Nick scoffed our ratatouille!

Producer: Code Masters
Record Royalties: £9.99 cass, £12.99 disk
Author: Colin Jones

Bad vibes man, how was I supposed to know it was a hamster? My manager gave me this nice chunky sandwich for lunch, and life as a rock star is hungry work. Okay, so it did taste a bit furry, but I just thought the bread had gone mouldy! The next thing I know, the story's plastered all over the front pages of the tabloids.

Oh well, there's no such thing as bad publicity - that's what my manager reckons. And he should know, he's made me almost as rich as himself by knowing when to go on tour or release the new single. He makes the decisions round here, even arranging neat publicity stunts, although the ones in which I die are pretty naff!

Going on tour is my favourite thing: when I was a nobody, I played in pubs and clubs. Now I'm a superstar, I play in concert halls and huge stadiums and sell thousands of chart-topping records, promoted by ultra-expensive videos, featuring mud-wrestling girls with whips etc.

Life as a rock star is fun. But even though he's made me rich, I don't think my manager does an awful lot - he just makes simple, multiple choice decisions. And although he's a good laugh at times, I don't think he's really worth the dough.

PHIL [58%]

THE ESSENTIALS
Joysticks: Sinclair
Graphics: some well-drawn static pictures
Sound: some decent music
Options: manage up to four stars, chosen from a total of over 40

Ever wanted to manage your own pop group? Well after playing Rock Star Ate My Hamster any such tendencies will probably be completely squashed. Sorry, Code Masters, only kidding - this is great. What other game gives you the chance to manage groups with names such as The Non-Stop Alien Space Group and Rusty Baubles?! We are talking major weirdness here. But it was the newspaper headlines that really cracked me up. So rush down to your local computer store and buy Rock Star Ate My Hamster, if only for the silly title.
MARK [82%]

Code Masters
£9.99 cass/£12.99 disk
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies

Now we all know that the Darlings are a bunch of loveable funsters at heart. Always involved in some wacky jape, usually when a photographer just happens to be in the area. But who'd have guessed that underneath those toothy smiles and trend-setting baggy Codemasters T-Shirts lies a rapier wit capable of sending up the entire music industry in one computer game?

The proof lies in Rock Star, reputedly a last minute rewrite of the long-awaited Professional Unicycle Simulator, in which the Code Masters' unique talent is revealed. And in case you doubt their abilities in this area, fear not. Apparently they've 'play-tested this game extensively and found that the way-out sense of humour appeals very well to players.'

Cast in the role of a rock star manager, your task in this 'hilariously funny spoof on the Pop Biz' is to set up a group and, well, manage them. The first job, of course, is to select the members of your band. These load in individually, and are generously located on a separate tape, rather than the reverse of the first one. It's obviously much better value this way, especially when you consider the free Drop Dead Clive! badge and assorted stickers. And all for tenner!

The popsters at your disposal include Bill Collins, Dross, Annie Smallpox, Michael George and a host of others. Sound strangely familiar? Well actually they're all cunningly based on real-life stars, and I still can't help smiling when I think of them.

So with your group selected, it's time to plan your strategy. You have four choices from the main menu: practice (to get your group up to scratch), gig (you'll need to pick a venue and fix a ticket price), publicity (try to generate some hype in the press, with uncertain results), or gifts (buy prezzies for the band to keep them happy). If you manage to get spotted by a record label you'll also have the option of recording an album or a single. These are 100% Speccy generated, and true to life they sound almost indistinguishable.

And when you've made your choice and seen the consequences, you can, um, make another choice. (There are five to pick from after all.) But it's not all laughs. Sooner or later the top ten will be published. If your group feature in it you could be on the way to achieving platinum, the aim of the game. You'll also need to be able to master the latest lingo used in the trade. Would you sign an act that was described as 'happening', 'groovey' and 'outasight'? Or would you give them a wide berth?

Rock Star's totally brilliant humour is undoubtedly its strongest selling-point. And if that sounds appealing you'll no doubt revel in the extraordinary monotony of the rest of it. The music industry will never seem quite the same again.

