Over the past few months, CRASH has tended to neglect the cheaper end of the software market - the ninety-niners - in favour of critical comment on all the full-price games. So in an effort to cover every single piece of software available for your Spectrum, CRASH has decided to introduce a new section, devoted entirely to budget software (games up to £5.00 in price); Budget Bureau. Each month, we'll pick out and feature our favourite cheapies, anything with 80%+ will receive a CRASH House Hit award! Each game still has its own overall rating (in brackets), so there shouldn't be a problem choosing the best games to buy. Only Blackbeard gets a House Hit this month. Read on, read on...

Wot no simulators? Code Masters have just released two games at the new higher price of £2.99. Ninja Massacre (45%) is a no-nonsense Gauntlet clone. One or two players explore up to fifty levels of a monster-filled dungeon, searching for treasure and magic potions. Gameplay is okay and there's a nice in-game tune, but if you want a Gauntlet game, you'd be better off getting the rereleased original, available from Kixx at £2.99.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

Yes it's Marcus Berkmann again, rootling around in the lucky dip for all the latest cheapoid games. And what did he pull out? A bunch of bargains no less!

Code Masters
£1.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann

I haven't seen the inlay for this one but no doubt it'll say something like "The greatest Gauntlet-type game since the Jurassic Age," says previously unknown cousin Archibald Darling". In fact it's a very low grade Gauntlet rip-off, with features unashamedly nicked from most of the cleverer variations on that game - Eagle's Nest and so on. It's perfectly well programmed, but then it would be, as it's been done 3,450,000 times before. Utterly wretched.