Producer: Rabbit
Memory Required: 16K
Retail Price: £5.99
Language: Machine code

The Birds is a simple and straightforward shoot em up more in the tradition of 'Galaxians' than Phoenix'. Your laser base can move left and right while three types of bird hover, flap and sweep down on you. Points scored relate to the bird hit. Each of them drops bombs, and you can score points for hitting those. Additionally, a duck flies across the top of the screen from time to time, and you get most points for hitting that. Most of the birds have a habit of turning into a falling bomb when hit, which makes it necessary to have a good 'getaway' technique.

COMMENTS

Control keys: 6/7 left/right, zero for fire
Joystick: Sinclair 2
Keyboard play: reasonably fast
Colour: reasonable
Graphics: just average, bit jerky
Sound: reasonable
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 3

The colour is reasonable and graphics quite good, if a bit jerky. The bird characters are animated by two frames and might have looked smoother with three. There's plenty of sound too, the chattering of birds, but it is all a bit clicky. There's not enough to it to be really addictive.

I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone who has a decent collection of shoot em up games, because it is only average. This sort of game has been done to death and done much better. Only the trick of dead birds turning into bombs makes it even playable. The program itself is quite adequate, but the game and its details are so out of date now.

I didn't think this was particularly challenging. You've got to be much more original with the plot twists today If you want to put out a 'Galaxian' type game, and this one just doesn't have any new angles at all. It's fun to play for about four minutes.

Producer: Rabbit, 16K
£5.99 (2)

This is a straightforward shoot em up with a left/right moving laser base and three types of birds which hover, flap and sweep down on you. Points scored relate to the type of bird hit and for hitting the bombs which all three types drop on you. Additionally, a duck flies across the top of the screen from time to time. The birds have a nasty habit of turning into bombs when hit, which makes it necessary to have a good 'getaway' technique. Reasonable graphics if a bit jerky and plenty of sound. General feeling was that there's not enough in this game to make it very addictive or a better buy than most established shoot em ups. Simple control keys, joystick: Sinclair 2, overall CRASH rating 49% m/c.