Producer: CCS
Retail Price: £8.95

This latest game from CCS takes a little-exposed conflict between the British and the Zulu tribes towards the end of the nineteenth century for its scenario, which I can't help welcoming as a change from the endless re-enactments of the Second World War which, after four months of editing Frontline, are beginning to make me feel as if I'm trapped in a recurring time loop.

On the other hand, there's little point in novelty for its own sake. Each game must stand on its own merits, independent of previous releases. Zulu Wars uses its scenario to work some interesting and novel elements into the gameplay, and with two separate programs, one on either side of the tape, it would seem to offer value for money too: but it's let down, as far too many wargames are, by shoddy unprofessional programming.

There are two scenarios which must be loaded separately, and one - the easier, Umlalazi - is based on a battle which just might have happened, but didn't. Although I'm all for speculative wargaming, this suggests to me that the potential of the historical material is limited somewhat; particularly when it turns out that the start-up conditions of the battle on the first side of the tape have had to be tweaked considerably to give the Zulus any chance at all. Zulu Wars might be more accurately titled 'Variations on the Zulu Wars'!

Still, it's an academic exercise anyway to believe that little boxes on a computer screen bear anything more than a numerical resemblance to what really happened on the battlefield, and although I'm strongly in favour of as much historical backing in the packaging as possible to assist this act of faith, an approximation is always inevitable. The leaflet that comes in the standard double cassette box describes the political situation in Africa which led up to the outbreak of the wars, and the specific conditions of each scenario, in a concise but adequate way. The Zulu Wars were caused by British imperialistic ambition in the twentieth century, or rather the curious British belief prevalent then that only they were competent to 'keep the peace' in Africa; on this occasion, between the Boers of The Transvaal and the Zulus of Zululand, which was recognised by Britain as a sovereign state. In 1879, the British moved into annexe Zululand and met a well-organised native army which, despite its strength and tactics, ended up as cannon-fodder to the technological might of the Empire. This outcome was entirely predictable and although, as I say, the balance has been un-historically redressed, this is still one of those wargames it's difficult to lose.

For reasons which become apparent once play has started, and is for once excusable, there is no two-player option or choice of side. The player takes command of the British forces, under General Chelmsford in Ulundi and Major-General Crealock in Umlalazl, against the computer, which controls the Zulus. Play takes place on a small scale, the screen representing, in curiously distorted perspectives, individual buildings and foliage on the battlefield. The units themselves are shown not as traditional, symbolic boxes but as a matrix of little stick men which dwindle, rather alarmingly, as damage is incurred.

In the first scenario the player has 13 blocks of stick men to march against the Zulus, and they're often difficult to manoeuvre through closely-placed obstacles, or indeed past each other. The clumsiness of the British movement is irritating only before it becomes apparent that it's part of the gameplay: historically, it represents the regimentation and rigid formation of the British troops, and in game terms it gives the Zulu forces an advantage to compensate for the player's superior firepower.

The units have a fixed efficiency rating and a fluctuating morale rating, and a number of movement points based on their efficiency. When each unit is highlighted in turn by the computer the name of the regiment is displayed along with a bar-chart of these simple statistics, and reference to a list in the rules gives the exact number of men in it. This list, which even tells the curious what the regiment's present designation is, is the sort of helpful, easy-reference feature that I'm always glad to see in a rulebook.

Three difficulty levels are offered, which simply determine how many hundreds and thousands of Zulus you get thrown at you. At Full Battle level the figure is 40,000 spear-waving warriors against 5,300 infantry and 900 cavalry! Once the difficulty level has been selected, the games start automatically; and so do the Impressions of tackiness and awkward programming. The player is treated to a demonstration of the appalling scrolling routine, which chums the map laboriously back and forth across the screen in the most incompetent and flickering way I've see on a recent game. But this is a wargame, not Uridium, and so, generously recognising this is trivial - a matter of aesthetics, really - the player might be annoyed to discover this ugly routine is the only way of viewing the map available. It cannot be scrolled under the player's control, only by a single keypress which gives a repetition of the guided tour.

Movement and combat for the British is combined into the same phase, and the computer selects units in turn for attention. Fortunately, a selected unit can be passed until later. The units are all crowded together and getting in each other's way at the start of the scenario, so this system becomes laborious and fiddly, but also creates an atmosphere of inflexibility which no doubt reflects the battle tactics of the British forces at the time; and the system itself is quick enough to operate once you've got used to its idiosyncracies.

