Producer: US Gold
Retail Price: £8.99
Author: Tiertex

Just when everyone thought a pedestrian's limbs were safe ... back come the skateboarders in 720°, licensed from an Atari coin-op.

One of these potential legamputators has been let loose in Skate City, and you control his every leap and movement. There are four parks in which this athlete can jump, climb ramps, run downhill or slalom. Points (and medals) are earned for each trick and with these our man can add to his stock of tickets, which allow him to enter skateboard parks.

But beware: the streets aren't safe for skateboarders. Speeding bikers zip along the highways, and any injudicious contact with one of these leather-clad road hogs temporarily knocks our hero onto his butt and precious time is lost. There are also some ponds for him to fall into.

To compensate for these hazards, he can pick up dollar bills and earn bonus points by running over hidden locations.

There are shops where better equipment, pads, boards, shoes and helmets can be bought to improve performance and earn extra points. To buy them, use the cash prizes you can accumulate for special stunts.

The position of all shops and parks can be revealed by activating one of the street-map pads, or by following the direction-indicators.

If the skateboarder wastes too much time shopping, or sitting immobilised on the floor, killer bees swarm after him on skateboards. Sanctuary can be sought in a park, but only if a valid ticket is held. Still, if he survives these beasts with a sting in their rear ends, your wheeled hero can live to skate another day.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: realistic, with detailed and smoothly-animated characters
Sound: poor spot effects
Options: trainer/advanced levels

720° is amusing and good to play the first few times, and it looks very Paper Boyesque. But it soon loses its appeal.
MIKE [69%]

Yeah! Now this is my kind of game. The inhabitants of Ludlow don't take too kindly to 'youngsters' rolling the streets at night, but now all my worries are over - I can have all the enjoyment of big-city skateboarding in the comfort of my own home. The play area of 720° scrolls superbly, and it's filled with some great animated characters. It's very easy to get into, but as the game progresses the difficulty doesn't increase significantly - and addictiveness suffers. Still, there's nothing else anything like this, and US Gold has set a superb standard.
PAUL [86%]

I can't recall ever playing anything like 720°. The graphics are amazing, with effects such as break dancers and people having fights. It takes some time to get used to the control method, but once that's mastered it's plain skating all the way. My only complaint is that 720° could have been made harder: for instance, the ice parks could have become progressively more difficult. Fans of the arcade original will love this game, it's so playable and addictive - and it's one of the most imaginative games to emerge this year.
ROBIN [88%]

US Gold
£8.99
Reviewer: Phil South

Wow! Brilliant! 720° was a rip roaring game in the arcades, was fun to play and addictive too, and as with most arcade machines, the most exciting things about it were the graphics and sound, which I s'pose is a bit like saying the only thing wrong with the world is everything, but I digress. Transferring all that excitement into the Spectrum requires a different kind of skill, and the team who transferred this megagame onto the Speccy, Tiertex, have really done a first class job. Okay, so the graphics are duochrome (two colours, mate) and all that remains of the dynamite soundtrack is a couple of squitch and frrrrrp noises when something significant happens in the game, like when get killed. But the remaining graphics are top notch, well animated and really give an impression of movement on a Skateboard.

You must skate your way around Skate City, doing tricks around town until you've earned enough points to compete in one of the Competition Parks of Jump, Downhill, Slalom and Ramp. In these events you must use your skill to earn medals, bronze, silver or gold, and points which allow you to buy tickets for more competitions. Why should you want to do this? Well, if you use up your tickets, you can't escape the killer bees... (What? Ed) Let me explain. You start the game with three tickets to tournaments, and going to tournaments allows you to get off the streets and away from the bees, right? (Why bees, I dunno, but just take it from me they're there.) So in order to survive, you have to earn more tickets by being skillo on the old skateboard. And so it goes on...

So, as I said, the game is crisply drawn and animated to rubber wheeling perfection. And what an addictive little number it is too! if there's a moment to spare in our busy schedule, (You! Busy! Don't make me laugh! Ed)this is what I reach for. A classy game and one for the hall of fame. (Hey, that rhymes!) Buy it, bucko!

BARGAIN BASEMENT

More low-price goodies, baddies and indiffereties with Marcus Berkmann!

