FRONTLINES

From our correspondent at the front Angus Ryall.

We have been conscious for some time that CRASH has had two weaknesses and these have been in the areas of adventure games and war/strategy games. The former problem was solved when Derek Brewster kindly agreed to write an adventure column and review the games. We are now able to overcome the second weakness - and this issue sees the start of our wargamers column put together for us by ANGUS RYALL. Angus is the Software Marketing Manager for Games Workshop Ltd. As such he brings with him his experience not only of software but also the over view of strategy games in general.

OVERVIEW OF STRATEGY GAMES

Everyone knows that wargamers thrive on 'complexity', and this is what has kept the hobby so elitist for so long. Traditional wargames/strategy games have been virtually impossible for mere mortals such as you or I to crack, and the small number of people playing them has also kept their prices ridiculously high. The arrival of home computers should have changed all that, by getting rid of the number-crunching and all those fiddly little card counters that always end up down the back of the settee. There should by now be as many decent strategy games available as adventures - but there aren't. Having just gone through a pile of strategy games I think I'm beginning to understand why. The people writing them for the Spectrum are giving the sector a bad name - it's the same old idea, of making the players bust a gut to play the game, that has kept traditional wargaming such a minority pastime. Most of these games have abominable graphics, laughable points systems, and unintelligible instructions. They tend to be long winded and very slow, and one or two are just plain idiotic. Only a couple here were actually enjoyable to play.

DODOS

These were the real pits - don't even waste your tope on copying them.

BISMARK (ASP)

You are in the South Atlantic in WWII. You have 12 battleship groups of varying strengths. You have to find and destroy the Bismark in a grid about 1 units square. It took me three minutes. Lucky maybe, but I'm not going back for another go - I've got too much sleeping to do. This comes, incidentally, from Argus Press, who publish all sorts of really naff computer magazines; but even they should know better than this.

Somewhere in the middle ground between the the disastrous and the successful comes Bismark from Argus Press Software Group.

Though the game I tried was for a 48k Spectrum, versions apparently exist for most popular home computers. Perhaps this explains why the game turned out to be fairly rudimentary - in fact pretty Basic when I came to list it. The scenario has you hunting the German battleship Bismark in the North Atlantic.

Bismark plays rather like an updated version of the schoolboy game of battleships - even the map is just the old, familiar 10x10 stretched a little bit. Ordering your ships about gets rather tedious and memory-sapping because you have to input strings of compass directions or all of them (in sequence!) before any movement on your chart becomes visible. Needless to say, this makes for frequent mistakes especially since the map gives no clue as to the identity of the different squadrons of ships. Only the one you are currently giving orders to is picked out by a flashing cursor.

However, if you manage to cope with the problems of command and control, the game itself does offer a real, if simple, strategic challenge. You have to locate the Bismark before you can destroy it but some of your battle groups are much weaker than the enemy in firepower.

If you make contact with the Bismark with these, they may well be blown out of the water before you can bring up the heavy stuff. The big battleships you command are relatively slow and if these find the Bismark, she is almost bound to outrun them.

The solution, as in the real event, is to sacrifice some of your ships and aircraft in an attempt to cripple the German battleship and slow her down, then bring in your heavy battleships for the kill. Okay as a magazine listing, but not really the sort of game I'd pay good money for.

A.S.P. Software Group
16/48K Spectrum

Seek-out and destroy the infamous Bismark using your fleet of British ships, in this latest release from ASP.

You have already lost HMS Hoods AND contact with the enemy, due to the worsening weather conditions. You command a fleet of twelve ships and must locate the Bismark, and sink her, before time runs out.

The game is played on a 20 x 15 grid, surrounded by all the relevant information required in your quest for the German menace. You have 13 game turns to locate her before she escapes or you run out of fuel.

Naturally, tactics are all-important during play, as you attempt to set up an effective search pattern. However, you mustn't spread your forces too thinly, as more than one ship is required to attack and defeat the Bismark.

Movement in each turn is limited and is performed by force number/cursor keys. Any enemy sightings are reported and displayed on the screen. If requested, attacks will be handled automatically by the computer, the combat sound-effects are quite effective too.

The program is written in BASIC and is 'Battleships' based, so it is possible that it may not hold your attention on repeated playing. Anyway this game is a good version and offers some variation on a rather standard format.