Producer: Bug-Byte
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £6.95
Language: Machine code

The game requires the skills of a shrewd trader and a fast trigger, it claims at the start of the instructions in the two-part load of this new Bug-Byte game. However, for those not so keen on the space arcade action, it's possible to avoid confrontation by not arming your cargo ship with a laser, although it means almost certainly having to pay a tribute to marauding pirates. Mercifully, Star Trader has short and to the point instructions on the screen, so there's no need of a ZX Printer, Eidetic memory or Pitman shorthand skills.

The game falls essentially into two distinct parts, the strategy buying and selling bit on the various planets, and the space travel bits where you are likely to meet and be engaged in combat by pirates after your cargo. The trading takes place over eight planets and involves eight commodities - grain, guns, tools, timber, wine, clothing, oil and gold. A picture on the left of the screen shows the space port which, rather like Holiday Inns, looks the same whichever planet you are on.

Should you enter a trading establishment it is replaced by a large picture of the trader in question who, rather like Holiday Inn managers, looks the same whichever shop on whichever planet you are on or in. To be fair, the traders have different coloured eyes, hair, sometimes have moustaches, sometimes hats, but the identikit pic feeling persists!

At a spaceport you may opt to go in (to take off) and will be asked which destination you wish. You may be refused permission if you are medically unfit, a situation remedied by resting and eating good food! When you arrive at your destination you can list your goods in the customs hall, declare all, nothing or part of them or bribe the customs officer and part with appropriate money accordingly.

If you don't enter the spaceport the options open are to go to a farm, a gunsmith's, a tool shop, sawmill, wine merchant's clothes shop, fuel merchant's, jeweller's, pub, hotel or general store. It is from the general store that you can buy the essential lasers and power packs with which to defend your ship from pirates. In a shop you can buy or sell, but it's worth keeping an eye on the economic status report which will tell you what buying and selling prices are at all the planets in all commodities. The other thing to keep an eye on is the time of day as the shops and spaceports tend to close at night and for lunch - pubs and hotels also have appropriate opening times.

The arcade sequences take place in space and the screen shows a viewscreen in which planets can be seen moving in simulated 3D. If you have no laser on board, then pirate attacks and tributes are merely reported, but if you are armed then the enemy ships can be seen swooping in on you, firing. Laser power and ship's shield strength run down quickly and if you don't want the game to end it is worth surrendering before you are killed as the pirates are fairly sensible chaps and usually leave you with something to trade with at your destination. The object of the game, obviously, is to get rich!

COMMENTS

Control keys: cursors
Joystick: Kempston, ZX 2, AGF, Protek
Keyboard play: mostly single input, responsive on arcade sequences
Use of colour: good
Graphics: generally good, large and detailed
Sound: very poor
Skill levels: 1
Originality: the trading concept is hardly new, nor the combination with arcade action, but this game does have a fresh look and is well implemented.

The graphics, though there aren't many on the trader part of the game, are well drawn as are the ones in the arcade part. There is very little sound except when you are shooting aliens and what there is of it is rather poor. This game is fun if you like trading games and is fun to play with friends. The added bonus of the arcade game is a good idea after trading goods all day (how peaceful)! It gives people like me (psychopathic killers) a chance of knocking off the odd pirate. I didn't think it was a very good game overall but it may appeal to the more peaceful members of the computer gaming universe.

This is a game that is playable but will take a long time to play if you don't get killed off by pirates. Graphics are very detailed and colourful, but where has the sound disappeared to? I found whizzing off to planets to sell goods quite fun although the in between arcade sequences seem a little long and drawn out. Keyboard input is usually one touch. Quite a playable game, if you've got the time.

Star Trader represents an advance over the space trading game like Quicksilva's old Trader, in as much as the latter was a linear game with a start and a definite end. In this game you can keep playing until your money runs out. In general I thought the content was a little lacking with most problems arising from becoming hungry at inconvenient moments or concluding your trading to find the spaceport closed. The graphics overall are quite good, and the arcade sequence is very nice although your ship does look rather antiquated (Dan Dare-ish). The 3D effect is simple but works, although I couldn't figure out why they had gone to the trouble of showing planets moving towards you (you can steer) but which didn't need avoiding as they do it all by themselves. It seems a bit pointless. Nothing really startling or new here, but a user-friendly program which I enjoyed reasonably well.

CUT-THROAT SPACE TRADE

Memory: 48K
Price: £
Joystick: Kempston, Protek, Interface 2

A tough simulation of galactic trading, Star Trader, from Bug- Byte, combines commercial cunning with arcade action to tax even the most wily Arthur Daley of the spaceways. Set in the crumbling, inflation-racked economy of the far future, the game features gangs of vicious pirates who roam the space trade routes preying on hard-pressed entrepreneurs who are attempting to keep the isolated communities supplied with the basic needs of civilised life.

As a businessman your motives are not totally philanthropic and you aim to rake in as much profit as possible by buying cheap, selling dear and reducing your overheads. Rapacity and greed rule the universe and customsmen, shopkeepers and criminals will do their best to rip you off or beat you up. Cash is also drained by the need to eat and drink frequently.

The simulation section consists of a number of menu-driven screens. The primary menu allows you to enter the stores of the commodity brokers, the spaceport or the pubs. Commodities can be bought in bulk and after a hazardous space trip are sold on to other planets. Report screens give details of prices on each planet and also provide cargo inventories and financial information.

