Producer: CCS, 48K
£6.00
Author: D G Evans

Plunder is a pretty massive strategy game where you find yourself in command of a British Galleon with the object of stopping the Spaniards from running gold from the New Lands to Spain. There is a short, medium and long game option with 3 skill levels for each. The screen gives you a high resolution map of the North Atlantic, divided into squares by a grid. You move your ship about with the cursors, seeking enemy galleons, troopships and battleships. If one is encountered you may attack or retreat. Attacking gives the option of firing or boarding or both. Firing on a galleon may be a mistake - if it sinks then you lose its gold. Depending on your battle success the morale factor of your crew goes up or down. There are several ports open to you which must be entered via an arcade style sequence for docking. In port you may take on extra crew or weaponry, have repairs made, buy food, jewels or opium, or sell if you already have any. The display informs you at all times of the gold stopped, gold acquired and spent, weather conditions (which affect finding enemy shippping), number of victories, men lost, ships sunk and so on. The length of the game is determined by the number of moves you make, and these are also displayed. All in all, an entertaining game, but one that can become repetitive with playing.

Producer: CCS, 48K
£6.00
Author: D G Evans

Plunder is a pretty massive strategy game where you find yourself in command of a British Galleon with the object of stopping the Spaniards from running gold from the New Lands to Spain. There is a short, medium and long game option with 3 skill levels for each. The screen gives you a high resolution map of the North Atlantic, divided into squares by a grid. You move your ship about with the cursors, seeking enemy galleons, troopships and battleships. If one is encountered you may attack or retreat. Attacking gives the option of firing or boarding or both. Firing on a galleon may be a mistake - if it sinks then you lose its gold. Depending on your battle success the morale factor of your crew goes up or down. There are several ports open to you which must be entered via an arcade style sequence for docking. In port you may take on extra crew or weaponry, have repairs made, buy food, jewels or opium, or sell if you already have any. The display informs you at all times of the gold stopped, gold acquired and spent, weather conditions (which affect finding enemy shippping), number of victories, men lost, ships sunk and so on. The length of the game is determined by the number of moves you make, and these are also displayed. All in all, an entertaining game, but one that can become repetitive with playing.

LEAVE THE SPANISH ALL AT SEA

In Plunder, for the 48K Spectrum, the scene is set in the 16th century, which makes a welcome change from space travel and aliens. As captain of a British galleon, your task is to patrol the seas and prevent the Spanish bringing back gold across the Atlantic with which to finance their Armada.

Your eventual object is to earn a knighthood for services to your country and also to make sure you outdo vow hated rival Sir Francis Drake, who will "fall about laughing" every time you run the ship aground or similarly disgrace yourself.

Plunder also allows you to manoeuvre your ship into port, trade in bazaars to increase your assets, and investigate uncharted islands. In spite of the scope for variety the game provides, it is easy to engage in a repetitive series of sea battles and the slow graphics detract from any advantage it might have over a board game.

It is also a pity that each time you lose a round you have to return to the title page before you can start again. A Little seafaring practice should enable you to avoid the pitfalls and derive some entertainment from an interesting concept - Plunder is produced by Cases Computer Simulations, 14 Langton Way, London SE3 7TL, and costs £6.00.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
JOYSTICK: Kempston, Optional
FROM: Cases Computer Simulations
PRICE: £6.00

Now this one really is fun... The year is 1587, and Spain is financing her Armada by running gold from the Americas back to Europe.

You are, in fact, a licensed pirate. Your job is to patrol the seas and grab as much of the Spanish gold as you can. If you can't actually get your hands on it, you can at least sink the ship carrying it and prevent Spain getting the benefit.

A game may consist of 60, 10, or 140 turns, and there are three levels of difficulty for each number of turns. The game is won once you have stopped a certain amount of gold from reaching Spain (35,000 gold pieces at the easiest level, 145,000 at the hardest).

If successful, you are knighted, and your hated rival Francis Drake becomes your cook. Fail, and you are humiliated while Drake goes on to write his name in the history books.

To aid you in your task, the Spectrum displays a detailed map of the Atlantic, together with copious information on the weather, armament, cash, cargo, men, damage to the ship, number of victories and defeats, number of turns, and so on. When your lookout spots a ship, you are told its type (merchant, galleon, troopship, warship), and you then make the decision to attack or retreat, based on the relative strengths of the enemy and your ship.

If you attack, you are given the option of firing or boarding. In either case, the battle is enacted graphically, with the two ships closing together, and somewhat stylised plumes of water as cannonballs splash into the sea. If the battle looks to be going badly, you can choose discretion and head for the nearest port for repairs or more men.

Hitting another ship results in your craft sinking, whereupon you are ignominiously drummed out of the service. There are also uncharted islands, abandoned ships, and strange mists to investigate. These can bring rewards, or disaster.

This is the sort of game for which a computer is ideal, and this particular simulation gave me hours of enjoyment. It's sufficiently difficult to hold one's interest for a long time, and the concept behind it is novel, and well thought out.

Great fun.

