Producer: Go!
Retail Price: £7.9

Tex Hex is a man of evil, living on the distant world New Texas. Though displaying wickedness to others, he himself is held in the grip of an evil spirit, Stampede, who has ambitions to dominate the planet. His intent is to revitalise ancient bones that can give him great power, but to do that he needs the magic of a captured Shamen.

Marshall Bravestarr sets out alone in this tie-in with the Filmation toy line to rescue the Shamen who was his childhood guardian, destroy Stampede and overthrow Tex Hex. But the evil pair have friends who haunt the planetary landscapes. Curs scamper along the ground, winged demons flap above, and marshall look-alikes all pose a threat. Contact with some will only slightly impair his energy levels, but others can take a life with a single shot. Even worse, large bombs can go off, leaving Bravestarr in a very shabby state.

The marshall carries a powerful side arm which can destroy most of his adversaries, earning points in the process. But the adversaries come thick and fast, and he is constantly ducking, or jumping from one building to another to avoid them. Bravestarr's firepower can be increased if he gathers the fast disappearing amulets which periodically appear in the landscape. Other amulets buy time.

There is plenty of scope for gathering information as he goes along. On entering the buildings of Fort Kerium he can ask the people there for useful hints. Bravestarr can pay for the information with money gained by selling off objects acquired on his travels.

By climbing aboard his rocket saddle, he can fly to other parts of New Texas. He can also enter caves and mines, and pick up more hints. But just over eight minutes are all that Bravestarr has in which to complete his mission.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Sinclair
Graphics: ranging from badly-drawn close-ups of people to fast-scrolling detailed town scenes
Sound: average effects add little life to the game

Bravestarr is a highly addictive cowboy/shoot-'em-up game with brill graphics and colour and plenty to do. One minute you're roaming around a Western-style town and the next you are flying through the air on a saddle rocket on the way to another part of New Texas. Getting information out of the residents of the town is quite hard at first but after a while it gets easier. There is some clash now and then but it certainly doesn't spoil the enjoyment of the game. Bravestarr is great, watch out for it.
NICK [64%]

Another licensing deal just fails to hit the mark - Bravestarr is essentially a very uninspiring horizontally scrolling shoot-'em-up. The only positive thing that can be said about the graphics is that the information is reasonably smooth; otherwise the use of colour is bland and the still shots (inside buildings) are very muddled. The scenario is pretentious: New Texas is very much like the old Texas, with a few unimaginative aliens thrown in. The action is far too repetitive and the initial play very unrewarding - controlling your character, particularly, is not flexible enough. Presentation is similarly weak: there is no title screen and a lot more attention could have been paid to detail. For example, when Bravestarr dies a grave appears on the spot - even in midair! Fans of the toys (and everyone else, for that matter) should be careful.
MIKE [38%]

You'd certainly have to be brave to walk into a shop and buy this game. The graphics are so small and jerky that they hurt your eyes. The speed at which every thing happens adds to the confusion initiated by the see-through 'adversaries'. The idea of hunting out information in bars seems great (it's even better in real life), but this town likes to keep its secrets secret.
BYM [32%]

Go!
£8.99
Reviewer: Tony Worrall

Hi ho Silver, and away we go into the sunset on a brand spanking new Go! game. Go west young man, and don't spare the horses. But if you can find a horse in this epic futuristic wild west arcade adventure you are a better man than me! Dig that groovy bit of animation as our hero 'rides' into the sunset astride his faithful, but horseless saddle. Can't they draw 'orses'?

We've had every other toy conversion under the midday sun, but you ain't seen nothing yet! Bravestarr is a down-to-earth, frenetic shoot 'em up, that relies heavily on an adventure scenario to develop the plot.

Take control of Bravestarr and use his six-shooter laser gun to decimate the followers of the evil Stampede. Along the way, certain buildings have to be entered and clues found to enable you to travel to other parts of the planet. A scroll at the top of the screen to start with only depicts two areas to explore, but as clues are found, more pictures are added to the scroll. Moving a pointer to a picture activates the phantom saddle that allows our hero to reach that area.

