With a knapsack on my back

Producer: Elite
Dual Vision: £8.99 cass, £12.99 disk
Author: Walking Circles

Way back in 1984 there was 3-D space game called 3 Deep Space. If you looked at it through the supplied spex at a distance of about 15 feet - when you could hardly see the graphics - then it almost worked. Five years later Compact Discs have arrived, household satellite TV launched and another 3-D space game released which, if you squint at it through special spex almost works at about 15 feet distance. So, unless you've a profound desire to be cross-eyed with head-splitting headaches the question is - what's the game like with the 3D off?

The scenario is that there's this evil tyrant Vadd who rules a star system of ten planets. The governments of these worlds would like to eradicate Vadd and have hired you to this. Naturally the solar system is jam packed with Vadd's ships.

In the centre of the system there's Vadd's sector. To enter it you must have a Mega Disrupter. You get one of these by collecting four normal Disrupter units of the highest value, and one variable Disrupter - obtained by flying through a black hole (a wireframe tunnel). Alternatively you can buy one by earning 8000 Megs by trading normal Disrupter units with the ten planets. For some reason the planets like to collect 'poker hands', and will pay higher than the face, Meg value of a Disrupter if it's one they need. Megs can also be spent on replenishing shield and energy levels.

Unfortunately blasting alien after alien soon becomes dull, while trading is overly difficult. The vector graphics are fine, sound is pretty good, but with little variety in its gameplay, Wanderer soon causes your mind to wander onto more interesting games.

PHIL [56%]

THE ESSENTIALS
Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: fast vector graphics, but the 3-D effect doesn't really work
Sound: Catchy 128K title tune, sparse ingame effects
Options: normal or 3-D

Initial bafflement at the apparent complexity of Wanderer soon gives way to disappointment as the gameplay proves to be nothing special. The most difficult part is trading; the instructions are terrible, and there is no on-screen help whatsoever. The space section is quite enjoyable, but soon gets repetitive, as does the game itself I'm afraid.
MIKE [57%]

Elite
£8.99 cass/£12.99 disk
Reviewer: David McCandless

Space... the final frontier... the great blackness... a span of infinite cliched nothingness. And you have the urge to zipadeedoodah your atoms across the aforementioned inky void. So far we've been subjected to the likes of Elite and Ringwars, and now here's another intergalactic space trading, alien-ionising game to contend with - Wanderer.

And it's in 3D.

But it's not your average shandy-drinking isometric effort, or indeed the normal shoulderpad-wearing vector graphic jobbies - this is the real thing. A true 3D our of your screen and into your lap experience. You even receive a pair of those zany red blue spectacles to wear while playing.

You play Wanderer, cosmic mercenary, playboy and philanderer with a reputation (when he's in orbit, lock up your daughters and your chickens). He's been hired to destroy Vadd, a sort of intergalactic space tyrant cum futuristic Thatcher figure, and his army of War Drones. One problem though - the Wanderer has already proved himself a dab hand with the ladies, but when it comes to interstellar combat he's less than impressive. So, in order to roast Vadd's butt (as it were), he has to trade and obtain enough money to buy a Disruptor, and then enter the Vadd Sector, but if he gets a Quadmag he can enter a black hole. Well, something along those lines anyway.

There are ten planets, three black holes, and numerous space sectors. These are represented on a gridded map. Your movement is restricted to one sector per go until your proficiency rating has increased. This is done by cutting great radioactive swathes through the opposition and doing it with the minimum number of shots.

When you reach a planet (after warping across the galaxy) you take control of a gun turret and have to cut a few neighbouring war drones into small, three by six, cube shaped pieces before you are allowed to trade.

The trading system is quite clever. The planet has a 'hand' of five symbols, which are basically a futuristic version of poker cards, you have the symbols you gained by vaping the enemy. The aim is to improve the planet's hand by swapping one or two of yours. An improvement runs along the lines of normal poker hands, like three of a kind, a run, two pairs and so on. The better you make a planet's hand the more dosh you make, and your goal is 8000 creds.

Space is the same as it's always been. A mass of oncoming pixels and very little else. Enemy craft enter the vacuum and can be manoeuvred on screen by consulting the two scanners. As there's no target or sights you have to align the enemy up in your imagination, pump on the fire button, and pray for the best. And if that fails then running head on into them normally does the biz.

I was very dubious about the game on the first load. The vector graphics, by today's standards, are very primitive and basic and slow. Even the trading system seemed to be beyond my grasp - not that I'm thick or anything (cough). But I was pleasantly surprised by the 3D effect - it worked quite well. Not that I was ducking and diving to avoid fragments of blasted aliens as they popped out of the screen or anything, it was just good, but it did slow the game down a bit more. Gradually though I warmed to the game, especially when I got my nodules around cosmic poker playing.

Label: Elite
Author: In-house
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

This has to be the most ridiculous combination of elements ever included in a computer game. It's the sort of thing people say on TV for a joke. There's this space hero called the Wanderer, y'see and he goes around the galaxy defeating alien bad guys by playing cards with other planets. Oh, I forgot to mention that it's in 3D too.

Let's get it straight - we're talking real 3D. You know, the sort that requires those stupid glasses which separate blue light from red. Whenever I tried to use these for TV/movie/comic examination, I just saw two images. Not so in Wanderer. I can see two images and I get a headache. No one else in the office could achieve a satisfactory effect either. Super. Scratch up a few points on the Unoriginal Gimmicks chart.

Thankfully, the 3D can be turned off.

So, foolhardy promotional gadgets aside, what of the game? Well, it's two games in one, really. There are bits that take place in space and there are bits that take place on planets. It's all frightfully exciting. The bits in space involve a little shooting. You fire at wire-frame objects that always come from the same direction. Depending how long it takes you to blow away the aliens, for that's what they are, you'll get an Ability score. The higher your score, the more exciting black holes you can explore. More of them later.

