Exxos/Remi Herbulot/Ali Chaouchi
£9.99 cass, £14.99 disk

Purple Saturn Day? Sounds like a colourful day out with Patrick Moore! it isn't though: it's a really brill and triff new game from the people who brought you Captain Blood. It's been a long wait for the Spectrum version, but well worth it.

Imagine the Olympic Games, then shoot a couple of hundred years into the future and this is what they will look like. You are the only human competitor in these Intergalactic Games and your ambition is to beat all alien mutations to the ultimate prize - a kiss from the Purple Saturn Queen (shlurp!).

You compete in four events, in any order you choose, aiming for the highest score on each to qualify for the next round. The events have changed in the course of centuries: no usual boring high jump, pole vault and running. This is the space age!

Ring Pursuit is a slalom style event set in the rings of Saturn. Get your space craft to dodge left of the yellow markers, right of the red markers or plough straight into the rocks if you can't steer. Tronic Slider is undoubtedly the worst event. You have to trundle up and down the play area shooting energy balls and collecting the dropping fragments. What's frustrating about this one is that you keep bumping into inconveniently placed boliards, giving your competitor the chance to pick up your bits (the scoundrel).

Brain Bowler is my favourite and also happens to be the most complicated of the quartet. It's a bit like being an electrician really. You have to stick electricity through a circuit and get the currents to go to the right places by opening and closing switches. This wouid be easy if it weren't for your opponent who keeps nicking your currents and undoing all your hard work. It sounds complicated but once you've played its couple of timea you get the idea. The last event is Time jump in which you have to collect as much energy as possible to jump into the future and score trillions of points.

All the graphics, music and effects in the game are of the highest standard and there's oodles of colour everywhere. Purple Saturn Day takes a bit of getting into but if you persevere you will soon discover a great game.

NICK [90%]

Coo, this is the first time I've ever competed in the Galactic Olympics. Purple Saturn Day from Exxos is finally here. Out of the four events Tronic Slider is the weakest in content, but the other three, Ring Pursuit, Brain Bowler and my personal favourite Time jump more than compensate. The game is graphically very good with colourful, nicely defined sprites (especially impressive are the players' 'hands' on the cockpit controls) combining well with the pleasant title tune. If you want a fast and frenetic game that requires a fair amount of brain power, take a look at Purple Saturn Day.
MARK [90%]

Exxos
£9.99 cass/£14.99 disk
Reviewer: Duncan MacDonald

Now, the way I see it is that there are two different types of people - 'normal people' and 'really, really, really WEIRD people'. Due to some quirk in plate tectonics, over the last few hundred million years (during the shifting of the continents), there is a certain country which has ended up with more tan its fair share of the latter category (the 'really, really, really WEIRD people'). Do you want to know which country I'm talking about? No? Oh well, I'll just give you a clue then - it's FRANCE. (That wasn't much of a clue. Ed)

Remember Captain Blood? That was pretty odd, wasn't it? What do you mean, "No"? it was odd - really odd. And this game, the follow-up to Captain Blood, is even odder. Blimey, that's quite a large chunk of weirdness, so I suppose you want to know something about it. The trouble is that this 'weirdness' is slightly infectious, so I'd better get cracking before it starts to devour me - here goes. (Wibble.)

There is one 'special' day of the year for the inhabitants of Saturn. It's quite a strange day - even by French standards. The day is known as Purple Saturn Day, for the simple reason that on that particular day the planet turns GREEN. (Purple actually. Ed) On this day, folk from all around the Solar System (and beyond) gather to indulge in some 'sports'. And that's what this game is all about. There are four sports in all, and different competitors to choose from (all of whom have differing skills). Yes, it's Galactic Games time, so let's have a look at the different competitions...

THE RING PURSUIT

This takes place around Saturn. And basically it's a cross between a slalom race and an avoid-'em-up. You, keeping the left hand side of your space-ship pointing twoards Saturnm have to circumnavigate the planet while doing two things - a) weaving in and out of 'market buoys' and b) avoiding the myriad asteroids and bits of space junk that come hurtling at you (you're in the 'rings' of the planet you see). There are two speeds you can travel at - stationary, and very, very (very) fast. The idea is to stay ahead of your opponent (obviously), but if he does get in front of you you can always dip your ship out of the asteroid belt, catch him up in safety, and then zip back into the action again - mind you, you don't score any 'much needed' points when doing this.

THE TRONIC SLIDER TEST

You and your opponent are on a football pitch type, erm, pitch. (Well, it's flat, anyway.) Both of you are in pursuit of an 'energy ball', and, as the ships are on anti-gravity tracks, you can both perform 180° turns with ease. Which is lucky. Because you need to. The idea is to get the ball, shoot it with your laser, and then collect the pieces it leaves behind (by 'driving' over them). This is a goal. As the game progresses, obstacles appear on the pitch which, as you can imagine, make things a tad more difficult.

THE BRAIN BOWLER

This is the 'strategy' game of the quartet, and blinking tricky it is too. You control an electroball (as does your opponent). Both competitors are standing on a 'computer brain' (him on one side, you on the other). You have to fire your electroball at various components in the 'brain' in order to toggle things 'on' or 'off'. The idea is to charge up six chips on your side of the bonce, but the trouble is that you can have toggle things beautifully and be nearly within 'striking distance' of a win when your opponent toggles something on his side an undoes all your good work. You've got to be a quick thinker for this one.

