Producer: US Gold
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £7.95
Language: Machine code

Our hero Buck has, up till now has been forced to fight his way off the planet of Zoom from within the confines of the CBM64. Now that's all changed. Buck is ready to grace Spectrum fed screens. Buck Rogers and The Planet Of Zoom, to give it its full title is a pretty straightforward shoot em up. The game is divided according to the insert into 5 levels of 5 battles. The first three battles are fought across the planet's surface, the flat part of which resembles the freshly cut grass at Twickenham, except that the horizontal stripes flash from one lurid colour to another giving the impression of forward movement. Your ship sits in the lower half of the screen and is able to move left or right and, to give the effect of changing altitude, a little way up and down.

The electron posts are a hazard common to the first three battles. They look a little like rugby posts without the crossbar but with wire hoops around each. The first battle has only electron posts looming out from the distance. Ten little triangles at the top of the screen tell you how many posts must be negotiated before you can reach the next screen. Round two requires the removal of sixteen triangles but this time, enemy ships count as well as the posts. Two types of craft can be destroyed: wield, sproingy Space Hoppers and Saucers. Destroying each loses you one little triangle and gets you 400 points. For the maximum points, try and fly through all of the posts because they are worth 500 points a time and with good reason. The third battle is pretty much the same but this time without the hoppers so more saucers. These guys are unpleasant simply because they have a nasty habit of coming at you from behind as well as from the front. If you clear the eighteen triangles you move off into space where you must destroy a wave of 20 saucers, again a lot of the little creeps are sneaking up from behind. Your final task is to destroy the mother ship, a pretty monstrous thing that must be hit dead centre. Not so easy while it keeps firing nasty little missiles at your ship.

Now that you have managed to destroy the first mother ship you will be awarded an extra life to help you on your way through the next four levels. While you are avoiding fatal collisions with posts and aliens you must bear in mind that each one of your 'lives' has a limited fuel supply. No matter how well you fly, sooner or later your ship will drop out of the sky so be aggressive and keep an eye on the fuel bar at the top of the screen. The Planet of Zoom is depending on you.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q to P and Y to T left/right, 1 to 0 and A to L up/down, Z to M to fire.
Joystick: Cursor type, Kempston and Interface II
Keyboard play: very good
Use of colour: a bit too vivid at times
Graphics: neat but not outstanding
Sound: good fire sound but little else
Skill levels: 6
Lives: 4 plus extra given
Screens: 5

This really is a pretty easy game to play. I managed to score 220,000 after only a few goes, though I admit getting the maximum score by flying through ALL of the posts is herd. Very soon you realise that every level - there are in fact at least six, not five as the leaflet says - are all the same. The enemy appear in exactly the same pattern each time, and pretty soon you can line yourself up for a kill before the target appears. The vivid colours used for the display can get painful after a while. I didn't understand why the fuel bar was labelled 'time', that doesn't make much sense. The insert that came with the game was not only inaccurate but contained some pretty stupid sentences eg. 'If you fly out side the Electron posts after level one, you are likely to be hit by Electron posts.' The leaflet also claimed that the game became harder with each level; not true. That aside it's not such a bad a game if you take it for what it is; an easy though playable shoot 'em up.

Buck Rogers is the sort of game that will be played for scores only, a little like the early arcade games. The graphics are bright and neat but nothing very special and do tend to flicker a bit. The game is playable but not really addictive and I found the Mother Ship to be something of an anti-climax.

Who remembers Blade Alley by PSS? I did a CRASH back on it in issue 15. Well this is essentially the same game, all US Gold have done is to get rid of a few screens and change the graphics a bit. The shadow underneath your ship is a nice touch except that it does not change size when the ship moves up and down. Another point which I found strange was the time limit which is referred to in the insert as 'fuel'. On the whole the game is very easy, so it presents no challenge and, as we all know, a game without a challenge is neither addictive nor playable. I really think that US Gold are scraping the barrel a bit with this one. To the best of my arcade playing knowledge 'Buck Rogers' was always the empty machine that nobody seemed to want to play.

Rick: I cut my arcade teeth on cosmic combat capers such as this so I wasn't too impressed with (yet) another Space Invaders clone - even if it is in sort of 3D. Still, for any star pilots out there with L-plates on your joysticks there's a certain nostalgic charm about fighting your way through the different levels of combat before the Final Frontier is reached and the ultimate confrontation with the Death Star (oops! sorry Mother Ship).

The game offers whizz bangs a plenty in the end but the generous fuel supply, a benign assortment of hoppers and saucers that rarely zap and never go into hyper space, won't leave you sweating at the controls. Buck's own ship has the manoeuvrability of a camel train but providing you can ride a bike through a barn door you should learn to save the Planet Zoom and enjoy a Cornetto at the same time. And beware the graphics - tacksville. This is no Zoom with a view but a planet covcred with your Mum's kitchen lino.

Though I had it sussed in the time it takes Connors to question a line call, I still had plenty of good wholesome fun purging my blood lust annihilating aliens. 3/5 HIT

Roger: The usual flash yank space-bother. Presumably Mr Rogers was just earning a quick Buck before taking on more dastardly foes. 2/5 HIT

Ross: Not up to the usual US Gold standard but still equal to all the other look-alikes. 2/5 HIT

Publisher: US Gold
Price: £7.95
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Cursor

One of the most uninspiring games ever has just been released by US Gold.

Buck Rogers - who is he, anyway? - has been licensed from Sega and part of the game adapted for the computer. No doubt US Gold has tried to be faithful to the arcade version, but surely the graphics could be more detailed. After all, the original is a couple of years old with graphics of the Space Invaders era.

You start by skimming forward across the surface of Planet Zoom. In the first tedious screen electrified portals appear. Just fly through 11 of those and onto section two.

Next fly through the posts and kill off numerous alien saucers and space hoppers. There are five sections in each level, increasing in difficulty. Finally you reach space where assorted aliens and the mother ship must be blasted. At level two, the whole sequence starts again.

Planet Zoom consists of lines of colours receding to the horizon. Those with mono sets may count themselves lucky. In colour a revolting pink and crimson form the lines and in level two, a brilliant blue and red. No doubt level three is as horrible.

In short, there are better things to spend your money on.

PRICE: £7.95

A nightmare scene. You are crossing a zebra crossing when suddenly it starts scrolling towards you. Suddenly it changes to shades of lurid pink. Then the aliens start raining down. You shoot faster, and faster and, suddenly the mother ship appears. It is awful, it is hideous, it is Buck Rogers and the Planet of Zoom.

The game divides into five sections. You steer your ship through gateways moving towards you, then aliens have to be shot down while you dodge the gateways. These are followed by more aliens, then you are transported into space to attack more aliens and destroy the mothership.

Once this uninspiring sequence is complete, it begins again only, this time, the landscape is made up of a new, hideously bright, combination of colours.

Your ship is well represented on screen, swooping and gliding from left to right. Other graphics are crude, and the landscape is eye strainingly awful.

Buck Rogers is a straightforward shoot 'em up with little to recommend it. Produced for the 48K Spectrum by US Gold, Unit 10, Parkway Ind Cent, Heneage St, Birmingham.