Once you've made it to a planet the cards section begins. The idea is to exchange the cards which you are dealt at the beginning of the game for those which the planet has. Things get even more mad. You have to play in order to give the planet the best hand possible. Mad? Well, in return for giving it some good cards, the planet will give you some cash with which you can buy shields and energy. I couldn't make this work. While on the Buy Shields/Energy stage the computer would beep in a "yes, alright then" sort of way, yet neither indicator bar would move. Mad.

Just to make life more complicated, the "cards" are represented by alien symbols, so you continually have to refer to the instructions. Mad.

So far as I can work out, the overall strategy you should employ (if you can be bothered) is to go from planet to planet, exchanging your very good cards for slightly less good cards, though not very good cards until you end up having shuffled the cards throughout the galaxy, collecting points and collecting Disrupter Units. A ha! This is where the black holes come in. In the black hole; a ghastly inverse-colour scheme with squares coming towards you out of the blackness (cyan actually), which you must fly through. This is where you can collect the Disrupters.

These can be exchanged for cash while on the planets. Once you've got lots of cash, you can go into the Vadd sector and confront the bad guy. I didn't get this far. I found the whole thing exceedingly mad. If you want a space game, buy Elite. If you want some sort of trading game, buy, erm, Elite.

Wanderer is a decidedly unsuccessful mish mash of games None of which work at all. Tsk.

Elite
Spectrum £8.99 cassette/£12.99 disk, C64 £9.99 cassette/£11.99 disk, Amstrad £14.99 cassette/£9.99, ST/Amiga £19.99

Wanderer, is a 3D space shoot 'em up featuring REAL 3D graphics of the blue and red specs variety on the ST and Amiga versions. As if that wasn't enough to make it stand out from the crowd, the programmers have bestowed upon it the weirdest plot this side of the Horsehead Nebula.

Not surprisingly, you play the Wanderer of the title, a space mercenary under contract to a federation of ten planets which is languishing under the thumb of the local dictator, Vadd. Your mission is to destroy Vadd and his army of wire-frame spaceships, by collecting enough cats to allow you entry into his space fortress, called the Sphynx.

Cats are now galactic currency, and earning the 8000 cats you need to enter the Sphynx is a matter of wandering (you're the Wanderer, remember) between planets and collecting playing cards. Each planet's strength is dependent on having a good Poker hand, and they will pay a pretty pussy for any good cards you can put their way. The better the hand, the more cats you collect in payment.

Interspersing the pussy Poker pastimes are the 3D battle sequences which have to be completed to allow you to move between sectors and planets. While abstract blastables whizz towards you out of the void, you have to manoeuvre your ship so as to get them in your sights, then let rip with the lasers. There aren't any tactics nor is there any fancy flying involved. Bit of a disappointment, really. The only really stimulating sections are a flight down a tunnel to pick up an extra shield, and a trip through a winding black hole passage.

The 3D effects on the 16-bit versions are, well, they're not too bad, and they do give a fair impression of things whizzing out of the screen at you. However, they do hove a couple of drawbacks. Once you've focused your eyes on the centre of the screen where the action is, reading the gauges and dials at the top of the screen means refocusing, and even then things aren't terribly clear.

The other problem lies with the VDU you're using. While he 3D effect showed up pretty well on monitors in the C+VG office, back home on my ST and Ferguson colour portable I got nothing that was really convincing even after fiddling with the contrast and colour controls.

The Spectrum version doesn't feature the 3D option, which is hardly surprising considering the colour problems which would have to be overcome. Unfortunately, the action in this version is pretty slow, which is surprising considering how well the Spectrum usually handles vector graphics.

I didn't like Wonderer much. There just isn't anything in the game to keep you coming back for more. Even the 3D gimmick doesn't compensate for the vacuous gameplay, so I'm afraid this gets the thumbs down from me.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £8.99, Diskette: £12.99
Amstrad CPC Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99
Commodore 64/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £11.99
Atari ST £19.99
Amiga £19.99

Tired of the overlord Vadd's rule, the downtrodden Confederation of Ten Planets rebel. The Confederation hires a mercenary, the Wanderer, to take on and defeat both Vadd and his space army. Like all mercenaries, the Wanderer's got to work for his Megs but isn't this a job like any other?

To confuse us all and make the reviewing process a little more difficult the 8-bit and 16-bit versions differ in their plots. The ultimate objective in both is to reach Vadd and defeat him and his minions.

The common method of play to both is to take cards between each of the ten planets engaging in a giant game of space poker, each planet having its own 'hand'. By improving each planet's hand the Wanderer is rewarded with Megs (8-bits) or Cats (16-bits). Once 8000 worth have been collected or a 'four of a kind hand' is made (8-bits only) the doorway to Vadd opens up and the final conflict begins...

As well as the poker playing planets, space pirates are out in force throughout the solar system. By destroying pirates the Wanderer's combat ability goes up, with ability increases comes the option to enter black holes and collect Variable Disrupter Units (8-bits) or Jokers (16-bits).

VDUs and Jokers dramatically increase card 'hands' when used and in turn not only accelerates the Wanderer's profits but takes him ever nearer towards opening the portal to Vadd.

A truly odd game, Wanderer relies heavily on the generally average 3-D effect to keep the gameplay going. The surreal game within is little more than a mixture of very simple space combat scenes and a weird variation on Poker.

Across all formats the game is the same with little use made of respective machines capabilities. The Commodore version suffers sluggish speed and limited colours in use. The 16-bit renditions look just like smoother, faster-moving 8-bit versions despite a good 3-D effect. Only the CPC and Spectrum versions come off any better making the best job they can of a limited idea.