Producer: Firebird
Retail Price: £2.99
Author: Clive Brooker

Remember your days of model-car racing, when Dad trod accidentally on the carefully-laid track on the carpet, Mum thought it all made too much noise and the dog did himself irreparable intestinal damage by eating up a car?

Well, forget them - now you can chase an opponent's vehicle around a racetrack, in hot pursuit along a series of roadways full of angularities and doglegs. all shown in bird's-eye view.

The cars' positions are shown on an overall map, and the area immediately around you is displayed on a split upper screen.

You can block an opponent's route by releasing a boulder, and along the chaseways are flags which can be collected by touch and are worth at least 100 points each.

Should the established track's attraction ever pall, then you can create up to five others by manipulating roadway sections on a design screen.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: jerky but distinctive
Sound: good 128K tune,
Options: the construction set is good, though a little difficult

War Cars is incredibly simple but extremely compelling - to begin with. The appeal starts to wear off when you realise that the maze layout doesn't change once you've collected your six flags; it's a good thing there's a roadway designer or War Cars would get really boring.
BEN [68%]

War Cars has the looks, sounds and ideas of the same authors One Man And His Droid and other such games, the only important difference being that here you can construct your own roads. The screen display is neatly set out and the roads overlap nicely, but the title screen is a mite overcrowded and the scrolling menus make it worse.
NICK [50%]

There are mounds of cheapies on the racks this Chrimble, some good, some indifferent and some terminally pitiful. We asked the Joystick Jugglers for their thoughts (the printable ones, at least) on some of the more recent offerings...

Firebird
£2.99
Reviewer: David Powell

"Grand Prix championship and stock car rally combined"? Nah, it's more of a maze game, with you competing against the Speccy to reach the target first. The game's only as good as its layout, and luckily you can make your own. It's all quite fun for a while, but there's little variety. Anyone for Scalextric?

Label: Firebird
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

Not being particularly excited by 'real' slot car racing, I had to make a special effort in order to look at War Cars with an impartial eye. I really wish I hadn't bothered.

War Cars (originally titled Car Wars, then changed for reasons best known only to Firebird and the licencees of other games or films no doubt) has two elements. There's the race, where you and a drone car hammer (well, pootle really) around a circuit collecting flags for points and getting lost. The other bit is the Construction Set, where you can design your own racetrack. Just like Virgin's Scalextric really. It's all fairly harmless although immensely boring. There's nothing at all to retain the interest of anyone except the most avid slot-racing fan. Think of all the other things you could spend three quid on.