Producer: Firebird
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £5.95
Language: Machine code
Author: P. Hibbard & D. Lowe

Buggy Blast is the first of Firebird's Gold Edition games, which explains the higher price. Buggy Blast is a 3D space shoot em up of some complexity. The story goes like this: For over three centuries the planet Endra has been inhabited by the Lurgons. The key to their power is held in the Central Lurgon Corridor (Sector 8 of the game). A pilot skilled enough to gain entry to this sector and destroy 20 Lurgons will cause a power reversal that will consume the whole complex. You start, seated in your space buggy, in the impressively complex launch tube of the Mother Ship. A vidscreen lowers before your canopy and informs you of the imminent launch and the sector of corridor you will be entering. The scoring system only allows you access to the sector for which you are currently fitted and all launch procedures are fully automatic. The launch fires you down the tube and out into space, then lowers you into the 3D corridor of sector 1. The fight is on!

Buggy instrumentation includes space scanners to warn of mine jammers (see below), onboard computer damage status reports, life mode indicator, Xion phaser indicator lights and an energy counter. Your enemy, the Lurgons, have developed from defective robots and are dedicated to the task of destroying all life forms. They have developed ten sophisticated weapons systems which you will encounter singly or severally depending on the sector being penetrated. These appear in increasing numbers in the narrow corridor, firing at you and wearing down your force field. The twin lasers are aimed with the left/right up/down keys, the buggy always travelling centrally down the corridor.

A wary eye must be kept on the energy level, for when it is depleted a return to the Mother Ship is essential. This takes you back into space whereupon the Mother Ship appears in the view screen which is equipped with a docking sight. This must be lined up on the central docking tube of the Mother Ship. It is at this point that the mine jammers try and destroy you. Successfully destroying a mine jammer will bring the Mother Ship back into range for auto-docking. At this point the score is updated which determines whether you will be returned to sector 1 or sent on to the next level. Naturally enough life gets harder with each level/sector!

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q/W left/right O/M up/down, X for Xion phasers, P for lasers (or the cursor keys)
Joystick: Protek, AGF
Keyboard play: well positioned and responsive
Use of colour: very good
Graphics: very good 3D, detailed, large and fast
Sound: excellent and varied
Skill levels: 8 sectors
Lives: 1 with percentage of damage
Screens: 8 sectors and several in-between screens

Buggy Blast is a Firebird Gold Edition, so I was expecting it to be a bit on the good side. The scenario is not very new, it's the robots dedicated to organic life form destruction one. I wonder if they realise that they would have a pretty boring existence if the task was ever completed? Anyway, it won't because us mega-Spectrum owners will zap em all first - that is if there was a Kempston facility. Reverting to the keyboard I found my hands a blur of activity, trying to survive in the corridors. The game was really exciting and fast moving with audio-visuals to match. I strongly recommend Buggy Blast to arcaders with hyper-fast reactions - no one else need apply here. Okay you Lurgons, just wait until I get back to the keys!

It's about time someone came out with a good, fast shoot em up - I do miss them. This game will provide hours of mindless blasting and zapping. This is what I call fun! I really must say that this game is so highly polished in 3D graphic detail. All the enemy are drawn solidly and smoothly get larger as they move towards you. Most shoot em up games don't have a very strong objective to them, but this one has a definite objective, a goal to go towards, it doesn't just get harder and harder and harder like Space Invaders used to, although I'm not saying it's easy by any standards. Explosions must be some of the best around, very zappy, very neat. Sound also is incredibly good for a one channel sound chip, and not a very capable one at that - excellent. It must be among the noisiest shoot em up games ever produced. I have no quibbles with this game whatsoever, and I'm sure it will satisfy anyone who loves pure shoot em up type games. Well worth the money.