Kixx
£2.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann

Another old US Gold fave disinterrred by Kixx. General opinion these days seems to be that of the various skateboarding games, Skate Crazy is much the superior, but I disagree. When we first saw this at YS we wuz quite gobsmacked, which, as Phil's gob was stuffed with a cheese and pickle sandwich at the time, was quite traumatic for all of us. The idea of the game is to perform stunts, which give you points, which give you tickets for the skate parks, where you can compete for medals and cash, which you can use to buy goodies for your board, which make you perform better stunts. Got all that? it gets sillier. In one of the single most inspired ideas ever to get sucked into a computer game, you have a time limit to enter each of the four skate parks (Downhill, Jump, Ramp and Slalom), after which you are pursued by a swarm of killer bees. "Why killer bees?" you ask. "Why not?" I reply.

Based of course on the coin-op, the Spectrum 720° is one of those rare conversions that plays as well as the original. Graphics (monochrome, natch) are superb, and movement is beautifully fluid. An absolute ripper, in fact, and still worthy of the ultimate YS award - the coveted Megagame! (Send your cheque to...)

Label: US Gold
Author: Tiertex
Price: £8.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

If you like skateboarding in real life, you'll go absolutely berserk over US Gold's conversion of the Atari coin-op, 720°.

And if you think the art of standing on a piece of plastic and zooming along with your arms in the air is rather silly, you'll love it anyway, because it's such a splendid piece of games programming.

I admit I fall into the latter category, and really don't have a great deal of time for the charmers to be found in a local shopping precinct who skitter past on at an alarming rate claiming to have just 'totally penned-out by Waitrose'. But 720° is such an immensely playable game all my cynicism went to the wall within seconds of play commencing.

The gameplay incorporates four very simple controls. You can rotate left and right, kick (which speeds you up) and jump. The beauty of 720° is that you can combine these moves into wonderfully complex sequences which will be awarded with bonus points by the computer.

The screen is laid out in isometric 3D, and everything in the play area is either black or yellow. No worries here attribute-wise, although your character is a little non-descript in the facial department.

You begin the game in the centre of Skate City, an enormous tarmac plane incorporating skate-ways, ramps, jumps and pools of water. As the name suggests, you can skate anywhere in Skate City (except through pools of water). At each of the four corners of the city is a Skate Park; a sub-game where bonus points and cash prizes can be earned for performing tougher feats on the board.

There's Slalom Park where you've got to weave your way through sets of flags which descending on a pretty steep ramp. Jump Park forces you to perform spine-jarring leaps while not falling into the water. Ramp Park involves skating through a half-pipe, reaching higher and higher each time. And Downhill Park is simply a race, er, downhill.

720° is a face against time from start to finish. The aim is to perform enough tricks to win a ticket to a skate-park, before the timer runs out.

And once you're in the park, you've got a limited number of seconds to rack up as many points as possible.

In order to gee you up a little, and to prevent smart-alecs from simply performing jumps in extremely safe areas, scoring more points than they're really earning, a swarm of killer bees has been created. As soon as the ominous message 'Skate or Die' flashes on to the screen, you know you're in trouble. A couple of seconds later the ghastly swarm will appear, and proceeds to chase you around the screen until you either give it the slip or become enveloped and get stung to death.

Being a fairly Bohemian sort if place. Skate City has dollar bills lying around on the floor. You can collect the bills by skating over them. Once you've collected enough money, you could do a lot worse than glide over to one of the shops in the park and picking up an accessory.

Accessories come in the form of pads, helmets, shoes and new boards. Each will help you along the way to becoming the slickest skater in the city. Boards offer higher speeds, shoes better start-times and higher dumps, pads mean you can get up after a fall slightly more quickly and helmets will permit more dangerous aerobatics to be attempted.

As you may have already guessed, you are not altogether alone in 720°. There are all sorts of other weirdos who inhabit the city - muscle-men, idiots on unicycles and utterly deranged bikers. All of these will cause you to come off your board and graze yourself with varying degrees of seriousness. Wipe your chops too many times on the old concrete hanky and it's off to intensive care for you.

