Producer: AVS
Retail Price: £
Language: BASIC & Machine code

In the 60s people used to talk about beating the system. Then in the 70s all estate agents and hairdressers got together and decided escaping the system wasn't such a good idea as they were the system. Now people don't want to escape the system, they try and pretend the whole charabanc never existed and the concept was a Communist plot designed to usurp washing powder sales (everyone knows the Ruskies are at least 15 washes behind when it comes to biologically active washing powders). Personally, I have a soft spot for the 60s if that was naivety, then I think we could do with some of that just now.

The point is, here come the microcomputers and the robots and yet our society is one of the most reactionary die-hard set of misery guts. It looks increasingly like the wealth from the new industries will be channelled back up into the higher echelons of society taking us, not into a new age of egalitarian prosperity, but to a state reminiscent of the pre-industrial surge of the early twentieth century. It increasingly looks like the only way to stake a claim to the new wealth will be to go straight to the computers and ask for it. So pay attention in computer lectures, especially when you hear of networking and accessing data banks. Another way of learning is to have a trial run with this computer game from AVS for your Spectrum.

Yes, following a controversial book on computer hacking, this is the game of the game that can see lots of digital lolly transferred from some overloaded multinational bank account into your very own diminutive piggy bank. Or, if anarchy is your game, you could always order too few toilet rolls for the Civil Service a further major blow to morale so soon after the cutbacks forced rougher graded toilet paper upon them.

System 15000 sets you firmly in the middle of an international conspiracy where you have to use your computer to recover £1.5M. The game is a real-time investigation realistically capturing the excitement of accessing computers by telephone and breaking their codes to obtain vital information.

Loading up you meet the SYSTEM screen, and after very little time it guides you, menuwise, to a series of company and college telephone numbers which include a very realistic ringing tone on entering them. To use the system effectively you need contacts in several agencies and companies. A letter from a friend, Mike, relates the problem to you and gives you some idea how difficult solving it might prove to be.

Richard's company, Comdata, has been ripped off by Realco, a company infiltrated by organised crime, to the tune of £1.5M. The only way to put things right is to transfer the money back to Comdata's bank by getting into their computer with the aid of an ingenious piece of software, SYSTEM 15000. Your first references are a Kingsdown Poly and an LT Perry & Company.

System 15000 is a highly original attempt to bring the excitement of computer hacking home to the average computer games player. It adds the intrigue of a detective thriller to the methodical unravelling of the computer buff with the nicety of finding yourself playing the goodie. Since the real thing is of course illegal, and becoming more difficult as computer fraud loopholes tighten, this may soon be your only chance to play at being a computer hack.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: easier than the real thing!
Presentation: very good
Sound: some excellent, like ringing telephone
Response: very fast

Dave: System 15000 is a hacker's dream and British Telecom's nightmare! Here, you get to play a happy hacker who's been recruited to help your friend Richard recover $1.5m taken from him by REALCO, a large corporation that's got some real nasty criminal connections! The money has to be returned to Richard's company account at the Midminster bank, and to help you in your quest, there's some sophisticated communications software (called 'System 15000') that's so advanced you don't even need a phone!

Another friend, Mike, has supplied you with some initial information and a phone number to get you started - but from here on in, you're really on your own. Work your way methodically through the various passwords and phone numbers as you go - and later, rather than sooner, you'll crack the game, to the stage where you'll actually believe what you're doing; the 'ringing' and 'dialling' sounds and engaged tones make this a very realistic experience.

System 15000 is a sort of cross between adventure and strategy that'll obviously appeal to hackers everywhere. But it's also a novel idea that's worth a look just to see what Prince Phillip could be doing if he had a mind to! 4/5 HIT

Ross: An unusual idea this, and one that should appeal to all those would-be hackers that can't afford BTs telephone bills. 2/5 MISS

Roger: Half the time I couldn't tell if the game was working or not - a game for those who like looking at blank screens! 2/5 MISS

THE GREAT COMPUTER FRAUD

Memory: 48K
Price: £9.95

If you have ever had a desire to take part in a giant computer fraud, or longed to break into the Pentagon's central computers, or simply spy on the private accounts of some multi-national company, then System 15000 is the game for you.

Your friend Mike has written to you with details of a computer fraud in which Comdata has been ripped off by Realco for $1,500,000. Your task is to break into the correct computers in order to transfer the money back to where it belongs. To do so you will need to track down the appropriate accounts and find the correct code numbers to access them.

The entire game is played out as if your Spectrum really was hooked into a vast network of computers. The System 15000 of the title is a high-powered user network similar to Micronet of which you are a member. Mike gives you a few clues to start with, and there is another hacker, Geoff, who may occasionally send helpful messages to you through the system. Otherwise you are on your own.

Whenever you telephone a computer, the Spectrum responds with simulated ringing tones. Sometimes the number is engaged, and sometimes the system shuts down while security checks are made. Somewhere, someone knows you are on the track.