Buggy Blast is a visually elegant game with its movie-like opening and between sequences. There really is quite a lot to see and do, as the Lurgon enemy get more ferocious. The launch sequence graphics are very impressive and there is excellent sound to go with them. By not having the buggy move about in the corridors, you are left free to concentrate on firing, which is just as well! A neat touch is that your twin lasers are actually visible, and you can see them swinging about to aim on the enemy. Firebird have ensured a long play for this game by providing numerous types of enemy and several visual effects that some of the weapons produce. Throughout, the graphics and the sound are of a very high standard and all add to an addictive and very playable game.

Roger: Now as years come and go, the few remaining hairs get torn from my wrinkled scalp in abject frustration and anger at the production of games like this!

Sure, you can get them good ol' rocks off zapping orbital thingies, totalling heli-somethings and body-swerving round the occasional radiation-storm-in-a-teacup or, er, was it another orbital saucer? Your space/ground attack vehicle may well be splatting robotic mutant Lurgons with the photon laser or Xion phaser equivalent of a knuckle sandwich but, in the final analysis, you will still be playing Space Invaders. And that, if you remember, is where we all came in.

Fiddle-faddling on-screen antics lead eventually to you guiding your blastercraft down a 3D tunnel. But then it's just a matter of zapping robots and the (Kid flying saucer! Thrills ...

As we tear pages off the calendar and save for our toupees, the plot thickens in both senses. 3D graphics, programming complexities and fanciful story lines may prolong active life like any reasonable dog's dinner, but it's still the same plot and you've got to be thick if you haven't noticed. 2/5 MISS

Ross: This one's a bit like a cross between Star Wars and Time Gate. Not a bad 'shoot 'cm up' game, but not worth going 'gold' about. 3/5 HIT

Dave: The graphics are really nifty but. despite their prettiness, they don't make up for the game itself - just not original enough! 3/5 MISS

MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Firebird
PRICE: £5.95

Want an interesting space shoot out with lots of action? Then look no further!

Firebird's Buggy Blast features great graphics, good sound, multi-level play and a fairly original plot. And all for a reasonable price.

You are the pilot the space Buggy, a spacecraft specially designed for an attack on the Lurgon base on the planet Endra.

The ultimate mission is to fly along the central Lurgon corridor and destroy enough Lurgons to cause a power reversal that will destroy the entire Lurgon race!

But before you do that, you must prove yourself capable of the task by flying qualifying missions which test your skills.

After each mission, you must return to the mother ship in time to refuel and get essential repairs carried out on your Buggy. After each run, you get a Cycredit Rating - this shows your current skill level and decides which of the sectors of the Lurgon base you are talented enough to attack next. The mothership's computer automatically launches you into the right sector.

As I've already mentioned, the graphics are really nice. The launch sequence from the mothership will be familiar to all of you who used to watch Battlestar Galactica on TV.

The "corridor" is similar to the Star Wars trench - except it is inhabited by nicely drawn Lurgons, who are robot like creatures, and other hazards.

Lots action, lots of variety and plenty of fun! My only criticism is that Buggy Blast isn't joystick compatible which means lots of finger-tangling moments!

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
CONTROL: Keys
FROM: Firebird, £5.95

At last - a really good 3D shoot-'em-up on the Spectrum. None of that nonsense about guiding twee little animated creatures around cutesy nightmares collecting pieces of china to put on your mantlepiece. No, this game is about surviving the evil Lurgons, a 'virulent robotic life-force' infecting the planet Endra. And there's only one way to do that - kill with skill.

You are in control of the Buggy, a space and ground attack vehicle armed with Photon lasers - guns controlled by the four direction keys - and Xion Phasers, which are powerful bombs.

You start your mission in the womb of the mother ship. This is a very pretty graphic sequence with all sorts of colourful gizmos twinkling and flashing. The Buggy's dashboard displays instruments and readings, some of which give you useful information.

After taking on some gas you zoom into the wastes of space and head for the planet. On the ground you find yourself in a special trench, dug by highly-skilled Lurgon navvies. You move along it at impressive speed with oily smoothness.

First opponents to give you trouble are the Lurgons themselves. These green or yellow robots, very sharply defined, lurk at the sides of the corridor and shoot at you. You shoot them back - if you can swing your Buggy in time.