Laugh? I nearly played it twice...

BARGAIN BASEMENT

Fixing a leaky tap in the basement, RICH PELLEY stumbled across a few spooky cheapies clogging up the U-bend. So here they are (damp and slightly mouldy)...

CodeMasters
£2.99
Reviewer: Rich Pelley

I felt very sceptical when I started to play this - mainly because certain other crap mags thought it was really ace when it first came out at the exorbitant price of a tenner (some even thought it was, er, funny). Fortunately, YS realised that anything David Darling claimed to be "hilariously funny" was bound to be tragic, so we gave it an appropriately crap mark. But now. for a mere three quid, perhaps it'll seem a bit better. Hmmm.

Rock Star Ate My Hamster doesn't actually have anything to do with hamsters att all - it's more to do with rock stars. The idea is to find four of the most talentless popsters available, from a group and release a crap record which everybody hates but still gets into the Top Ten and sells millions. Sounds rather like Stock, Aitken and Waterman production to me - but spookily enough, they're nowhere to be seen, so you have to manage the group en seul instead.

It's all quite simple though. Pick some stars from a selection of rather familiar names (like Bruce Springboard, Dross and Michael Gorge, oh-ho-ho), practice a bit and play a few 'gigs' here and there. Hopefully you'll get spotted by a record company who'll give you the chance to release a record, providing, that is, that none of your members leave or you go bankrupt. Certain things boost your chances of success - pulling the odd publicity stunt or buying your group prezzies to keep them happy.

All this boils down to a pretty lighthearted strategy game, with you pressing the right keys at the right time and getting about as many laughs out of it as reading a Labour Party manifesto (or, er, perhaps not). Of course, I didn't warm to it one little bit, but at a couple of quid (rather than the tenner which you'd previously have had to pay for it) I'm sure that someone out there will. And good luck to him.

Label: Codemasters
Author: In-house
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

There are two big surprises Rock Star delivers. One; it's taken so long for someone to do this sort of game. Two; it's actually quite funny.

Set in the crazy madcap spotlight world of Rock enn Rawl, Rock Star gives you the chance to become an international music management mogul. You start, as all the best managers do, without a clue about the industry. All you have on your side is an over-enthusiastic cliche sidekick Clive. And £50,000 to get you started.

First things first. What are you going to call the band, and who do you want in it? Clive always offers a name like the Tragic Doombandits which is hopelessly naff. Picking the members of the group is more tricky altogether. Flicking through a portfolio of stars, all with daft names, you must select your lovely line-up. Who will work best together? Who has big star potential? Who is a five minute wonder?

Once your line up is established it's time to rake in some filthy lucre. There's no point making the guys practice. Remember Sigue Sigue Sputnik? Top 10 hits and none of them could play a note. So once you've got together some instruments (brand new, second hand or stolen) it's time to hit the road. (Obviously you can choose to do things in a different order, and since my management skills are about as finely honed as Newsfields (yak yak) you'll want to try something else. Still, I found "gigging" damned lucrative.

Clive will give you the low down on how much venues cost to hire. Pubs are cheap, but you can't seat as many people. Stadiums are huge, but cost loads to hire. Will your newcomers be able to pull the big crowds? You can also play any number of dates (well, up to a week). If your musicians are hopelessly unpopular, word will get round quick and you'll end up playing to empty venues.

Should your ensemble be successful enough, you'll be approached by a slimy individual offering a recording deal. If the cash is okay, you can get yourself into a studio and record an album. You also get to name each track in turn, which can later be released as singles. Obviously, studio time costs lots of cash, and the more sophisticated studio you want, the more it costs.

Once you've got an LP together, you're going to have to publicise it by releasing a single - along with a video - which in turn needs to be publicised by... a publicity stunt! Mock headlines from a daily rag pop up. Some of the stunts are successful, others not. Since this part of the operation is left entirely in the hands of Clive, there's a good chance that your stars' antics will be completely unnoticed, thus wasting more cash and time.

The music which is used throughout is great. In the Practice sessions, you can even hear the band getting better the longer they try. Different combos of musos play different styles too. Not bad for a game on the machine notorious for being virtually dumb.

