Accolade/Random Access
£9.99 cass, £16.99 disk

It's cars, cars and more cars this winter - and some makes seem especially popular. A lot has been heard recently about the two cars in The Duel, as they also star in US Gold's Turbo Outrun, and here's some more: The Ferrari F-40 and Porsche 959 are the two fastest production cars in the world, though the 140 has a slightly higher top speed and a taster 040 mph, so there.

One or two players can participate in this race of a lifetime, though if a friend isn't readily available the computer takes over. Once you've chosen a car it's time to make up your mind on the difficulty level: this ranges from easy (automatic gearbox) to hard (which only Nicko 'boy racer' Roberts would try).

If in one player mode you can try to outrun the computes controlled car, or beat the clock. But whatever you do, drive like a loony, but watch it: some of the twists and bends in the road look as it they were designed by one. The other thing apart from the sheer drops you must beware are the cops. Some give chase and try to overtake (a ticket is the result of this), while others just seem to sit at the side of the road and expect you to stop. Highly likely! Complete a given stretch of road and you must pull up at the gas station whilst the computer informs you of the race statistics (your average speed, time, who won the lap etc). Then it's time to burn more rubber until the race is won - or lost!

I quite enjoyed playing the original, so The Duel-Test Drive II on the Speccy was eagerly awaited. Was the wait worth it? Well, yes and no. Yes because graphically The Duel is rather good. No because the computer controlled driver is well nigh impossible to get past. It may be my lack of driving skills, but I continually crashed into him. Maybe I'm being miserable, but The Duel - Test Drive II can be summed up in the immortal words of a TV ad: it's good, but not that good.

MARK [71%]

More car racing games (groan), but wait a minute, this is really quite good. It's sort of like Hard Drivin' without the hard bit The graphics are of course in shaded 3-D which works well for most of the time - it's just on things like tunnels you get a bit disorientated. One second you're happily driving down the road at 200mph and the next you're plunged into darkness hardly seeing the tunnel entrance. Perhaps that's what it's like to drive at 200mph, but I can't say I've ever gone that fast! The lack of colour variation in the view out of the car has been made up for in the dashboard underneath. Each level is a different monochrome. There are plenty of surprises in store on the roads including high cliffs to fall off, sharp bends to skid around and lunatic drivers coming down the wrong side of the road... wait a minute, it's supposed to be in America isn't it... AARRGGHH! Test Drive II is worth taking a look at, but you could soon get bored of driving up and down the same roads.
NICK ...79%.

Accolade
£9.99 cass/£16.99 disk
Reviewer: Matt Bielby

Racing games, eh? (As our Jack would start a review.) What'd we do without em? Well, we'd buy a lot fewer games this Christmas, that's for sure. Yup, from Chase HQ to Power Drift to Continental Circus, everyone's gone car bloomin' crazy!

There are some more serious driving simulations bouncing about too. The jury's still out on Hard Drivin', but here comes The Duel, Accolade's follow up to the mega-successful PC/16 bit driverama Test Drive. In fact, it's quite heart warming to see a respectable, simulation-based outfit like Accolade dipping its toes into the Speccy market this late in the day. So it's a real shame I can't bring myself to write anything very nice about the results. Because, to be honest, Test Drive II smacks a bit of old tosh.

Oh sure, the blurb promises something a bit special. Race head to head in the fastest production cars ever built! Wow! A choice between a Ferrari F40 and a Porsche 959! Road hazards like 'oncoming traffic, rocks, loose gravel, pot holes and oil slicks.' Hot diggerty-dog! Can't wait, right?

But oh dear, oh dear.

Well, let's kick off with the graphics. They're just so lifeless! Take the courses. (No. please, take them!) in general they're some of the most flat and featureless routes I've ever seen, be they desert, cliff paths or grasslands, with the very minimum of roadside features (outside of the odd cactus). And the cars are no better. The dark blue dashboards are modelled on the cars in question but, in fact, both look far more like the plasticy job from a Nissan Sunny or something. And what are the roads populated with? Not trucks or Beetles or Corvettes or anything else vaguely interesting, but more blooming three box saloons! Even when you're racing the other supercar the graphic used is just that of another Nissan. In short, you'll have to use your imagination a bit here!

Thankfully, the control system is considerably better. You're given a wide range of skill options from easy to really hard, the first four of which use an automatic gearbox, with the more difficult ones on manual. Actually, there's not much point in playing it on auto at all (too little to do) but on manual things warm up a bit. In fact, they warm up a trifle too much - fail to change up in time and your engine explodes! Yikes! But - and it's a very big 'but' - even at the simplest level your motor is damn near uncontrollable. To even stay on the road (staying in lane is pretty impossible) takes a million tiny corrections. So it's totally unlike 'real life'.

These are, however, but petty crimes compared to the two main holes in the thing. For a start there is no real impression of speed - not even a little bit! Unless you've got your eyes pinned to the speedometer, it's near impossible to tell how fast you're meant to be going. The clock will climb from about 15 to 105 mph in seconds and suddenly you'll be going too fast to take a corner - though it sure doesn't 'feel' like it. Again, totally unlike the experience of driving a real car, where you only need to check out the speedo occasionally.