All units can fire once in a round, and can engage in close combat as they come into contact with the enemy. As the game progresses, the physical size of the units diminish because of losses and this affects directly - in a visible way - how much damage they can do by firing into the Zulus. Gunfire is the player's most effective weapon against the Zulu hordes, because they have no guns themselves and so no way of retaliating in the same combat. Close combat can prove dangerous, although the British still have the advantage over the Zulus; the morale of a unit starts to decrease if they take more losses than their opponent, and the lower the moral, the more likely defeat becomes.

Once movement and combat is completed to the player's satisfaction, the return can be ended and the Zulus begin to move. This is when it becomes obvious why the game is one-player only, with no choice of sides; the Zulu movement is radically different from the British. Instead of attacking in clumsy rectangles, they swarm individually onto the screen and around the British regiments like ants; they start in struggling waves but soon break up to envelope the player's units, one stick man at a time. This is the novel element of Zulu Wars, and it represents a fair attempt at figures wargaming on the computer in a limited, one-sided way. It would be difficult for a human player to move these large numbers of figures individually unless the overall standard of game design were very much better than this. But Zulu Wars has to be noted as one of the few games which makes use of the computer's abilities to do something a bit more imaginative than calculating damage.

The British victory conditions are simply to kill all of the Zulus, and it is supposedly the Zulu's aim to kill the leader in each scenario. This is something they do not pursue, however, with any enthusiasm and the only threat to the British lies in the sheer numbers of the enemy. The Zulu pattern of attack is predictable and always identical - they come in from three sides of the map in an attempt to envelope the British, then move into surround each regiment - and, after a few attempts, I came to realise that there's little scope for variety of tactics. The battle formation of the troops is predetermined and there's too little space to move imaginatively, for within three moves of the start you're so overwhelmed by the Zulus that it's just a case of wearing them down.

The programming is unacceptably inconsiderate in places - for instance, in the Zulu combat phase the program solemnly scrolls around to each British unit to decide whether it's under attack or not - and although it's never actually slow enough to make me reach for the plug, I am beginning to get depressed by the standard of some software turned out professionally packaged by respectable companies. A computer-literate friend hacked into Zulu Wars for me on the suspicion that it was in BASIC, and came out with the conclusion that it looked like it had been put through a BASIC compiler.

It's playable enough, but has little depth and nowhere to go. The higher levels offer no extra complications, just more and more swarming Zulus to outlive. This game would have been more acceptable at a budget price.

CCS
£8.95

If you've never played computer wargames before, this'd make a great game to start with - its easy to understand, the graphics are simple and colourful and it's an interesting subject.

The game's set in the 1800s and the action takes place just after the gallant defence of Rourkes Drift by the Brits. It's a one player game, and you take the part of the commander of the British army, fighting against the computer-controlled Zulu hordes.

Part of the attraction of this game is that it looks like one of those table top wargames. The troops of each side are shown on the map as if they were model figures, seen from above, and when they fire, little bullets streak out to hit the target (or not, depending on your aim). Giving your troops orders is dead easy. The computer goes through each of your units in turn and you can order them to move, or fire in a particular direction. If one of your units ends up next to some Zulus, you get a round of hand-to-hand combat. Your units are shown by a square of soldiers - five by five for the larger units, going down to one by one. As your men get injured the squares shrink, and when they get below one figure they're destroyed altogether.

A status display to the right of the map window gives you information on the strength of each unit, how brave it is and how efficient it is. As the game goes on, and the situations change, these levels change too. Once you've slaughtered all the Zulus you can find, and won through to the Zulu capital, the game's over and you've won.

That's really all there is to it - it's simple and zips along quite speedily. Not an easy game, but challenging and absorbing and definitely a good buy for the beginner.

Label: CCS
Price: £9.95
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Jack Daniel

Stiffen those upper lips and cover those table legs* because here we have a simulation that goes back to the glorious days of the Great British Empire - Zulu Wars from CCS.

As British commander General Chelmsford, you have to hold the lines against the massed hordes of uncivilised natives in an attempt to raise the imperial flag over this particular piece of Southern Africa.

So with the order 'joysticks fixed lovely boys', away you go. And with natives to the North, South and East, things start out looking a bit grim.

Your army is split up into regiments of footsoldiers, mounted infantry and cavalry (all dressed in brilliant red) which you manouevre via joystick or keyboard around a scrolling map, which shows one twelfth of the playing area.

The Zulus are controlled by the computer (making this a one-player only game). They aren't into complex strategy - and instead seem to make a bee-line for wherever your commander seems to be positioned. Rather they have ferocity and weight of numbers on their side... yes, there are lots of them.

There are three levels of difficulty, each with more assagi-wielding dervishes than the last, the final level making things look really desperate.

Combat is by shooting (which the Zulus can't do) or close combat, at which they turn out to be much better. So pretty quickly you develop a strategy consisting of attempting to keep the massed hordes at rifle range without resorting to fisticuffs.