The joy of the game is in the way you can perfect your moves. You can spend ages just fiddling around, not doing anything particularly useful, just getting the feel of the board and having a great time.

Once you've got the hang of scooting around on the training level, you can try out the more advanced, and logically titled Advanced Level.

Here things get a little more sticky. Bees crop up more frequently, and there are more lunatic bike riders, body-builders and the like.

720° is the epitome of a Classic. It's got every element of a great game.

The graphics are interesting, the action is pitched at exactly the correct level and it's got playability of astonishing flexibility.

Did we flip over it? You bet!

Get on board and go with US Gold.

Skate City is where the action takes place in this skateboard simulation, based on the coin-op of the same name. You and your board must go places, do things and generally accumulate points - and what do points make? Prizes? Correct, but don't expect an all-expenses-paid-trip-to-Disneyland. The only prize you'll get is a ticket to the skate park where you can strut your stuff and... collect more points.

Before rolling in to Skate City you must decide upon your skill level. Whether you opt for trainee or old hack there's still plenty to avoid. So remember, be careful out there.

The city - an American city (where else would you see body builders, unicyclists and break-dancers on the same street?) - consists of four parks, four shops, streets and inhabitants. The idea is that you roam the streets collecting points and money. Points are gained by jumping, spinning and pulling wheelies - the more exotic your trick, the richer your reward. Hidden locations also clock up welcome points. Certain freebies, such as dollar bills, add to the bank balance.

At the start of the game you have three tickets, which give you access to the parks. Enter a park and you lose a ticket, but get the chance of performing (see box) and gaining a medal - Gold, Silver or Bronze. Do well and you get a decent medal, and plenty of points And as the points arrive so do the tickets (trouble is you need a lot of points to get one ticket)

Money enables you to buy protective equipment from the shops: helmets, shoes, pads skateboards. You may wonder why you need this gear, well, remember you're on American turf. If you look good and have the goods then you're bound to perform well.

You may get the impression that there is little to 720. In fact, there are plenty of obstacles to hinder you. If you hang around too long you are attacked - inexplicably - by swarms of killer bees; cyclists, motorcyclists and pedestrians can take the wheels from under you; slurry pits aren't too healthy either; and if you get cocky you'll plunge from your board anyway. After visiting each of the parks in turn you move to the next level. Things get hard quickly. It's not long before you're stuck in the early-morning rush hour and the bees think you're the tastiest thing since Adam's apple.

Reviewer: Richard Monieiro

RELEASE BOX
C64/128, £9.99cs, £11.99dk, Dec 87
Spectrum, £8.99cs, Out Now
Ams, £9.99cs, £11.99dk, Dec 87

Predicted Interest Curve

1 min: 65/100
1 hour: 78/100
1 day: 70/100
1 week: 65/100
1 month: 30/100
1 year: 25/100

Kixx, £2.99
Spectrum, Amstrad. C64

This Atari coin-op really turned heads when it showed up in the arcades in the Summer Of '87. It looked like the trendiest thing you ever saw with its skate boarding hero clad in multi coloured Bermudas, quiffed hair cut, and loud surf-punk music pumping out of the cabinet. US Gold were straight in for the home rights and it turned up at Christmas of the same year.

Unfortunately, the gameplay never really lived up to its splendid graphics and basic game idea. This was not USG's fault. They made a good job of most of the 8-bit conversions (C64 was the best, Spectrum and Amstrad just competent).

The aim is to successfully negotiate the four skateparks - winning points and prizes. Skating between challenges can be hazardous as the Buicks, bikers, and body builders that also inhabit the streets are not at all keen on skate boarders. A must for skate board stylists.

MACHINES: C64/Spectrum/Amstrad/ST
SUPPLIER: US Gold
PRICE: £8.99 (Spectrum), £9.99 (C64/Ams), £11.95 (C64 disc), £14.99 (Ams disk)
VERSIONS TESTED: Amstrad/Spectrum

This game is named after the most difficult move in skateboarding and is a brilliant coin-op. Have the computer conversions captured the spirit of the arcade game?

Well, I'm sorry to have to say that the versions we've seen don't quite cut it. The graphics and sound on the Spectrum/Amstrad versions are OK but the gameplay seems to be slightly laid back - no real urgency is injected into the action - unlike the coin-op.