And then there's the collision detection. It's hopeless. You'll crash into a cactus when it looks like it's, ooh, a good 20 feet away. Apparently the computer judges whether you'd hit it or not within the next frame of animation or something and freezes you there, which leaves the offending object sitting there smugly, miles from your bonnet. How frustrating.

And that's it really. I keep going back to the game, thinking it can't be that bad. Maybe I've just been unfair. Maybe, once you get into it after you've got used to all the frustrating peculiarities and learned just how far from the other cars you need to be, it all comes to life and becomes playable. After all, the 16 bit Test Drive took a bit of getting used to. But I doubt it. If you're buying a racing game this Christmas there must be at least seven better ways to spend your cash.

THE COMPLETE YS GUIDE TO DRIVING GAMES

It's strange but true - normally courteous YS readers tend to turn into homicidal maniacs once they get behind the wheel of a Spectrum. We sent JONATHAN DAVIES, who still hasn't managed to get that wretched helmet off, to find out why.

It's an expensive business, driving. Not only do you have to hand out piles of dosh to actually get a car, but there are loads of 'hidden costs' thrown into the bargain' too. For a start, you've got to get it insured (in case you crash), which means serious sponds for your average Spectrum owner Then there's road tax, servicing, MOTs, petrol, all sorts of things. And, if you want to keep up with the latest fashions, you'll want to purchase a few 'extras' as well, ranging from simple '-TURBO-' stickers for the back window to alloys, buckets and twin cams. And they all mean spending lots and lots of money.

So wouldn't it be nice if you could get your Spectrum to sort of 'pretend' was a car, allowing you to zoom about to your heart's content for minimal outlay instead? Well, actually you can! Yes, all you need to do is buy a suitable driving game, load it up and you've got yourself a set of wheels.

It'll be almost exactly the same as driving a real car except that you can crash as much as you like without having to worry about your no-claims bonus. And you'll be able to choose from all the latest posh sports cars like Porsches, Ferraris and Lotuses and drive them as far and as fast as you like without having to splash out on a drop of petrol! (In fact, because driving games are so much cheaper and more practical than real cars, it is predicted that by the year 2012 the motorcar will have become obsolete, replaced by the driving game.) The only trouble with all this is that it's a bit hard to pick up birds with a 48K Spectrum.

JUST WHAT, EXACTLY, IS A DRIVING GAME?

Mmm, knew we'd have to get round to this sometime. Well, I've had a think and come up with the following spec...

- It's got to have either a car, a motorbike or a lorry in it.

- That means no bicycles, boats, jet-skis, tanks or anything like that.

- And no skateboards either. They're crap.

Seems simple enough. It means we're including Grand Prix-type games (where you just race against other cars) and shooting ones (where you zap them) but not similar-looking ones that don't have cars, bikes or lorries in (like boat ones). Okay? Phew. I never thought it would be quite so easy.

SO HOW ABOUT THINGS LIKE ARMY MOVES?

Oh cripes. Look, just shurrup. will you, whoever you are. No, Army Moves is out, I'm afraid. It's rubbish anyway.

So let's take a look at a few examples, eh? It's worth noting that, where driving games are concerned, the ratio of crap ones to good ones is a lot higher than with other types of game (apart from football games, of course). So you can't be too careful.

RATINGS

The YS Ratings System? You don't want that old thing. No sir, over here we have the brand-new top-of-the-range 1990 model. It's turbo-charged, fuel-injected, 16-valve, super-cooled and has a full X-pack (with droop snoot). And spots. You'll be doing yourself a favour.

DRIVE
It's no good having a driving game that seems to be simulating an FSO or something. You want real power, a feeling of being at one with the road and all that sort of thing. Control responses, speed etc are all taken into account here.

VISIBILITY
Assuming you remember to clean all the dead leaves and bird turds off the windscreen before you set out, what's the view like? A thinly-veiled graphics category, in other words, but jolly important all the same.

ROADHOLDING
It may seem to have everything, but once you've set off, and you've been on the road for a while, do you relish every second that you're behind the wheel? Or do you want to keep stopping at the services? Or perhaps you'd rather just take the bus instead, eh?

FIRST-OFF-AT-THE-LIGHTS FACTOR
A competitive edge is most important where driving's concerned, both in real life and on the Speccy. So do the other cars put up a decent fight, or do they just seem to be part of the scenery (if, indeed, there is any)?

THE DUEL - TEST DRIVE II
Accolade Inc

Accolade seem quite keen on driving games, don't they? Which is a bit of a shame, as they're nearly always crap. At least, on the Spectrum they are. On things like the PC they're a lot better, and that's where Test Drive first cropped up. The Spectrum conversion is a cut-down version and, predictably, it's rubbish. The graphics are hopeless, for a start. They're all sorts of horrible colours, and there are only about two different things to see. And they give no impression of 'speed' at all (but a superb impression of 'slowness'). You're supposed to be driving either a Porsche or a Ferrari, you see, but the graphics make it seem more like a Number 29 bus. The idea is that you're meant to be racing against another chap, who's controlled by the computer, and at the same time being chased by a police car. Er, what else is crap about it? Oh yes, the collision detection, it's useless! if another car so much as appears on the screen you crash into it. In other words, it's chronic. And with so many others to see, let's waste no more time on it.