Producer: Software Projects
Retail Price: £2.99
Author: Software Creations

The Tasty Space Griffin has been acclaimed as a galactic delicacy for many years. After being hunted to the edge of extinction, it has subsequently become very rare, and thus very valuable - to the point of forming a highly prized unit of intergalactic currency.

Now, on a distant planet, a band of unscrupulous crooks are breeding the Griffins in an attempt to flood the market, destabilise the monetary system of the whole universe and allow them to seize power in the ensuing chaos.

No problem: send for Captain Neil Armstrong. He'll soon sort them out. Well, he would have done, but for an error in the astro telex. Instead of sending for the clean-cut hero, the garbled message asked for the Inspector Clouseau of the Starfleet Taskforce - the bungling Rover Pawstrong.

Transported to the crooks' hideout, Pawstrong has to kill or capture all the Griffins there to complete his task. To aid him, a Starfeet ship occasionally drops supplies, consisting of explosives, transporters, rockets, and missile launchers, all of which help him to apprehend the runaway birds. A bonus slide puzzle is also available, completion of which is rewarded by extra points.

Energy is one of Rover's biggest problems, represented by the lightly roasted Tasty Space Griffin in the bottom left-hand corner of the display, As Rover's lifeforce ebbs away, lads of flesh disappear to leave the bony carcass beneath Failure to find food to quieten his rumbling turn results in a pile of bones, and one very dead Rover.

Once he has either captured or zapped a Griffin, a Starfleet scoutship lands and takes it off of his paws. This leaves Rover free to chase the remaining elusive fowl across the planet, and also under it, by using the mining tunnels entered by leaping down the nearest shaft. A map and mining lamp can be collected to help him to make light of the situation.

Such is the task that Captain Rover Pawstrong finds himself lumbered with. Let's hope he doesn't make too much of a meal of it...

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor. Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: Captain Pawstrong is a superbly drawn and animated cartoon character - combined with the many varied and ornate backgrounds Star Paws is a delight to watch
Sound: an irritating title tune with functional spot effects

It's a dog's life for poor old Rover Pawstrong. Sent to a desolate planet to capture those priceless birds, is he dog enough to manage it? Star Paws is quite fun to play, using all of the varied weapons and contraptions to outwit the speedy Space Griffins. I must admit that they do look very much like distant relatives of that other turbo-charged bird, the Road Runner, and like the Coyote in that famous cartoon, Rover (aka the player) has a very hard time trying to catch the Griffins. The bonus puzzle is a nice idea, but with the pressure of the time limit and difficulty of co-ordination, the bonus is quite an elusive prize! This amusing and fun collect-'em-up is certainly worth the small asking price.
MARK

I really enjoyed Star Paws when it came out on the C64 and it hasn't lost any of its addictiveness in conversion to the Spectrum. The graphics are all well drawn with cartoon-style characters and detailed backdrops. There's a decent soundtrack that plays constantly in the background and some sound FX, but with both going at the same time it can, get very irritating. Star Paws, really has plenty of variety: if you go down one of the many holes with a mining lamp you enter into a completely different sub-game with a maze of tunnels and special objects to collect; if you pick up the bonus puzzle, you get a sliding picture game to complete for a bonus. The gameplay is made tough first because you have let go of the direction keys to jump. This is soon mastered, though, and merely adds to the game's challenge. Star Paws is a very enjoyable arcade game that has survived the conversion from the Commodore very well.
NICK

As a budget game Star Paws is extremely good value for money. The cartoon humour of the canine Captain's dilemma is very engagingly portrayed - especially the legendary Tasty Space Griffins. The surface and underground locations, the vast arsenal of helpful items and the bonus puzzles make for some exciting and varied gameplay. Defeating the dastardly birds with the appropriate weapons becomes an interesting test of dextral skill - there's no way you can simply outrun them. There are a couple of minor drawbacks: the parallax scrolling is slightly jerky and manoeuvring Pawstrong into the appropriate position to collect equipment from the boxes is slightly more awkward than it needs to be. These certainly shouldn't dissuade you from buying the game, though, which at £2.99 is one of the most attractive bargains around.
KATI

Software Projects
£2.99
Reviewer: Duncan MacDonald

Crikey, that's a funny idea; take the name of a well known film, change one of the words slightly and voila, a rib-tickling title for a computer game in which the main character can be a dog (because dogs have paws) Har, har. I'll see if I can come up with something, using that formula, before I finish this review. Anyway, back to the game.

