Producer: R&R Software
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £7.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Paul Hill
Music: Rare Breed

There have been recent programs out which have combined arcade with adventure games, ones like Phoenix's Dodge City, where you must complete the arcade game in order to play the adventure; and of course there have been arcade adventures like Atic Atac. Adventures tend to have a strategical element in them, but R&R are probably the first software house to come up with a multi-stage game which is both strategy and adventure in the accepted sense.

The game is split into three stages. The first is also the shortest and involves trying to raise sufficient finance to mount a search to locate the wreck of the famous Titanic ocean liner which sank on its maiden voyage on April 14, 1912, after striking an iceberg. The scenario suggests that a fabulous fortune in gold went down with the ship, and that's what you're out to recover. Initially you are presented with a menu of 15 institutions whom you may approach for finance, and the idea is to get the best deal you can. Each contract, if accepted, restricts you to finance from that institution only. The initial sum of money is given as an advance, with further sums to be awarded if you discover a wreck.

Having selected a backer and signed the contract by entering your name, it is time to spend the money on essentials. A NASA Satellite Photo (infra red) shows all large objects below the surface; you need food and supplies at a cost per day; you need teams of expert divers; and you need repair kits (quite a few actually), Once you have spent your allocation you may put to sea.

Stage two presents a map of the North Atlantic with coloured blocks representing events. You only get this if you have purchased a NASA photograph, as the blocks are large objects below the surface of the sea. These may be the sites of wrecks or icebergs. Hitting an iceberg may result in sinking, but strikes can as often be repaired if you have sufficient kits. If a wreck is reported your financial backers will probably give you another advance and you have the option of ignoring the siting or sending a team of divers down. Once they dive, the message screen reports on their progress - it's dark down there - is the wreck the Titanic - or will they be killed? Your backers are understandably disinclined to come up with a further advance on sitting a second wreck, if you've already lost one team of divers!

Discovering the site of the Titanic's last resting position switches you into stage three, the exploration. You are only able to explore one level at a time, and there are three. A simple 3D line drawing above the text shows the location. Commands do not have to be entered. The possible directions and location description are all combined. Pressing the desired direction key causes an instant response and carrying out of the command. Ideal locations to find are the service rooms on each deck, as these have deck plans of the ship. With something like 170 locations per deck, the plan is a valuable help. There are several types of hazard down there, and losing a team of divers can be catastrophic if you only have one left and not enough money to get back for another team.

COMMENTS

Control keys: cursors or N/S/W/E move the ship
Joystick: Protek, AGF
Keyboard play: responsive and simple with on-screen prompt. The ship moves slowly, but this avoids over-reacting
Use of colour: sensible, well used
Graphics: good text panels, generally good
Sound: not much, but try the rock single on the reverse!
Skill levels: 1
Features: good song by Rare Breed on tape, Currah compatible

With 17 located possible sites (courtesy of NASA) and most of them being icebergs or lethal World War 2 wrecks, finding the last resting place of the Titanic can be very frustrating indeed, and take some time and several goes. Each time you try the blocks change place and what they represent is randomly selected, so experience is only gained in how to use your money for buying supplies, etc. I found the most useful items were the expensive repair kits - hit an iceberg without one and that's that. The adventure, when finally reached, is quite straight forward, and I missed some atmospheric descriptions. On the other hand it makes up for it by the enormous number of locations to be searched, and there is still the strategy element in using your diving teams to their best advantage. Mine got crushed by a collapsing deck - they were only my fifteenth team...

It's nice to see R&R Software as a possible institution to approach for money! My first go at the game they offered the biggest sum of money on the board in return for buying all their games for the next five years! Second try, and they just said, "Sorry!" No reflection, l hope, on my skill as a marine salvage expert! Stage 1 does require a bit of careful planning and thinking, in spending your advance money. A NASA photo is essential, but leaves insufficient funds to easily purchase both enough diving teams and the essential repair kits - in this game the North Atlantic looks like a Scotch on the rocks, all of ice cubes! The adventure part is fun, although for a long time it seems like you are just going round in circles, and unless you come across a deck plan, it's sensible to keep a drawn map going. R&R say that anyone finding the gold should donate some to their programmers' retirement fund. The song on the reverse side of the tape is very good. I thought Titanic was quite an interesting combination of games.

The graphics are all very dear and well laid out, with instant response times on the adventure. The graphics are quickly built up, most being outline drawings. It's fun to play, but I felt the adventure hadn't got quite enough going for it to be totally compulsive, and it turns more into a watery exploration without the relief of interesting location descriptions. This one's quite a good family game.