THE TIME JUMP

Blimey, this is a weird one. (They all are. Ed) it seems a bit useless, as well - the aim is to jump as far as possible into the future. The way you do this is to aim a crosshair over sparks which traverse the screen. This you must do three times, which will fuel a gravity-catapult which'll fire you through time and space. (You see stars and stuff coming towards you.) Erm, and that's it. Or that seems to be it, anyway. I think you're meant to be 'rewarded' with a picture of a 'chick' or something, but I never saw one.

And there you have it. Very bizarre. Apparently, if you do really well in all the games, you get to mengage in an on-screen snogging session with one of the more desirable of the female population of Saturn. Coooor! I found, however, that I'd probably never reach this stage - mainly because I didn't find Purple Saturn Day playable or addictive enough to continue with for any length of time. The Brain Bowler is probably the best game here - but I'm useless at IQ type games, as I'm thicker than a Californian Redwood. No snogging sessions with a sultry Saturnian sextress for me then. (Mind you, you do get to see her engaging in tongue sarnies with the other participants) Oh dear, the weirdness of the game is suddenly starting to affect me. Blik blik blik blooo. Hello, Auntie Herbert, may I have my balls back please, isn't it? Ping! Wikky wikky woo! Yink yink yink yink yink yink (That's enough 'yinks', Ed).

Label: Exxos
Author: Rene Herbulot
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

Alions-nous! C'est la nouvelle jeux au Exxos, les joli garcons Francais... oh sorry. I Keep forgetting not everyone is as cosmopolitan as the mighty SU staff, who can play games with instructions in French! Still, maybe we should have tried it in English too; phrases like "On this day, they come to vanquish you, friend!" suggest that the instructions alone would have been a laugh a minute.

Like many other French titles, Purple Saturn Day looks marvellous, but it's annoyingly difficult to play and unnecessarily obscure. Designed by the team behind the mind-boggling Captain Blood, PSD is in fact a sort of galactic Olympics: the Purple Saturn Day of the title being a regular astronomical conjunction which marks the start of the Games. So why didn't , they just call it Galactic Olympics, eh?

Anyoldhow, the aim is to compete in four events against seven alien species. The eight competitors are divided into four pairs, and the winners of the quarter-finals go into the semi-finals, the overall winner getting a galactic snog with the Purple Saturn Queen, who probably looks like an inside-out hedgehog, but we don't know for sure, not having managed to win yet.

The screens on which you choose your alien team mates according to their agility, mental powers, aggression and other characteristics, is admirably detailed. Also truly bon are the intro screens for each of the four events, which you can play in any order you want.

Ring Pursuit is a 3-D race game: speed through the asteroid belt, avoiding obstacles, taking the correct course left or right at coloured markers, and knocking your opponent off course. There's no time limit, but if you stay ahead you score more points. This game is vary fast and exciting, and is the most easily grasped of the events.

Tronic Slider is a sort of 3-D billiards in which you have to chase down energy balls, again bashing your opponent to shake his balls loose, fnar.

With the help of a position dis

{ABOVE ENDS MID SENTENCE...}

Brain Bowler is very odd. Hovering over a maze-like electronic map of an alien brain, you have to redirect moving energy sparks into your collector by hitting switches at the right moment. Extremely fiddly and irritating, Brain Bowler is likely to make you clench your teeth with sheer frustration rather than excitement. The last game, Time Jump, is pretty abstract; the aim is to move through time by catching energy sparks which dart across the screen. When you have sufficient power you hold down the fire button to build up time energy, then release it to jump... weird psychedelic efffects fill the screen, and you wonder whether you are actually achieving anything. Completely baffling, this one.

PSD is certainly different, and if you like to see the Spectrum pushed to the graphical limit, this is the one for you. But if you ask me (and let's face it, what else am I paid for), not enough thought has gone into the gameplay.

Spectrum +3, £14.99dk £9.99cs

Ever fancied kissing the Purple Saturn Queen? Well, if you win the annual Purple Saturn Day Games, you've got no choice, since sucking face with her majesty is the ultimate prize. This year, the Good Lord Exxos has randomly selected the four events for the game himself: Ring Pursuit, Time Jump, Tronic Slider and Brain Bowler.

You can choose any of the four from the initial selection screen. Ring Pursuit has you racing around Saturn's rings in a kind of slalom. Coloured space ships mark your route - you fly to the right of the red ones and to the left of yellow ones, all the time aiming to stay in front of your opponent to score points.

The Tronic Slider places you and your adversary on the orbiting energy field. Shoot the energy balls released into the game area and they yield fragments which are yours to collect. The player who collects the most fragments in the time allowed is the winner.

Brain Bowler is by far the most rewarding of the sub-games, because the random puzzle element makes each game different. You're placed on opposite sides of an intergalactic "brain", controlling an electro-ball which can alter switches, collect energy and allow electrical charges to reach six pins which activate the central Exxos. It's much easier to get the hang of than to describe, and would make a neat budget game on its own.

In contrast, the Time Jump is probably the most redundant of the sporting quartet. You have to jump as far as possible into the future by capturing energy sparks - a kind of Operation Wolf in space. These sparks provide fuel for a gravity catapult which launches you through time and space. Once you've catapulted, you're presented with an image generated randomly according to the amount you jumped - all very nice, but a bit pointless.

What this boils down to is a collection of four reasonably good sub-games, loosely strung over a scenario of competition. There are rounds leading up to a final with opponents of increasing difficulty, and there's a practice game against a robot - but ultimately, there are just four events.

Purple Saturn Day has a brilliant manual which lists such things as recommended diets (including Putrex Vomicus quince) and forbidden substances (good luck shrunken chicken heads), but even they can't save the game as a whole from being just on the good side of mediocre. If you want something a bit weird that's good fun for a while, check it out; if you're used to games with plenty of variety, leave it on the shelf.