720° is set in Skate City and you play the part of a likely lad aiming to become the king of the streets. You have to earn extra cash to buy more radical skate-gear by competing in the various competitions held in skate parks.

Competitions like the slalom park, the jump park, the ramp park, or the simple downhill park. But to get in you need tickets and to earn tickets you have to pick up money which, oddly enough, litters the streets of Skate City.

The main currency here is skill on the board and not the folding green stuff it seems.

You begin with three tickets which allow you access to the parks. Travel to them through the busy streets of skate city - dodging muscle men, cyclists and odd folk piloting those one wheeled bike thingies.

You have a limited time to reach each park before the killer bees appear. Killer bees? Yup, these insects are the scourge of Skate City they chase you - and if you don't make the park before they get you, it's the end of the road.

Not so difficult in the earlier stages of the game when you've still got tickets - but if you've not got enough cash to buy a ticket and the bees are after you the doormen at the park entrances aren't at all sympathetic!

So, like your mum always tells you, be careful with your cash. It's not so much good buying all that flash skateboard gear when you can't afford a ticket to the park is it?

But when you have got enough pennies for both here's a run down on what the extra equipment will do for you.

Shoes let you jump higher, knee-pads help you recover from a fall more quickly, a new board makes you faster on the streets and a new helmet helps you become more adventurous on the ramps. These items can be purchased from any of the skate shops dotted around Skate City.

Control of the board is fairly easy - easier than Skate or Die, that's for sure. But it doesn't give you much of a feel of being on a board much too stable for a start!

The park sequences are again fairly straightforward - and after 20 levels of basically the same thing I reckon that you might find the appeal the game wearing a bit thin.

I've only seen the Speccy and Amstrad versions so far - the Amstrad has the edge on graphics, but there's hardly any sound on either version. The C64 demo I saw wasn't playable.

Spectrum Cassette: £8.99
Commodore 64/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette £11.99 (November)
Amstrad CPC Cassette: £9.99, Diskette £11.99 (late November)

HANGING TEN

Skate or die! The cry now rings out on the home micros courtesy of US Gold with their latest licensed offering from Atari - 720°, a sensational skateboarding experience. 720°, just in case you are wondering, is the skateboarding term for spinning round twice on the board whilst in mid jump. Converted for the Spectrum by Tiertex Software, 720° is a far better conversion than Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (reviewed in this issue), which they also did. On the Commodore 64 it's up to erstwhile Chris Butler, and judging by the preview copy we had, it's looking good.

72° takes you into the heart of Skate City, performing stunts to build up your street cred by collecting medals and cash in one (even if you do go to the arcades) of the most original games to emerge this year.

A better cash level allows you to buy better equipment such as boards, shoes and pads from the city shops and improve your performance. There's two levels of skating to choose from - trainee and advanced; the difference being that advanced level includes further hazards which generally make life more difficult.

Within the Skate City boundary lour parks are to be found, each presenting different and challenging skateboarding tasks; take a look at the Park Patrol panel for the details. Each park can only be visited once per level. Finding them can be a problem, but to ensure novice skaters don't get lost there are map icons placed at intervals along the streets and skating over them reveals a map of the city. And to further make sure you don't get lost, there are pointers on the roads. Tickets are required to enter the parks, fortunately two are provided at the start. Extra tickets are awarded when you first break 5,000 points, and then one for every additional 10,000.

NARCISSISTIC

Skate City itself is pretty big and there is plenty to do before you enter a park - but don't hang around for too long as killer bees have an unnerving tendency to attack lazy skaters, which costs you a credit.

The art of skating needs some practice, but after a while manoeuvring around the city and parks should become second nature. The skateboard is turned clockwise or anticlockwise and to get moving you propel yourself along with a kick key; in addition there is also a jump and stop function.

Naturally, you aren't the only one in Skate City, there are plenty of cars, bikers and bodybuilders (narcissists of a feather flock together?) who line the streets - colliding with any moving thing, though it won't actually kill you, knocks you off the skateboard.

Perhaps 720°s only failing is that the parks could have become progressively harder. However, fans of the arcade original and novices alike should love this playable and addictive game.