Reviews

Quack-shot!, released in 1985, is a clone of a coin-op titled "Tutankhamun", which already had an unofficial, quite playable conversion two years before (Tutankhamun, by Micromega). This rendition is more colourful and detailed, has a better overall presentation, it's more similar to the original coin-op, but doesn't keep the frantic action and the playability of its Speccy predecessor.

1985 Sparklers (UK)
by Clement Pryke

Judging by the title I was expecting something different from a 'Tuthankamun' clone. It's not a big disappointment, because the game has it's appeals. It looks better than the 1983 Micromania release, and has a few additions (like the end of each level which is always different, at least to a point) and an array of different nasties with different abilities.
But it misses the playability and addictiveness of the earlier release, which was a lot more energetic.
Nevertheless it's still a very entertaining game.

This is a damn hard , almost unplayable game ... enemies are unavoidable and faster than you , your only weapon against them are your two legs so , there is no chance . . .

This is why I´m only giving this a 2 .

Terrible maze game.

This was a favorite of mine at the time and I must say it has stood the test of time rather well. Ostensibly inspired by the famous Tuthankamun coin-op, this maze-collect-shoot-em-up hybrid features large and colorful, albeit not very detailed graphics, functional audio together with fast-paced and often frustrating gameplay. However as the mazes keep rolling it manages to hold your attention and let you remember the times when games were simple and fun.

I have to say I rather enjoyed playing this but the game has some issues which means that while I like it I can't rate it more than average. The scrolling doesn't help but add to the game's difficulty plus the enemies are much faster than you and are unpredictably random. It's not a bad game though.

It certainly isn't the worst game in the world but the scrolling is a pain and the keyboard layout is awful. Best to use a joystick with this one.