Undoubtedly the economy of a game in which most of the commands are in the form of numbers or character strings of only a few letters, and the display simply a series of different types of computer screen, means the actual structure of the game can be very complex. After playing for many hours, unless you are a master codebreaker or just very lucky, you will still feel you have only penetrated the outer strands of the web of conspiracy surrounding Realco and the missing millions.

System 15000 is an absolutely first-rate game and the very stuff of which good adventures should be made. We can hardly wait for the sequel.

ESCAPE FROM THE MODERN WORLD

Richard Price look at some contemporary adventures.

When you are on the hunt for a new adventure what is it you are looking for?

You will naturally expect the game to have playability - that combination of technical factors most of us take for granted when we buy commercial programs. You have a right to demand a decent vocabulary, good response time and a flexible interpreter which comes across with some sort of personality during play. You will assume the writers have devised carefully designed puzzles set into a coherent structure.

Those are the requirements of any good game but it is fair to say that an adventure's success and the satisfaction it gives you will be decided mainly by the quality of its plot and the atmosphere it generates.

All of us want an escape into other worlds at times to savour the pleasure of being someone or somewhere else. That fantasy is the core of the appeal of computer adventure. Fantasy, though, is fragile and, whether you prefer herioc, modern or futuristic scenarios, the setting you make your journey in must hold your belief right to the end.

Quite often people will say that fantasy works by suspending your disbelief. Tolkein himself did not think that was a convincing explanation of the way the mind handles fantasy. In Tree and Leaf, his short work about fairy stories, he put forward the idea that the writer - or games designer in our case - creates a 'secondary' world which your mind can enter. Once inside it you believe the general setting, the characters and action are true - meaning that they all obey the proper laws of their own world. The spell held over you may well be broken by some jarring intrusion from the real world or simply because the characters behave in a way that is out of kilter with the logic of their surroundings.

Far too many programs feature plots which, for instance, ask you to rescue a princess, find the scattered bits of some talisman or simply slash your way through a monster-infested cave riddled with rising damp and littered with treasures which no sorcerer in his right mind would leave lying around.

You may not be too happy to be regularly cast as a Conan-clone whose fist is bigger than his brain. That must be desperately aggravating for female adventurers who are expected to undergo a mental sex-change before powering up their Spectrums. If software companies are going to survive then they had better start looking for games which will appeal to a much wider public than is currently the case.

To be fair, there is a growing variety of styles and plots in the adventure genre but games that use real story lines are still pretty thin on the ground. The concept of bookware, though, seems to be taking off. Creating computer implementations of successful stories has some obvious advantages as the books have already proved that their 'secondary' worlds can hold people's attention and imagination. It still does not mean that the program will necessarily match up to the excitement or invention of the original but if the programmers are sensitive about the adaptation there is a chance of a good fit. Of course, the memory size of home micros also imposes rigid boundaries and limitations.

If you are an amateur programmer searching for a theme there is nothing to stop you turning your favourite pulp fiction into an adventure for home consumption.

If you are bored with magic and monsters history can provide equally exciting themes. Your heroine or hero could attempt to infiltrate the lair of the Old Man of the Mountains, the original master of the feared Assassins at the time of the Crusades. Deserts, strange nomads, wild mountains and grim fortresses guarded by fanatical killers all have their place in this adventure.

There are some programs which meet all or most of the criteria for successful secondary worlds and yet mirror the preoccupations and paranoias of our own times. They reflect different angles of life and often carry some sharp social comment.

Urban Upstart from Richard Shepherd Software depicts the grim emptiness of inner-city life. Imagine any decaying ex-industrial town in Britain and you will have an idea of what it is like to live in Scarthorpe. No jobs, no money, nothing to do. No one will wander the streets. Thuggish skinheads and paranoid police rule here.

You must comb the town and find the means to escape. Your own character is pretty suspect and not above theft and fraud to raise much-needed cash. The mean streets are depicted in location graphics but the format is traditional text adventure and tricky at that.

The game may not seem like escapism and it is not difficult to recognise parallels with Cut Throat Alley or Grime Street. Definitely a slice of social realism with a gritty, dangerous, feel to it, though not without flashes of humour.

If you are one of those gamesters who thinks adventures written on the Quill cannot match the real thing then Hampstead could provide a cure for your scepticism. The technical presentation may be defined by the utility but the subject matter and approach is new and genuinely funny.

There you are, stuck in your nasty smelly flat somewhere in the wilderness of north-west London, parked in front of 3-2-1 on the telly. The only way is up - so you think - and you nip out in search of the dole office to get your giro. Outside the back yard, gleaming in the sunlight, is a sign pointing to Hampstead. Nothing can stop you now, so you cross your personal Jordan and pedal towards the Promised Land only to find you cannot attain Hampstead simply by going there. You will have to change your style and your gear, read the right books and do the right things with the right people.

Not being totally stupid you will lie, cheat, even steal to get to this Nirvana of NW10 but you must avoid violence at all costs. The game is not merely about finding the right objects - it is also about attitudes as you must work out ways of making the correct deals. The answers are devious.

This is good situation comedy from Melbourne House and the game is attractively presented with a hilarious handbook. It is arguably one of the best Quilled adventures to date.