NO OTHER MICRO HAS THE SOFTWARE BACK-UP OF SINCLAIR'S SPECTRUM. PETE CONNORS PLOUGHS HIS WAY THROUGH SOME OF IT FROM GRAPPLING WITH EVIL MAZIACS TO HELPING CHARLIE THE CHEF.

48K
Cases Computer Simulations, 14 Langton Way, Blackheath, London SE3 7TL
£6.00

Every software house, from the giants to the leprechauns, seems to have programmers chained to terminals, frantically churning out products for the massive Spectrum market. For Spectrum owners the pot of gold under the rainbow is the now huge variety of software available: their only problem is distinguishing the genuine article from the fake.

One game you certainly will not need to bite into is Zzoom from Imagine. This is the Real McCoy, a quality arcade-style game of skill and destruction in the comfort of your own armchair. The game starts with the Dambusters theme tune, enough on its own to make you start twirling imaginary handlebar moustaches and warn Ginger about the bandits at 4 o'clock. You find yourself in command of an aeroplane whose gunsights appear on the screen; also displayed are a dibar to show your relation to the ground and a long-range scanner.

Before you have time to think, hostile aircraft are approaching from the east; they speed in and suddenly, unexpectedly, wheel 90° towards you, presenting the slightest of targets for your cannon. Those earthbound refuges you are trying to protect do not have much of a chance. Poor blighters, I wish I could have done more to help. After the waves of planes, the landscape changes. Now its the desert, complete with palm trees. Over the horizon come battalions of tanks. More skill is now required, as you have to dive low enough to shoot your earthbound adversaries without crashing to your doom.

After the desert - the sea, with enemy destroyers trying to blast the refugees' lifeboats. The standard of graphic display and excitement combine to make Zzoom a most exciting game, one that has deservedly become a micro-classic.

DK'tronics, though, has produced a game which could rival Zzoom's popularity. Maziacs may seem, initially, to be just another maze-game. In fact, it has subtle qualities which make it one of the best available in this genre. The scenario is familiar: you must get through the maze, collect the treasure and get out. You can ask the way from prisoners, and pick up swords to combat the maziacs.

What lifts Maniacs above the common land is its graphic sophistication. The monsters are the most grotesque I have ever seen on a micro; nightmarish squatting creatures, all legs and jaws who enjoy nothing more than gobbling you up. The prisoners are sad creatures, writhing in their shackles inside blue circles. One feels great pity for them but, sadly, one can do nothing to help. And you, the brave treasure-hunter, are a perky little fellow with a jaunty rhythmic step. You are never downhearted and your jubilation when you have destroyed a marine is quite heart- warming. These qualities give Maniacs that something extra, and make it a very compulsive game.

Best of the other offerings from DK is Hard Cheese, in which you have to eat your way round the board, creating your own maze, in order to get at the cheese in the middle. Naturally, you are pursued by monsters. Naturally you can shoot these monsters, but this is not so easy as they move very quickly and you must replenish your energy. Again the graphics are of a high standard, and Hard Cheese is almost, but not quite, as compulsive as Maziacs.

In comparison, DK's Road Toad and Jawz are rather dull.

The first needs no introduction and is as expected; though the graphics are, perhaps, a little clearer than usual, and the tankers are truly fearsome. Jawz is a disappointment; here you are underwater, firing at Sharks and Jellyfish. It is quite tricky to hit them as you have two cannons converging from either side of your control. Otherwise the game is low on interest.

Ultimate Play the Game has a reputation for quality software, and it does not besmirch it with Cookie and Tranzam. Cookie has one of the wackiest situations for a long time; Charlie Chef's ingredients have escaped from the pantry-yard and he must recapture them by dazing them with flour bombs and knocking them into his mixing bowl. As well as the runaways Crafty Cheese and Colonel Custard there are nasties such as Wally Washer and Terry Tack. Crazy, but true. The graphics are very good and Charlie is a sympathetic little figure in his white chef's hat.

It is very difficult to avoid the nasties; if they get you, you end up in a dustbin. Cookie is a witty and enjoyable game, but one which you might do well to use a joystick for. Tranzam is set in the year 3474; it is your Red Racer versus the Deadly Black Turbos in the search for the Eight Great Cups of Ultimate. The screen displays a barren landscape where the only land-marks are cacti and petrol stations. You guide your car around looking for the cups, while trying to avoid your enemies and the obstacles. This is a tricky business if you are doing 400 mph and steering on the keyboard; again, a joystick would be useful. Tranzam is an exciting game which gives a taste of the Mad Max experience.

GAME OR BLURB?

And so to Quicksilva. Do people buy their programs for the game or the blurb? Aquaplane's scenario begins "The contrasting blues of sea and sky provide a perfect backdrop as I relax with a Pernod and lemonade..." and goes on in the same vein for two sides of packaging. Indeed, Aquaplane's sea and sky are very blue, suggestive of hot Mediterranean summers. And, the game is very good. There you are, out for a bit of water-skiing, when the speedboat goes bananas. You are being pulled away to almost certain death.

