Producer: Quicksilva
Retail Price: £8.95
Author: Gannon Design

Tucked away in an unknown fold of space is The Tube, a three-stage alien scrap-collection system rather like a massive galactic Steptoe yard. And, yes, you've flown into it.

The first area is the Transfer Zone, where your craft is drawn inexorably toward the bowels of The Tube through a nightmare of parasitic space organisms, energy whirls and debris. Your onboard lasers and smart bombs can destroy these potential destructors and earn you points - but distance and time indicators ominously chart the ship's progress toward the end of this zone... and the beginning of real danger.

The Transfer Zone leads into the horizontally-scrolling Defence Mechanism Tunnel. Here your ship can slow down, accelerate and move up and down through the passageway encrusted with missile silos, energy rays, sucker darts and bombs. Any of these can end one of your three lives - and there's also the danger of crashing into the tunnel walls.

For protection your ship carries shields which can be activated at any time during the first two stages of The Tube (draining energy), and a blaster which can take out many of the dangerous obstacles on the way to the Capture Area.

In this third section, the aliens hold disabled ships and take them apart. Your ship is seen from above flying through the mechanical graveyard: by very accurate docking with the old ships you can attach fuel pipes and siphon off their energy. Some of the junked remains have decayed, though, and they're almost useless - and energy is essential to maintain your ship's shields without which you'll be destroyed.

On getting through the Capture Area you've completed one of The Tube's eight sections, and the task can begin again.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: monochromatic but effective play area
Sound: good title tune by David Whittaker

Some of The Tube's graphics aren't very good, but the Capture Area is effective if somewhat jerky. The Transfer Zone's 3-D effect doesn't quite work because objects come from the far background into the near foreground too quickly and the Defence Mechanism Tunnel is too long (though it's good fun at first).
MIKE [59%]

It's not really much like the TV series, is it? I mean, where are Jools, Paula and Muriel? But seriously [The Tube suffers from some big flaws. The first is the inlay, which claims 'astonishing' graphics; really they're unoriginal and crudely animated. All three stages are unplayable and boring: the first two are too easy, and the third only presents a challenge because it's unplayable. The tune and sound effects are the only good points of The Tube.
PAUL [33%]

Nice graphics, shame about the game - not that it's especially poor. it's just not interesting for long. The graphics are good, particularly the backgrounds, and there's a decent title tune, more game sound would improve play, though.
MARK [49%]

Label: Argus
Author: Martin Gannon
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Graham Taylor

Argus is not taking any chances with The Tube.

In the various sections of the game you get to play just about every arcade game genre you can name.

It begins with a section that looks suspiciously like Twister Mother of Charlotte (remember that!!!), stage two looks like Scramble and the final main section is like, well, like games where you view a spaceship from above and guide it over a planet surface. Each section is played under a time limit and you have to play through each section each time. There is even an sort of bonus screen which is quite amazingly like the sort of quick-thinking logic games Hewson likes to incorporate in its products. is all this bad? Probably not.

The first section is probably the least interesting and as such is badly placed from a 'first impressions' point of view. You seem to be travelling into the screen through a grid-like structure towards the tube at the centre of the screen. Towards you rush assorted aliens and fireballs wizzing from one corner of the screen to the other and generally threatening to smack straight into your cockpit window.

The problems with this section are, first, it is impossible to die - only your energy and score levels are affected and, second, graphically it is none too hot.

Section two is better. It's like that age old coin-op Scramble. For those who don't remember it, Scramble works like this: your spaceship moves left to right through a system of caverns, whilst simultaneously guiding your ship up and down to steer your way through between the twisting walls of the cavern whilst dodging assorted missiles which float up and/or down from the cavern walls.

In The Tube's own particular Scramble variant your way is sometimes blocked by a vertical laser that must be blasted away before you can travel on further. It isn't astoundingly difficult and would be easy if you weren't still on a time limit. The graphics are nothing special, though good enough. There is an attempt at the kind of relative scrolling you see constantly on the C64 but here it's OK but nothing too special.

What happens in the third section depends on your performance in the first two.

The third section is the catchment area and it is your chance to boost the energy level of your ship by looting other ships for energy diamonds. How many ships you find in the catchment area is a function of your joystick (keyboard) control, your score level and your energy level from parts one and two.

It works like this: you view your spaceship from above steering it over a planet surface looking for grounded ships. The steering aspect is not too difficult but, as ever, you can't afford to waste time. On finding a ship you line up with it exactly, nose to nose. Then a docking rod extends from the front of your ship to the other. This leads you to what I will refer to (with no suggestion of rip-offness intended) as 'the Hewson bit'. In order to get the crystals (if there are any - some ships are barren) you need - within yet another time limit - to trace two circuit lines from their point of origin to the 'win' gate.

To actually win the game you need to amass an energy level which will require the successful looting of at least four energy crystals.

Curiously for such a bitty game the whole is greater than the sum of its parts - the way the performance in one level relates directly to what happens on other levels links the game together nicely and I found myself playing it more than the individual averageness of the particular sections might suggest.

Take note though, I found it fairly easy to get through all the sections once so if you're a joystick wizz kid you may not find it enough of a challenge.

MACHINES: C64/Spectrum/Amstrad
SUPPLIER: Quicksilva
PRICE: £8.95 (Spec), £9.95/£14.95 C64
VERSIONS TESTED: Spectrum/Amstrad

It would be SO good to say something nice about a Quicksilva game for a change. So I will. The music on both versions of this new multi-game game is great. David Whittaker has done a masterly job.

As for the game itself - well I'm afraid that it wouldn't keep your interest very long even on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Let's take a look at the scenario.

Your objective is to survive a journey through the alien scrap collection system known as The Tube. In order to do this you must plunder the energy from those ships less fortunate than yourself which are stored in the Capture Area ready for the next alien dust cart to collect them. Energy is essential, although your shield will give your ship reasonable protection, energy will be drained whenever shields are used or a collision occurs.

Shields consume energy at an increased rate, so should be used sparingly, until you enter the Capture Area where their activation is automatic.

If, whilst you are in or when you try to enter the Capture Area, your energy levels become insufficient to operate your shields the mission will be instantly terminated.

The Tube comprises eight segments each consisting of three zones, the Transfer Zone, the DMT (Defence Mechanism Tunnel) and the Capture Area, designed to trap even the most skillful of pilots.

The first area is the Transfer Zone, which is designed to capture space vessels, sustain and draw them into the main body of The Tube.

The Transfer Zone is basically a duck shoot game - a cursor type sight has to be lined up on targets. The Commodore version has an interesting "moving window " effect not found on the Speccy game.

This part rapidly gets boring after a couple of games as you always survive it and you begin to wish you could skip directly to the next part of the game, the DMT.

This is an easy Scramble-type game with some distinctly slow scrolling. At the start of each DMT level the shuttle streaks along out of control towards a couple of hazards allowing you to take control just in time to avoid them the shuttle waits for the scrolling to catch up!

Next up is the capture area which features a top view Slap Fight type screen. You have to drive your shuttle about in search of other ships to gain energy.

The graphics on the 64 and Spectrum versions strangely don't look very different and some play is similar in both versions.

Overall The Tube is a mishmash of ideas taken from other games - which is no bad thing IF they come together well. In this case I have to say they don't.