Producer: Quicksilva
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £6.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Paul Hargreaves of Channel 8

To readers of the comic 2000AD Strontium Dog will be no stranger. Interestingly enough, the even more famous hero (?) Judge Dredd will soon be turned into a computer hero as well as Games Workshop are even now working on the project. Back to the story: Johnny Alpha is a Search and Destroy agent, a bounty hunter of the future, he is also a mutant or Strontium Dog. He has arrived at a contest where the galaxy's most vicious murderers are in a fight to the death. Johnny must destroy them all to rid the galaxy of both killers and the dictators who preside over the contest.

The game begins with a screen where Johnny Alpha is brought before the dictators as in a Roman amphitheatre and one of them declares, 'Let the killing begin!' as he happily plunges a dagger into some hapless victim's chest. In the way of modern computer games advertising other games, however, there is a slogan etched into the dais which says, 'Borzak woz ere' - one of Channel 8's games.

The Killing is played in a vast complex of rooms, or sectors. Some of these are merely tunnels to other sectors, but the real action begins in those rooms that consist of a central passage with what resemble rabbit hutches on either side. These are the cages in which the vicious murderers live. They emerge from either the top or bottom of their cages, into the open and fire energy bolts which rebound in the centre passage. Strontium Dog must fire at them when they appear and try to kill them, while dodging the energy bolts which travel in a diamond shape, narrowing their field before expiring. Occasionally in the transverse passages a murderer will be lurking, armed to the teeth.

At the top left is a status panel with the score in bounty points, the number of the sector you are in, and lives left. On the right is an alien scan which shows living aliens (starts at 93) and deaths scored. Because of the size of the complex, a map would come in handy in order to ascertain that you have got all the vicious murderers.

COMMENTS

Control keys: 9 or Q/8 or A up/down, 6 or O/7 or P left/right, zero or M to fire and X
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair 2
Keyboard play: sensible keys but not terribly responsive and firing is not possible while moving
Use of colour: good
Graphics: large characters, a bit jerky and not much animation
Sound: fair
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 5
Screens: lots

What first struck me about this game was that the opening routine seemed a bit ruthless. Why you may ask? Well, since when have people had human sacrifices where the human body is placed on a high altar and stabbed? As you can see, this game could do with an X rating on the front of it. Into the game I went, with fighting wits and a pop gun (it seemed that to me). Moving down through a couple of empty rooms, I found forcefields, were they to keep me out or to keep someone else in? Then, not to my surprise, a little meany popped out of a hole and shot something at me. I don't quite know what it was, but it seemed to bounce about for about ten seconds. After being electrocuted by it once, and losing a life, I zapped it with my pop gun. On through several empty rooms I went, is this all there is to the game I thought? I walked through a room with a forcefield either side of me, and very pretty it was too with its flashy colours. Yes, I think this is all there is to this game. Well, as for content, it's barely worth making the effort to say anything. It seems to me that P. Hargreaves (the author) could have increased the content a hundredfold and made it quite an addictive game, but as it stands, I cannot recommend this game at all.

The Killing is a very good idea but QS haven't done much with it which is a shame. The graphics are jerky and not at all animated and the sound is poor. The playing area seems quite a small maze of interlinked rooms which you easily get lost in. Killing the aliens is fairly easy, but there are a few which are almost impossible. I didn't really enjoy playing The Killing as it was so basic. The thing that annoyed me was the scene at the beginning of each game.

Quicksilva have always been producers of very good games, sometimes brilliant ones, and on the whole all those games have been high in content, so The Killing comes as a disappointment. So many of the rooms are devoid of life and one suspects they are just there to confuse the player on purse. The action can be fun, but it's repetitive and overall the game lacks anything to appeal. I've nothing against adaptions of ideas from other media, but I do think a game should combine some of the elements from the original. Not a thrilling Quicksilva game, this one.

Roger: Johnny Alpha is a 'Search And Destroy' agent (a mutant bounty hunter of the future) who first appeared in yer actual 2000AD comic and he may well have been the star of many ripping yarns in those smudged and inky pages. His dubut, however, as Sinclair superheroette is somewhat more than underwhelming. It's desperate! It's a dog's life!!

You can poodle the Strontium woofer through a generally doggy selection of extraterrestial kennels, seeking 'vicious murderers' who need to be put permanently too sleep, along with the 'Evil Dictators' who apparently control this contest of yapping yawns. Watch out for the 'Steel Kriegs' too!