Rocks, driftwood, tacking yachts, cruisers piloted by drunken play-boys, snapping sharks; get through all those and you have mastered the game. Aquaplane is made more intriguing because, as the boat accelerates, you are pulled to one side or another, thus increasing the risk of meeting a sticky end on a piece of driftwood. The graphics, too, are very colourful and realistic. Aquaplane is a highly entertaining game - almost as good as the blurb.

On the subject of watery graves, Bug-Byte has Aquarius "an underwater espionage game". As commander of a frogman team you must destroy the bombs planted by an enemy nation. Problems you will encounter are sharks and electrifying jellyfish. Your oxygen will run out and must be replenished by collecting fresh tanks from the sea-floor. While the undersea world is fairly convincing and the sound effects are genuinely squelchy, Aquarius is not a very exciting game, lacking the speed and variety top-class programmes.

ENCOUNTER WITH THE DARK ONE

In Styx, also from Bug-Byte, you are supposed to be battling your way across the mythological river to Hades "towards an encounter with the Dark One himself". In fact, it is a rather boring maze game, where the "deadly spiders" look like bits of dried grass and the Piranhas - did you know there were Piranhas in the Styx? - are most unconvincing. If they have micros in Hades as well they may well be playing Pool, another Bug-Byte game. The graphics are much better than Styx; a bright green for the baize and red for the bolls. Curiously, the object balls are all the same colour. Control is straightforward, using the cursor keys.

But perhaps these denizens of Hades might prefer CDS Micro Systems' Pool. I know I do, if only because the object balls are divided into blue and red. Otherwise, it is much the same as Bug-Byte's version, easy to control and pleasant to look at. Both programs are for one or two players.

Purer pleasures of the mind are entered for by Artic's Chess Tutor. The novelty of this program is that it not only plays chess - at three levels - but takes the beginner through three different opening variations; King's Indian, Ruy Lopez and Sicilian Dragon. There is also a section which demonstrates the moves of each piece.

This is indeed very useful and would be suitable for the absolute beginner. Unfortunately the board is none too clear, as the white pieces do not show up well on the light squares.

As a game chess is not in much danger of being overtaken by any of three new programs consisting of logical board games: Hanoi King from Contrast Software, Lojix from Virgin and 3-D Strategy from Quicksilva.

In the first of them you have three pillars on which are a series of rings. You have to transfer them to the third so that they are in the same order, moving only one ring at a time ind without placing a larger on top of a smaller ring. It sounds easy, and with only three or four rings, it is. More than that and it can become fiendishly difficult.

Lojix is a game in which you have to fit 18 irregularly shaped pieces onto a board. A sort if fiendish jigsaw puzzle, it is difficult and interesting. Virgin is offering a cash prize for the first correct solution.

3-D Strategy is billed as "a multi-dimensional mind game". It is 3-D noughts and crosses on a 4 by 4 by 4 cube. After 3-D chess Mr Spock might not have much trouble with his, but ordinary earthlings will find it very hard to beat. Despite being essentially simple ideas, all three of these games are well produced and will provide hours of entertainment for the puzzle happy.

Perhaps the most interesting new program for the Spectrum is The Forest, from Phipps Associates. This is a complex simulation of orienteering, the sport in which you have to follow a course over difficult terrain using only map and compass. The program comes with a beautifully printed orienteering map ind a long, but clear, explanatory booklet. The screen displays various topographical features and, using the map, you have to negotiate the nurse.

Thus, The Forest is not merely a game, but an help introduce people to map-making and the relation between maps and the physical features they represent. As the program notes say, this program will be of particular interest to students and teachers of geography as well as armchair orienteerers.

Plunder is a strategy game from Cases Computer Simulations. Set in 1587, the year before the Spanish Armada set sail, the game gives you the opportunity to be an English privateer whose task is to prevent gold from the New World getting back to Spain. You must also be more successful than your deadly rival Sir Francis Drake. There is more to this than mere yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum; you must weigh up the chances of success in taking on merchant, troop and warships. Too much damage or too many lost crew and the game is up; it's Davy Jones' locker for you.

Camelot, an adventure-game from the same company, is not quite so good. As Arthur Pendragon you have been banished from Camelot by the Black Knight. Understandably you want to get back; who knows what Lancelot and Guinevere are up to round the Round Table? You have some warriors and money to help you find the necessary seven items. There are graphic displays of landscapes and obstacles, unfortunately rather crude. The "evil magician" looks rather like a conjurer at a children's party.

Those Spectrum owners keen to develop the machine's graphics potential should look at Melbourne House's 48K Melbourne Draw. This program will take you on a tour of the Spectrum's graphics, allowing you to choose colours, draw, and store graphic displays.

Once you have drawn your picture, you might want to make it say something, in which case you are referred to Abbex's Supertalk which, with no extra hardware, will enable your Spectrum to speak. The demo facility lets you hear Supertalk's Dalek-style voice exercising its small vocabulary. To enter your own vocabulary you record the words on tape and then feed them in, afterwards adjusting them to make sentences. First "Jolson Sings!" now "Spectrum Talks".