First thing I must admit is that while I was playing this game I was labouring under the misconception that it was a full price release. Imagine my astonishment when I saw the ACTUAL price tag only several pico-seconds before typing this. I floundered, by cracky.

The basic plot of the piece is that you, a canine 'space-hero' called (groan) Rover Pawstrong have to run about killing 'Space Griffins' (meep meep Road Runner lookalikes, who also happen to be culinary gold dust).

There are four bits to the game (which for the most part is a two way scroller), and here they are:

Planet Surface: Run around the planet, jumping over the little craters and picking up bonus weaponry to help you in your task. Space Griffins are trusting little fellows. Easy to kill and I totally non violent. Your only enemy is time. Oh, and 'keep 'em peeled' for holes in the ground, which leads me onto...

The Mine Shafts: Er, same as above really, except you collect charges for your laser gun...

Laser Gun Sequence: A bit like the combat sequence in Tai-Pan, ie a cannons eye view with the birds in the distance. Get the elevation right and keerpoowww!!!

Bonus Screen: A Split Personalities variant. A picture on a four by four grid is jumbled up before your eyes. Reassemble it within a time limit. The graphics are simply coloured with fair animation although the control response does take quite a bit of getting used to. All in all this is quite a jolly little game and for £2 99, worth checking out.

Oh dear, I've suddenly remembered my foolish boast from the top of the review: a computer game title derived waggishly from a film title. Uuuuum, eeerrr, uuumm... Ah! Got it: The Sound Of Moo-Sick, you play a vomiting space cow. Cripes, I'm not very good at this 'game title' lark, am I? Boooiiinng!!!

Label: Software Projects
Author: Steven Cork
Price: £2.99 (Yes, £2.99)
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

The Tasty Space Griffin. Dreamt of by many, eaten by few. The TSG was one of the universe's rarest and most delicious delicacies and for some reason has been illegal for a long time. It has recently been reported that a gang of mercenary farmers have been breeding these fowl foul (shouldn't that be foul fowl?) and have plans to disable the entire universal monetary system by flooding the market with their new investments.

You. as Captain Rover Pawstrong, have been sent to the secret moon where the rebels hide their marauding flocks to catch or kill the birds. You were sent completely by accident, of course. After all, who would send a dog? The authorities meant to send Captain Neil Armstrong, but that's a bureaucratic cock-up for you.

Star Paws was a great hit when it was released on the C*mm*d*re 64, but will it make a large impact on the Spectrum? For a start, what sort of game is it?

Well, to catch the birds you have to find them first, and there are 20 of them to look out for. Finding them is easy, thanks to your little space radar, but catching them is another matter. The game is spread over a multitude of levels and all have their own little obstacles. On the first level, there are lots of little rocks which trip you up or bounce you the other way. When you go underground for all the remaining levels, however, it's a completely different bucket of carrots.

Unless you have a mining lamp, you won't be able to see where you are going. And if you can't see where you're going, you won't be able to see the birds which means you won't be able to catch them. Speaking of said objective...

How do you catch the birds? Well, it's not that simple. There are many different ways to 'catch the pigeon'. You can search the boxes that lie around to see if they contain anything that you can use as a weapon against the birds, such as rocket launchers or death rays. Or you can simply run at them and jump on them. A word of warning here, you must take them by surprise or they will run away and as they can outrun you 10 to 1, chasing them is a waste of time.

All this chasing around doesn't half make you hungry and what better to fill you up than a Galactiburger? This replenishes your energy, which is displayed as a vanishing turkey, a bit like the golden oldie, Atic Atac.

The graphics on this game are great. It has a very cartoony look and is really what Road Runner should have been like, because in many ways it is Road Runner. You know, the bit about the dog chasing the bird. The only difference being that in this version, he gets it.

A great game and one well worth the mega cheap price. If you miss out on this one, you can eat my granny.