From this comfortable tweedy fantasy we descend into a shifting, threatening underworld of conspiracy, espionage and fear. A series of audio messages are recorded on your answering machine. Their growing urgency and the sound of a final shot leave you in no doubt - Valkyrie 17 is active again, a cell of neo-Nazis whose deadly tentacles stretch around the world.

Thanks to the dying gasps of your agent you know their ruthless leader is holed up in an exclusive Austrian skiing resort at the Glitz Hotel. Your job is to seek him out and neutralise him. Take care; one foolish move and you will find yourself face down in the snow rapidly becoming a member of the great majority.

The level of paranoia is pumped up by ringing phones which, if answered, threaten you and make it clear that your cover is already broken. Everything a good thriller needs is here - locked safes, half-overheard conversations, blood on the crisp snow of the piste.

Valkyrie 17 is produced by the Ram Jam Corporation, a new outfit, and features detailed atmospheric descriptions. The location graphics are interactive and will change to show the results of significant actions. No help is given and you are absolutely on your own in a race against danger.

Isolation and danger are also the major themes of System 15000 from AVS. This is no standard text adventure but it is definitely one of the most gripping and compulsive Spectrum games so far. A brief note informs you that Comdata Company has been ripped off for a cool million or more bucks in a computerised bank fraud. Lurking behind the heist are the mob, ominous and menacing. Your single lead is one phone number.

On loading you will find only the user screen of the 15000 network and the basic instructions on how to operate it. From that beginning you must penetrate the files of the other computers which use the net to uncover the twisting threads of the plot. The giant mainframes of the international banks are well protected against intruders and police data protection squads will shut the system down temporarily once they get a sniff of what you are up to. Stay cool and keep dialling - piece by piece you will edge your way towards the truth and attempt to restore the Comdata lost millions.

Your only input routines are phone numbers and an occasional cryptic note on the message board. There is no need to take on any role - this is you against the network in the here and now, deep in the loneliness of the long-distance hacker.

After hours of tracing leads you will find yourself cheering in triumph as you enter the files of the Reserve Manhattan Bank with its glittering stars and stipes logo or you will curse in frustration as yet another faceless machine informs you that your data is bad. You will begin to sense the network as very real, a vast jigsaw of numers, names and details. System 15000 is utterly absorbing and compelling and recalls the atmosphere of the BBC series Bird of Prey. Absolutely recommended.

MACHINE: 48k Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Craig Communications
PRICE: £9.75

Breaking the law with a computer is the idea of this game.

Hacking, as it's called, is all about linking your micro to the telephone system and trying to break into other companies' computers.

The aim in System 1500 is to break into the computer of a bank and transfer $1.5m from one account to yours.

But don't worry. This game is perfectly legal and won't cost you a penny on your phone bill. It's only a simulation of the real thing, but it's just as fun and very realistic.

With the cassette comes a letter from a fellow hacker called Mike. He tells you that Richard's company has been ripped off to the tune of $1.5m and police have got nowhere. The only way that you can help is to transfer the money back into Richard's account by getting into the right computer.

You are given a phone number and a password to start with, so you enter this number into the computer. After the realistic dialling tone, you are through to the computer of the local Polytechnic.

If you use your hacking skills here, you'll be able to find passwords and phone numbers for other systems and eventually crack the Midminster Bank.

If yo get far enough, there's even some American computers to hack, complete with different telephone tones.

More details on Basingstoke (0256) 55462.

PRICE: £9.95
GAME TYPE: Simulation

Computer hacking, that is, using your computer to break into other computerised databases for fun is a hobby of dubious morality and legality. It is, however, very popular, presenting opportunities, as it does, to break codes, find out secret information and baffle security systems. It is an occupation which you either love or hate, hackers will stay up all night once they have started, while observers if any, watch with puzzled surprise.

System 15000 gives you all the fun and challenge of computer hacking within the confines of a game. It is so realistic that purchasers who always found hacking uninteresting will find the game about as exciting as ringing a number which is perpetually engaged and probably the wrong number anyway when you have the strong suspicion that your telephone may have broken down three days ago.

In System 15000 morality and the law are definitely on your side. You have to return a stolen $1,500,000 to the account of Comdata's bank, Midminster. The police admit the money has been stolen, you are responsible for recovering it.

Starting with very limited information, which will allow you access to a few facts stored at Kingsdown Polytechnic, and with the knowledge that a scientific researcher named Geoff may or may not help you, you are thrown in the deep end and left to hack your way through as many databases as possible.

System 15000 is produced for the 48K Spectrum by Craig Communications Ltd.

A computer adventure in the truest sense, System 15000 eschews sword and sorcery for the marvels of databases, networks, bulletin boards and electronic mail.

Using the resources of a high-powered network, your task is to investigate computer fraud involving $1.5 million. Menus of bank exchange rates, flight departures, telephone numbers and confidential files chatter authentically across the screen as you crack one system after another, but your progress is monitored by persons unknown, who will suddenly activate a system shutdown to tighten security.

Totally realistic and totally absorbing, System 15000 is a seductive glimpse into the raw-eyed, late night world of the hacker.