REVIEWS COURTESY OF ZXSR

Lazer Wheel
by Andrew Morris, Steve Parys, P. K. Petriv
Mastertronic Added Dimension
1987
Crash Issue 47, Dec 1987   page(s) 126

Producer: M.A.D.
Retail Price: £2.99
Author: Steve Parys

Aliens are attempting to cross your eight-sector hyperspace causeway, and that makes you real mad. You'll have to defend this astronautical M25 with your spacecraft, which rotates at the centre of a circular area.

In each section there's a circling bomb on a short fuse, threatening your territory and flickering with increasing intensity as it approaches detonation. And those multimutated aliens travel around the perimeter of this space zone, within range of your blaster.

Some aliens are blocks, which when blasted release rotating circles (these in turn produce green discs that can be shot to temporarily keep alien bombs out of the zone and earn hit points); others are orbs, and destroying them reduces the damage done to the zone in which you're fighting.

But your own laser blasts can rebound from reflective spheres, produced when an alien target is missed, and damage your precious property.

Coloured bars in an eight-sectioned laser scan indicate the time remaining before a bomb explodes in each sector, and you can also use the laser scan to move to another sector.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair, Cursor
Graphics: plain and unappealing
Sound: BP spot effects


I got Asteroids free in a sixpack of games with my first rubber-keyed Spectrum, and Lazer Wheel is much the same, right down to the oversized drain-cleaners. It's tough to cope with, too - there are only a few places where you can kill the drain-cleaners, and if you shoot anywhere else the shot rebounds
BYM [56%]


The loading and title screens are very good, but as soon as you get into the game the poor graphics and frustrating movements are thoroughly nauseating. It's a bit like Asteroids, the ancient arcade game that I always regretted putting 10p in. But you can't even move so much in Lazer Wheel
NICK [28%]


There's an interesting idea behind Lazer Wheel, but alas playing it isn't so interesting: though there are eight levels the only change is in the speed of the aliens
MIKE [44%]

REVIEW BY: Bym Welthy, Nick Roberts, Mike Dunn

Presentation48%
Graphics44%
Playability44%
Addictive Qualities34%
Overall43%
Summary: General Rating: A boring sprite-blaster.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

Your Sinclair Issue 25, Jan 1988   page(s) 46

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...

MAD
£2.99
Reviewer: David Powell

Converted from the Commodore - perhaps something got lost in the translation. You shoot at aliens and their bombs revolving in a large circle, while bombs detonate and unhit objects reflect your fire. Okay in theory, but all eight sections are identical, and the aliens are just too damn fast! I bust a gut to reach level 5 with 65000, only to start again and get 54000 without touching a key. No answers on a postcard please - I lost interest hours ago.


REVIEW BY: David Powell

Overall4/10
Transcript by Chris Bourne

Sinclair User Issue 69, Dec 1987   page(s) 59

Label: Mastertronic
Author: Steve Parys, Andrew Morris
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

I once swore that I would eat my socks before describing any game as 'simple yet maddeningly addictive'. So here goes... mmff, grumpf, glup, glup, glup... eeyuch.

Lazerwheel is both simple and addictive.

It's also the first shoot-'em-up I've come across where you can't even move your ship. It just sits there, revolving in the middle of a circle of space. Around the screen are counters for score, level, number of hits, time remaining and damage caused.

All you have to do is pick off the aliens which circle, indian-like, around the rim of the circle.

If you hit the rim of the circle, you will cause damage. Hit the same spot again, and your missile will bounce back and kill you. If the damage count reaches 100 percent, you're snuffed. To reduce the damage count, you have to hit certain types of alien.

Different aliens react in different ways. Hit a spinning square, for instance, and it will split into two 'mixers'. Eliminate these when they cross, and you will clear all your damage and score yourself a fine 100 points bonus into the bargain.

Other aliens simply reverse direction, get smaller, or speed up the first time you hit them. The challenge is to keep track of lots of little nasties rotating at different speeds in different directions, and to zap them without blowing yourself away by shooting wildly.

The clever bit is that there are eight levels which you have to defend simultaneously, jumping to whichever level is most in need of help.

Looks awful, sounds awful - but at £1.99 I don't think you'll be disappointed by Lazerwheel's play value.


REVIEW BY: Chris Jenkins

Blurb: PROGRAMMERS Mr Chip Software are the company behind Lazerwheel. Steve Prys (28) worked originally for Odin Computer Graphics, and joined Mr Chip in January this year. Softography: Arc of Yesod (Odin, 1987), ICUPS (Odin, 1987), currently working on Rollaround for Melbourne House. Andy Morris (17) started Mr Chip nearly two years ago, and now specialises in computer graphics. Softography: Trailblazer (Gremlin, 1987), P.O.D., Video Meanies, Kikstart II, also working on Rollaround with Steve.

Overall6/10
Summary: Desperately simple game, graphics, sound and everything else. Yet, surprisingly, it's still very playable.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

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