Still in this first sector you have to cope with Helibombs, which hover around and do nasty things, Orbital Saucers, which come whirling down the corridor like manic frisbees and Orbital Doomships, whose name is selfexplanatory: if you don't hit them it's game-over time.

The game has eight sectors in all, with more evil problems added in each one. Not that it's easy to confront them: on each run you must earn a minimum number of Cycredits before you can progress to the next sector.

Once you think you've got enough of this currency you can return to the mother ship to stock up on energy. The trouble is that between you and the ship are the Mine Jammers - they hang around and frighten mummy away. The number of jammers depends on the frequency figure displayed at the left of the Buggy's dashboard. If this low - 1 to 3 - there aren't too many. If it's high you could be a long time trying to get back.

On the higher levels of Buggy Blast, the player comes up against some really fearsome adversaries. Time Dimensional Spinners whirr around furiously - you've got to stick them with a Xion Phaser as they stop their noise.

Argon Magnets upset your Crystal Converters: you have to jump over them or die. Radiation Storms make it very difficult to see, while Reverse Time Zones do funny things with your temporal adjustment. Buggy Blast is not an easy game to do well on: it will take considerable practice to earn enough Cycredits to reach the higher levels.

Graphics throughout are excellent and the sound provides a good range of explosive noise. Control is keys only and can be a bit finger twisting, but it is definitely worth the trouble.

Despite the title, this is nothing to do with Centipede or Moon Buggy. It's a fast, mean shoot-'em-up, featuring some of the best 3D graphics yet seen on a Spectrum.

The way the corridor scrolls toward you is 100 percent convincing - the relative smoothness and lack of flicker is astonishing.

What's more the game's been very carefully presented, with slick, colourful sequences preceding each mission. A great program.

CHRIS ANDERSON

Wow, what a 3D shoot-'em-up. It really achieves the feel that Star Wars had in the arcades as you zoom down a trench zapping left, right and above.

Marvellous characters and explosions and suitable blasting noises. THe docking sequence is a touch annoying particularly in a heavily mined area but the 3DD sequence is fantastic.

Plenty of variety in the opposition to keep you on your toes through the sectors but it's tough on the fingers without a joystick option.

BOB WADE

I like shoot-'em-ups, and with a number of different stages, this one has a pleasing amount of variety to it.

My only criticism is that you can't use a joystick with it. That coupled with the rather awkward aiming system meant you had to spend a long time practising before being anywhere near accurate enough to make satisfactory progress in the game.

Nevertheless it is well worth persevering. Great fun.

STEVE COOKE

Spectrum
Firebird
Shoot'-em-up
£5.95

Graphically pleasing little number from the BT software house, which has inexplicably missed being reviewed in Your Computer. Fly down corridors shooting at assorted robots, orbs and flying saucers.

£5.95
Firebird

This is a graphically excellent 'zap the aliens' type of game, which I found very difficult to master. One of the reasons I found it difficult was that there are no joystick options. There is a choice of two sets of keys, OWOMXP for Life, Right, Up, Down, phaser and normal fire, and the cursor keys plus X.

I personally preferred the first option, but, although the cassette tells you to remove all peripherals, I tried it with the AKG Protocol 4 joystick interface and guess what? it worked. Life became easier.

There is a lot happening in this game, different aliens attack you from all sides, and deciding which one to try and hit needs quick assessment of the relative value of each. On my first go I killed nine or ten and scored nothing! This is a full blooded program and it is quite hard to score in the early stages - it's not for those who give up easily or want a purely mindless slaughter of offending aliens.

Experienced players may find this challenge will keep them on their toes for some time.

Your task is to progress through eight sectors which are variations on the corridor flying theme, finally destroying 20 Lurgons in that sector in order to cause a power reversal which will destroy them. There are a lot of things to watch, scanner, computer, life mode, phaser lights and energy, and all the while the attacking aliens!