Sounds complicated, but it works like a shoot 'em up version of, Redhawk. And dammit, it works very well! Bravestarr is (he says, reading the advertisement blurb) a conversion of the top selling Filmation/Mattel toy/cartoon series. Can't say I have ever come across it before, but if this game is as good as the cartoon, I'll be glued to the box next time it's on. On the wild, wild west planet of New Texas (turn left at Tau-Ceti, then ask) something's a stirring. This something turns out to be Stampede and his thoroughly nasty followers. Stampede's aim is to bring to life long dead creatures that once roamed about the planet, and to use these poor creatures to his nefarious ends. To fulfil this task. Stampede kidnapped an Indian mystic called Shaman in order to utilize his magical powers.

Bravestarr, who also happens to be the Marshall of New Texas is unhappy about all this, and vows to put the damn yankee straight on a thing or two. Things may be a bit tougher than he thinks. Tex Hex, a despicable character, has joined Stampede in his fight. Tex can stand up to quite a battering before you can sling him in jail.

The action is similar to games like Cobra. Creatures attack from all sides, and in a variety of forms. Contact drains away time from the nine day limit, collision with large bombs wipes away a hefty chunk. Things are quiet at first, but your joystick will be melting after a very short while.

Bravestarr plays like a genuine arcade game. It begins reasonably tamely, but soon builds into something special. The adventure slant gives it a unique feel, and lets you have a well-earned rest in the middle of the game (if you need it). The graphics are excellent, and although the central characters are a little small, they are all animated to perfection.

Bravestarr is a voyage of discovery, and I'm glad I discovered it.

Label: Go!
Author: Probe
Price: £8.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

Oh. This sounds nice. Bravestarr is another offering from the Go! people.

Bravestarr is a western superhero from space. Confused? Well, he's in the mould of a classic square-jawed cow-poke (oo-er) and must deal with a band of low down stinkin' varmits, but instead of blasting their shootin' hands with a .22 slug, he has a laser pistol. Instead of unshaven bad guys to fend off, he has peculiar looking people in outsized baggy suits. Possibly members of Talking Heads.

Bravestarr himself is pleasingly drawn, being every millimetre the tall, dark and reasonably cleanly defined hero you would expect.

You'll find yourself under attack from the bad guys, prairie dogs and floating bits of tumbleweed. Problems occur when stacks of the things appear all at once. You simply get swamped, and can't be expected to shoot them all. Not entirely fair.

Entering any of the buildings is very uninteresting. Each location (including caverns etc) is poorly depicted with blocky graphics. A list of options (Leave, Talk, Examine) comes up on the screen and you can select one with the joystick.

Travel is assisted by jumping on a jet-saddle, when everything gets like Defender and you zoom along, getting bombarded by flying things and not having a great time.

If only there was a little more atmosphere, Bravestarr could have been an interesting game. As it is it holds no interest after the first few minutes of play.

Go! west young man.

Frontier planets like New Texas attract some pretty lowlife types, so local lawman Marshal Bravestarr (that's you) has his work cut out for him. That goes double right now, with the wise old Shaman held prisoner by evil Tex Hex and his gang. It's curtains for the Lone Star planet if you can't rescue Shaman, so you'd better get onto Hex's trail muy pronto.

You can run up and down the town's scrolling, side view main street fighting off bad guys with your trusty six-shooter, or drop into any of the town's named locations - the jail, bar or bank for instance - in search of information. Once you're inside a menu system lets you examine the place or talk to anyone there. The bar's your best bet for info, but you'll need money there - and for that you'll have to head out of town.

Climbing aboard your flying saddle, you can select your destination from the on-screen map and take to the skies. At first there's only one out-of-town location, but as you talk to people and gather clues the map starts to fill in. You'll have to blast your way through the tumbleweeds and other airborne nasties that swarm at you, and when you arrive it's another round of talk-and-examine.

There's an overall time limit to the game, and the clock can run down quite quickly if you keep taking serious hits. Tokens left behind by dead nasties can increase your rate of fire or even stop the clock briefly, but avoiding the bad guys is far too difficult. Bravestarr's a valiant effort at something new, but innovation's no substitute for playability.

Andy Wilton

RELEASE BOX
C64/128, £9.99cs, £11.99dk, Dec 87
Spectrum, £8.99cs, Out Now
Ams, £9.99cs, £14.99dk, Dec 87

Predicted Interest Curve

1 min: 75/100
1 hour: 85/100
1 day: 75/100
1 week: 70/100
1 month: 40/100
1 year: 18/100