The space trip is an arcade sequence featuring the onslaught of the pirates. The player can fight or surrender, but the 'tax' levied by these interstellar Mafiosi is enormous. If planets run out of goods their civilisations collapse and limit your market.

The program is well-designed with fast keyboard response and clear screen displays. Static graphic illustrations adorn the simulation sections. Success in all parts of the game is hard-won and careful planning is needed, especially in calculating the size of a bribe. All in all Star Trader is a complex multi-task simulation which may well have you head-banging your Spectrum in frustration.

STAR BORES DON'T SCORE

MAKER: Bug-Byte
FORMAT: cassette
PRICE: £6.95

SF trading simulation that promises a great deal and then promptly falls flat on its face. As is the norm in these things you must ply stated trade routes with well chosen cargo. Selling at a profit when possible, and minimising losses when not. The cargo is bought at the local Spaceport (nice graphic) from a band of traders whom we'll presume are related. While stocking up you're given an option on a laser pistol. This is used for defense from pirate attack en route. Naturally you but it. Things the go downhill. The screen display changes as you enter deep space and more often than not the Pirates attack. With a new laser on board you jump at the battle-options only to find the gun is next to useless. The response time is appalling! Naturally the Pirates clean you out.

The next bummer comes when you land on the new planet. It's exactly the same as the one you've just left! You're back at a space-port (same graphic) bartering with the local traders who once again look related. Hardly worth the journey. At least with the old Trader trilogy from Pixel you got to meet a few amorphous blobs and alien dudes. Not so here. Invariably I sold my cargo off at a loss and the pegged out through boredom. Well, it was the most exciting option on offer.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
CONTROL: Keys, Curs, Kemp, Sinc
FROM: Bug-Byte, £6.95

Creed raises its ugly head in this interstellar economy simulation. You play the skipper of the only cargo ship in a galaxy infested with pirates.

You aim to make a healthy profit by supplying eight planets in the system, buying low - and then selling high to the local traders.

Dealing in eight commodities you move between planets avoiding pirates and customs officers whose combined depredations make large dents in your profit margins. Constant reports are available on your status and that of the planets' economies and also the goods you are carrying.

Between trips you have to find the time to eat and drink and rest as normal. Trading hours are controlled as in the average high street - so there's a lot of maddening waiting around. These periods are best spent stuffing your face to stay alive.

The flight between planets is far from being the best display of 3D graphics on the Spectrum (as Bug Byte claim) and you are left too long with nothing to do but watch passing asteroids.

Sudden pirate attacks certainly relieve the boredom. Numerous ships sweep towards you in 3D pounding away at your vulnerable shields. These attacks are very hard to survive and make a welcome change from the text responses of the rest of the game.

But the most frightening things you'll encounter are the grizzly looking inhabitants of the different planets. These faces loom up on the screen every time you enter a shop to buy or sell goods. I didn't trust them an inch.

You must watch your Credits carefully as you deal with these shady characters (who, funnily enough, all look like the same guy in different disguises). At each shop you decide if you want to sell or buy. If buying you ask the program for a list of the commodities in stock and judge what goods will make you a killing.

But your first visit should be to the general store to buy a laser and power packs - to stop the pirates making a 'killing' out of you.

In many games there are sections of the action on which players do not wish to spend too much time. Star Trader from Bug-Byte fails to recognise this. So much time is spent eating, sleeping, buying food and staring out of your window as you travel through space, that it is hard to summon enthusiasm for any aspect of the game.

Star Trader casts the player as a merchant trading between planets. Goods can be bought on one planet and sold on another, pirates must be bought off or shot down, and the tax inspector must be avoided. These actions are all too familiar from other games, and the addition of graphics and a complex range of connections between the economics of the planets does not hide this.

Star Trader is produced by Bug-Byte Ltd, Mulberry House, Canning Place, Liverpool; and costs £6.95.

Star Trader is one of the growing range of arcade/adventure programs for the Spectrum. In this case the game has more of an arcade-strategy feel to it. Basically it involves you in buying various types of goods on one planet, transporting them safely to another planet, and trying to sell them again at a profit.

The strategy aspect comes in knowing where to buy the goods and how many items to purchase (your storage space being limited). The arcade aspect comes between the buying and selling; you've got to get there safely first! This is made more difficult by the fact that you are more than likely to be attacked by space pirates 'en route'.

If you have the correct weapons you can fight back in an approximate simulation of 3-D, which can be fun. The graphics on the planets consist mainly of the faces of shopkeepers, and are well done.

Other problems that can beset you on your travels are pick-pockets, muggers and other such unpleasant people. If you thought this was enough, you still have to consider your stomach. You must eat and drink (mostly beer in the local Stellar pub), to keep you in good health. If you fail to do this you won't be allowed to take-off and will eventually die of starvation.

You start off with a set amount of cash which is reduced by buying goods, food/drink, payments to space pirates if you get caught etc. Yet another problem to face is space tax. When landing on a new planet you can choose to declare all, some or none of you cargo and risk losing it all. Alternatively you can try to bribe a customs official (which may not always work).

Careful planning (by use of the report facilities) in buying and selling is required. Overall a game that will give you plenty to think about. However, it can get a bit repetitive because of the menu-driven format. The graphics make a welcome addition here. Recommended for arcade or strategy fans looking for something a little different.