The graphics are perfectly fine. There are funny and recognisable caricatures of various current popsters and the atmosphere is captured well in Clive's dialogue. It has to be said though, that Rock Star is really a figure juggling, decision making game with no arcade elements at all. Still, it's a welcome change from being a space mercenary. Altogether now... I should be so lucky. Lucky, lucky. lucky.

Codemasters Gold
PRICE: £8.95
VERSION TESTED: Spec

The hype states, though not in so many words, you can be a rock star. This isn't strictly true. In Rock Star you, in fact, are the manager of a rock star. Its your job to take them from the bottom rung to a leading charting, groovy rock band like Def Leppard or Cinderella.

The first thing you have to do when forming a band is to find the various members who will make up the band. You and your sidekick, Drop Dead Clive, are pictured sitting in front of a TV set, which flashes up pictures of famous personalities like Ted 'Newsagent' Nugent and Michael 'Wacky' Jacko. It also tells you exactly how much it costs a week to keep them going. When you've chosen the right number of artistes (from a solo effort to a four piece, the choice is yours), you then choose a name that for you, sums up rock and roll in a short phrase, that brings out the entire essence of the band as well as being catchy and different. Like Def Leppard or Cinderella.

To start with, you have three basic options. You can stick the group into a studio and force them to rehearse (from one to five days). You can shove them on the road for up to a week, doing anything from pubs to stadiums (budget allowing; of course, stadiums are expensive to book for one night, and you start with only £50,000) with variable ticket prices. Or. you can go for a bit of publicity. Publicity can be either good or bad, but as Clive has a habit of pointing out, any publicity is good publicity. Unreal, of course, a stunt goes disastrously wrong, and you're left with headlines like 'Rock Star Dies in Nuclear Holocaust'. Lose all your band members this way and it's game over.

The same applies when you run out of money. The bank balance drops when you pay wages, buy equipment or book venues or rehearsal studios. It goes back up when you run a successful tour, or when your records are selling well,

Yes, you can release records. After a short while, the phone will ring and a record company will offer you a recording deal, which will either be amazingly fab or terrible. Accept it and you can record an album, followed up by the release of singles each with a video if required. Get a platinum selling album and you've cracked the game.

Easily Cods Masters best yet. Nice graphics, a good handful of interesting tunes and good use of sarcasm in the charts (Cindy Cleavage with her hit, 'Give Me back My Shirt). Fun, but due to the small number of options, a little short lived.

Amstrad and C64 versions should be available as you read this, and funnily enough, so should the Spectrum version. They all feature the same gameplay, but the C64 should boast better sound and the Amstrad version should have better graphics.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £12.99

PERSONALLY, WE PREFER GERBILS BUT A...

For a change Code Masters opted out of adding 'simulator', 'plus', 'professional' or 'advanced' to the title of this, their latest assault on the full-price market. Rock Star Ate My Hamster is most definitely one of the funniest games for a long time. It takes you into battle with the gutter press when all you want to do is manage a few crooners.

The objective is to become obscenely rich and famous (so why isn't it called 'Darlings Simulator'?), in the back-stabbing world of show bizz. Rock Star lets you experience the trials and tribulations of Cecil the manager and his assistant Clive.

Start by choosing from one to four rock stars to manage from a rogues' gallery of faces. It's up to you to name the group (if you choose to or more performers), and then it's on with the show.

Ultimately you want to get to the top of the charts. Starting with fifty thousand quid there are three choices: to practise, play a gig or get some much needed publicity. The trick is to practise as much as possible, get as much media exposure as you can and the money as well as sponsorships and record deals) should roll in. On a record deal choose titles of tracks as they're recorded and whether to release an album and/or singles - with these you can also make a video.

Do you have the skill and luck to win lucrative sponsorships and be awarded a gold disk or two? With Rock Star budding Arfur Daleys have a good chance of finding out. Tongue firmly planted in its cheek, its portrayal of the gutter press is great. At a budget price Rock Star Ate My Hamster would be a must, but still at full price it offers many hours of amusement.