Hardened veterans might find the system and the graphics a little too simplistic but it's not bad for beginners though. Or for warped personalities that want to recreate rush-hour Victoria Line experiences.

*Victorians reckoned table legs - just like ladies legs - should be kept covered at all times. Those were wierd times...

MACHINES: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: CCS
PRICE: £9.95

Zulu War, for the Spectrum only, is a single-player tactical level game against the computer.

This is itself a pity. The real Zulu War of 1879, like all the 19-century colonial wars, was a struggle between a small regular force with little local knowledge and manoeuvrability, but devastating firepower, that could virtually guarantee a win a major set-piece battle, and a large number of highly mobile native forces, with less firepower but far greater hand-to-hand fighting ability, that could inflict a major defeat on any unprepared or divided force.

A far more interesting game could be made of the Zulu War by a two-player strategic program, with plenty of scope for hidden movement.

This game offers two scenarios - the final battle of Ulundi, in which the power of the Zulu was broken, and a hypothetical battle against the British second column, which was never seriously attacked, taking place at Umlalazi.

That the game needs a fictitious battle shows just how difficult the writers found selecting a battle in which the Zulu have a chance.

In the real battles the British stood shoulder-to-shoulder behind temporary defences of carts and mealie-bags. With their new longer-range breech-loading Martini-Henry rifles they were able to devastate the Zulu rushes before they ever closed to contact. Only at Isandhlwana, where the British were surprised with half their forces elsewhere, deployed with too wide a gap between units, and failed to keep up the ammunition supply, did the Zulu break through to contact.

At Ulundi, with many Zulu already dead from the earlier battles, the British deliberately chose not to fight from behind defences, but formed a hollow square of infantry with cavalry inside it, and blasted any Zulu coming near before unleashing the cavalry for a final charge.

I tried these tactics in the game's Ulundi scenario and was massacred. The game allows the British rifles such a limited range that they got only one volley before the far faster Zulu are upon them, and in hand-to-hand they stand little chance.

The game shows the British forces as square blocks, at first five figures by five, then shrinking to four by four and so down. This works very well, producing gaps in formations and forcing the British to close towards the centre each time. But the only way to even survive the Zulu rush is take up cover behind walls in a nearby abandoned village. The Zulu advance apparently at random, but in such a way that they maintain a broad general direction towards the enemy.

So, this is probably the wrong game to play for the Zulu War, and even as a representation of Zulu War tactics it isn't good.

But the game mechanism is a wonderful one for showing a disciplined army, used to fighting in formation, against an irregular force of higher mobility.

CCS have here the basis of a really excellent series of games set in the ancient period, with say Romans against Ancient Britons or Alexander the Great against the Persians. The ability of the irregular force to create gaps in the regular lines and infiltrate through them is offset by the higher regular firepower and stability with heavy losses.

THE BRITISH EMPIRE ATTEMPTS TO STRIKE BACK.

CCS
£8.95

In 1879 General Chelmsford, commanding the British forces in Africa decided that the only way to stop the disputes between the Boers and the Zulus was to take over their two countries and govern them. The resulting "police" action was one of the worst massacres in British history as the highly trained British troops gunned down the Zulu warriors. This latest wargame from CCS has biased the action in the Zulu favour to produce a challenging wargame with a difference.

Two separate scenarios are included on either side of the game tape in which between 20,000 and 48,000 Zulus attack unprepared British regiments.

The British begin both scenarios arranged in their rigid square formations that you must manoeuvre between the broken walls and trees that form this barren landscape. The size of a square that is made up from soldier icons indicates the size and strength of the regiment and range from the strongest 5x5 down to a single soldier, although even this represents 60 trained soldiers. The Zulus swarm at you in their famous horned beast formation with the main body supported by two flanking horns. This tramples the enemy under a wave of spears. Even though the figures are little more than UDGs which shuffle along at a snail's pace, they make a refreshing change from the usual wargaming symbols and remind me of my old figure wargaming days.

The game itself is a fascinating clash between two totally different but well organised armies. The British have the advantage of fire power and can gun down the Zulus from a distance and have the formidable lancer and cavalry regiments. These key soldiers can not only shoot from a distance but can also break Zulu lines with charges and fight ferociously with their swords. The Zulus outnumber the British by thousands and use this advantage effectively as they attack in massive waves. They are faster than the armed British and are formidable hand-to-hand fighters. As British commander you'd better not let them get too close or you'll quickly lose troops and firepower and face an Alamo style defeat.

Three levels of play ensure that there is a scenario that you can win, one where you just get beaten and one that's a total disaster. This forms a highly addictive formula that will drive you back for more.