Memory: 48K
Price: £7.95

On April 14, 1912 the Titanic sank taking a reputed fortune in gold to the bottom of the sea. In the game from R & R Software, your mission is to find the wreck and to recover the gold.

To start you have to raise finance for the trip and then buy your supplies. That follows the strategy type of game where the first time you play it is rather like pot luck but subsequently you learn what is useful and what is not. Next you have to find the wreck. If you have the NASA map from the first section that will help as otherwise you may suffer the same fate as the Titanic.

Once you have found the wreck you move on to the last section of the game - finding the gold. Each of the three levels on board contains more than 150 locations and your divers must explore them. Their time is limited and if they are not careful they may meet creatures from the deep.

Titanic tries to be a jack-of-all-trades and cover as many different types of game as possible but in the end is master of none. The response times are slow, being predominantly Basic, and too much reliance is placed on random factors.

The Adventure begins. Or so says the cassette inlay. In fact, Titanic for the 48k Spectrum is not really an Adventure, but a strategy game. I always thought that a strategy game contained an algorithm that allowed the player who had developed a sound strategy to win, give or take a bit of luck.

Titanic thrives on a very hit and miss approach. To begin with, you must raise enough cash to finance an expedition to find the sunken wreck and find and recover gold that was on board.

This is quite fun, for there is a selection menu of 15 likely sources on finance and you must gamble, to a certain extent, on which will offer you the most. I found a publishing company that was being quite generous (could it have been EMAP??!) so I took advantage of their offer of £240,000.

I then went shopping for same NASA photos of large objects in the search area, expert diving teams, repair kits for the ship and supplies.

The next part of the game involves shifting your ship around the sea by using direction keys and it jumps about 0.5 centimetres per time. If you have been wise enough to purchase a photo, about 17 pink spots mark the sea at the positions of large objects. On arrival at one of these, the chances are that you will have run straight into an iceberg. Even though you knew there was something there, there was no means of detecting whether to plough on regardless, or approach with caution.

Should you be lucky enough to detect a wreck below you, you may then ignore it or send down a diving team. Of course, it is quite likely to be an old wartime ship that explodes and takes your diving team with it.

If and when you eventually find the Titanic, then it must be explored (limited air supply) to find the gold. The Titanic has four floors which for some peculiar reason are arranged as a maze. All is not lost, though, for a map is available to view in some of the rooms. There are more hazards down there to avoid - well, you can't actually avoid them so much as just come upon them and hope that the random fate that awaits you is favourable.

To me, this made a change from Adventure. It could have made a good strategy game too, had the whole business not been so dependent on luck! As there is very little scope for planning your strategy, neither the description of strategy or Adventure would seem to apply.

Titanic is for the 48k Spectrum from R&R Software, priced £7.95.

WRECK RAISING

MICRO: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £7.95
FORMAT: Cassette
SUPPLIER: R&R Software, 5 Russell Street, Gloucester, GL1 1NE

Titanic is a Strategy-Adventure game with a novel, or is it naval, scenario. Once you have experimented with the strategy element, in finding a generous sponsor and selecting the best way to distribute your cash between the very essential repair kits and diving teams, the first phase of the adventure game begins. Unfortunately, this is where the random generator factor raises its ugly head in a game which is all too often over dependent upon the RND function.

On screen, courtesy of a NASA photo-survey of the North Atlantic, are 16 squares randomly placed in each game. Only one is the Titanic the rest are, at best, spurious shoals of fish or, at worst, either icebergs, which consume an expensive repair kit, or a World War II wreck which detonates and destroys your (even more expensive) crew.

Once you have hit your twentieth wreck, the same boring message of its discovery gets somewhat stale. Effectively, in this stage of the game, all you have to do is plough across the screen with the cursor keys, trying to stumble over the one correct square, before you run out of supplies, divers or kits. If you do run out of any, its the end of the game as simple as that.

Assuming you do strike lucky, as you will about one game in three, you will be rewarded with the chance of exploring the wreck of the Titanic for gold. The game now reduces to a logically mapped maze, consisting of nearly 500 locations across three decks. Twelve of the locations contain part maps of the ship. The idea of such a plot is inventive, a pleasant change from caves, deserts and misty mountains, but the game is terribly stilted as the only course now open is to wander through the ship hoping to stumble first on the maps, then on the gold, before your supplies run out.

There are none of the challenges or need for lateral thinking as in more orthodox adventures, with the monotony only broken by rare high-resolution pics of crabs and sharks which are beaten off with no effort on your part.

An interesting idea, but this game is less seaworthy than the Titanic itself. By the way, the B-side of the tape offers music by Rare Breed, which is actually worse than the game!