving gameplay. A perfect example of the sort of licensing deal which, I'm afraid, gives licensing deals a bad name.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £8.99
Amstrad CPC Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99
Commodore 64/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £11.99

YOU'RE IT!

Once upon a time in America George A Carter III founded a company - Photon Entertainment - which used hi-tech to simulate Star Wars-type battles in franchised arenas for kids with lots of pocket money. Of the various systems which proliferated, Lazer Tag has proved one of the most successful (see feature in TGM001) and GO! picked up the computer game licence on the bizarre condition that there be no violence. The programming is by Probe Software (Outrun conversions.)

Apparently there is a Lazer Tag training school where cadets can learn how to be expert in the game and earn promotion. Training sessions are divided into two sections; tag and target. In the tag section you guide your character through the arena to the gate at its end. Other cadets may be shot for extra points, if they touch your character a life is lost.

Along the way equipment can be picked up for time and lives bonuses. Various vehicles drive across screen and have to be avoided, but towers can be shot at which reflect your lazer in numerous direction. Failure to reach the gate before the time limits runs out loses a lite. If the gate is reached, a target section begins which has the character automatically running through the arena again, invincible, with the player able to shoot other cadets for points. In two-player mode players take turns rather than both being on screen at the same time. Ultimately, however, Lazer Tag looks and plays like an inferior and repetitive Commando clone, with some irritating quirks on machines such as the C64.