Owing to a blatant programming oversight, Strontium Dog fails to cross his back legs in frustration and agony at the complete absence of life-relieving lamposts unfolds screen by screen. Maybe they were just hard to find in two dimensions? 2/5 MISS

Ross: Here we have another complex maze of rooms within which you wander aimlessly! Occasionally, you come across a 'nasty' to blast, but otherwise there's very little to do. Tedious stuff. 1/5 MISS

Dave: 'The Killing' is an apt name for this game - while playing it, I nearly died of boredom! Games seem to be getting bigger and bigger, but with less and less content! 1/5 MISS

MACHINE: Spectrum/keyboard or joystick
SUPPLIER: Quicksilva
PRICE: £6.95

Johnny Alpha, 21st century bounty hunter and star of 2000AD, THE science fiction comic, steps out again in Quicksilva's second game based on this comic cult hero.

And I'm glad to report that this Strontium Dog game is far better than Ouicksilva's first stab at a Johnny Alpha game. That was The Death Gauntlet for the Commodore 64, which left a lot to be desired.

Strontium Dog, The Killing, is a different can of worms. You control Johnny in a deadly mission on a strange planet where the Dictators stage a strange contest.

They invite all the most deadly killers from all over the galaxy to compete in an evil olympics - the winner is the person who comes out alive! Now Johnny Alpha reckons that a trip to this planet at the time of the games is a good way to wipe out all the top criminals and earn himself a great bounty-cheque into the bargain. This is where you come in.

The "games" take place in a maze-like complex of rooms and corridors. Johnny has to explore the many levels of the complex, discover the alien killers and destroy them.

Sounds simple, but when you come to play the game, things get more difficult - as usual! The alien criminals are crafty and wait to ambush an unsuspecting Strontium Dog in the various chambers of the games complex.

The game is a biggie - and its a good idea to have some paper and a pen to log your movements through the complex otherwise it's easy to get lost. You also have to work out different strategies to wipe out the various nasty alien criminals you come across.

The graphics are good - but the sound leaves a bit to be desired. Even on the Spectrum.

The Johnny Alpha character is well drawn and animated. You can actually recognise him as the 2000AD character!

He is armed with three electro-flares and his trusty laser gun and gets five lives to complete his quest. The screen shows you a display of Johnny and the room he is currently in, plus read outs of lives left, and the number of alien killers still around in the complex.

The Killing falls into the currently trendy arcade adventure style of game. I found it entertaining to play and kept coming back to explore more rooms.

Two annoying things about the game. One is the fact that you keep having to come back to the intro screen before restarting a new game, once all your lives are lost. Although this is nicely drawn and quite entertaining, it becomes a bit irritating after the twentieth viewing. But if you get really good at the game, you're not going to see it much anyway are you?

Second, the instructions could give you a bit more information. I know it's nice to have a bit of mystery about a game - but personally I would have liked a bit more documentation.

Maybe if you are a 2000AD reader, you could - as Quicksilva suggests - dig out some back numbers and read again a Strontium Dog story called The Killing. I liked The Killing and will be going back for more as soon as I've found those old copies!

PRICE: £6.95
GAME TYPE: Maze

Let the killing begin. There you are, condemned to death, doomed to kill or be killed, with only a comic strip in 2000AD which you may or may not have read, and a cassette insert, to help you.

Strontium Dog, The Killing, from Quicksilva is based on the story in 2000AD. In practice, this means you must travel through a maze, avoiding the parts of the maze which flash, and killing all the aliens you meet, before you can finally escape.

The maze is relatively simple. Draw a grid, number the first row 1 to 16, and the second row 17 to 32. Continue until you reach at least box 256. You are now ready to start mapping .

Killing the aliens is far more difficult. On the first three levels, at least, they appear in two basic types of room. One, where they run down the sides and shoot you, and a second where they appear in doorways at the top of the room and shoot at you. Shooting them appears to be largely a matter of chance.

Moving from one section to another is done by way of the Medis. These are ambushed, and require you to stand in exactly the right place, throw a flare bomb and start firing. If you are in the right place you will get through, if not, you are doomed. Moving to the fourth level means passing the hanged man. The technique for shooting him is even more difficult to grasp, and failure means returning to the beginning again. So, what are you left with? A simple to map, if intricate, maze; and a series of aliens which can only be killed by a combination of luck and skill. Not everybody's idea of fun.

Produced for the 48K Spectrum by Quicksilva, 13 Palmerston Road, Southampton.

48K Spectrum
Quicksilva
Arcade Adventure
£6.95

Do not be fooled by Quicksilva's packaging and the fatuous blurb - although eminently playable this game is scarcely original. You will need to make a map and solve a few problems but otherwise it is simply a matter of travelling from room to room and blasting away.