Producer: CRL
Retail Price: £7.95
Author: Pete Cooke and Chris Newcombe

Life on distant colonies and outposts can be pretty dull. The Galcorp Leisure Corporation provides leisure activities for these desolate outposts and bases many of the games around the special low gravity conditions found on the far asteroids and outposts. One of the more popular games devised by the Galcorp Leisure Corporation is low gravity Glyding. Played in a large room, two players compete against each other. Each player controls a large 'bat' and the aim is to stop the ball from hitting your back wall, while at the same time trying to hit the ball onto the other players rear wall. The bat is against the player's wall and covers roughly a tenth of the area.

Play begins with player one taking a service. Play continues with the ball to-ing and fro-ing between the two players until the ball strikes the wall behind one of the competitors. When this happens the opponent scores five points and the loosing player restarts the game with a service. Play continues in this mode until thirty-five points are reached and the first person to reach this gets to be the winner.

There are varying levels of difficulty in the game ranging from slow or adagio as it's described in the menu to pretty fast or vivace. You can also after the computer's skill from low to high. There is a two player option to enable you to compete against a human partner rather than the computer.

The screen is yellow monochrome although the colour can be altered if you fancy a change of led by the keys or joystick and can be maneuvered upwards, downwards and from side to side. Pressing fire serves the ball to start, although your bat must be covering the ball before you serve or else you'll miss and five points will automatically be awarded to your competitor. The screen is separated into two halves. The two section shows the court as seen from each player's vantage point looking down to the opposite wall. The score is shown to the right of the main screens and when thirty five is reached the winning player gets to type his/her name in.

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Cursor
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: minimal
Graphics: slowish but quite effective
Sound: a few spot effects
Skill levels: six separate speeds, three computer skill levels
Screens: one main playing screen

Room Ten is a very strange game, the idea may be very simple but it is very difficult to get into. If you stick with it however the game can become fun and very competitive, especially in two player mode. My only real nag about this one is that as with any sports simulation you can get good at it so it is easy to beat the computer, this only takes about twenty minutes of solid playing so it can become boring very quickly. The graphics are good but a little misleading at times which can have disastrous effects. The sound is fair but not exciting. I wouldn't recommend it too strongly as it can get extremely monotonous if you haven't got a friend to play with.

The graphics are quite strange, and it took me quite a while to get used to all the lines that were flying about the screen. Sound is a bit on the basic side, with only a few beepy spot effects. I found the game itself very boring to play after only a few games. The speed of the game is quite slow - even on the fast speed - and not helped by the unresponsive key actions. Room Ten is not one of the most addictive games I've ever played, but I'm sure will appeal to some members of the Spectrum squad.

No, I'll refrain from making the VERY old joke that's now flying around the office all about Pong in a box, etc. Room 10 isn't all that bad a game. The 3D effect works well, and the game moves at a frantic pace sometimes. Playability is good, and though I don't think I could spend a lot of time playing it, it's the sort of game that I'd play when there's absolutely nothing else to do. Its not amazingly revolutionary, despite the very good way that it handles graphics, but I think that it might be worth getting hold of.

CRL
£8.95

After beating your gums out, not to mention the microswitches on your Quickshot, on Tau Ceti, what better way to relax than a nice gentle game of glyding. Glyding? Where have you been? You mean to slouch there and tell me you've never been to the Galcorp Leisure Complex? Boy, do you need a break, flyboy. Okay, park your skimmer over there and join me in the glyding room in ten minutes. Room 10, that is.

I know it looks complicated but it's not. You stand on this side of the box, and I stand on the other side. That sticky ball on the wall by your bat is what were playing with, and all you do is repel it using your bat so it zings across the court at me. Like tennis, yeah, Fun, eh? Seems like a lot of fun? Sure.

Galloping from the same hay strewn stable as Tau Ceti and Academy, Room 10 is a horse of a different hue entirely. A first, in that it simultaneously takes games forward and back at the same time. Back to the old ping pong games you used to play on your telly in the late 70s, forward as in a 3D versions of the same. It's as true today as it's ever been that the best games are a simple but addictive idea, with the only frills being totally relevant to the gameplay. Tau Ceti was brilliant in this respect, and so is Room 10. More of a tennis game than Tennis, more of a ping pong game than Ping Pong, with none of the contemptuous familiarity of either.

The graphics are smooth and easy on the eye and there's a few nice touches like a slight recoil when the ball is struck by a bat. You can also alter lots of game parameters, like speed, selection of computer or human players (play your chums!), different colour schemes, and computer skill. You've also got the option of selecting keys or Kempston (indeed new Sinclair) joysticks. This is an enjoyable and well made game. Good to loosen up on before you face the blighted shores of Tau Ceti once more.

Label: CRL
Author: Chris Newcombe
Price: £7.95
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Graham Taylor

Utterly simple, fairly addictive, visually straightforward but strangely effective in a geometrical sort of way. Room Ten, more than anything else, is Pong.

Remember Pong, the game that started it all off? Pong that etched little bars into the TV set Pong that made your eyes go funny and got boring after about two weeks and was never taken out again?

No. Not like that at all. This is Pong in 3D in a reduced gravity box. This is sophisticated algorithm and subtle gameplay.

It involves bats and balls though. Maybe it's squash for yuppie astronauts.

Designed by Pete Cooke author, gasp, of Tau Ceti double-gasp, and written by Chris Newcombe, Room Ten is a neat twist on a great many ideas of bat and ball.

Imagine this: a box, oblong-shaped. At either end of the oblong are two rectangular bats. A ball is served, just like tennis and off it goes in reduced gravity. All movement starts and stops slowly - it is so easy to be hopeless stuck in the wrong position. You are trying, needless to say, to get the ball back without it hitting your back wall.

The ball will behave more or less like a normal ball in the sense that you can perform all the usual tricks of spin and angling by using the bat in different ways. It's just that you feel like you are moving in slow motion whilst the ball whizzes toward you as robustly as ever.

That's it. The whole thing is nicely dressed up with various menus, speed options, two-player modes (probably most fun) skill levels for the computer and instructions. But there's no disguising it's simplicity.

Graphically the thing looks like geometry diagrams, a rectangle for the bat within a rectangle for the playing box. Top of the screen is one player's viewpoint - bottom of the screen is the other's.

If it were a budget title it would be a classic.

C64/128, £8.95cs, £14.95dk
Spectrum, £7.95cs
Amstrad, £8.95cs, £14.95dk

A split screen gives each player a view from behind his own bat in this zero-gravity 3D Pong derivative. Written by Pete Cooke of Tau Ceti and Academy fame, the game uses great point-of-view 3D graphics to help you gauge where the ball is. Computer opponents possessing various strengths are on hand just in case you can't find a human being to play against, but either way it's great fun.

MACHINE: CBM 64/Spectrum
SUPPLIER: CRL
PRICE: £7.95

Room 10 must be one of the most obscure titles ever for a game. IMt tells absolutely nothing about this new and excellent variation on the bat and ball game.

The name actually comes from the court or "cell" where the game is played in a futuristic leisure complex.

Not that this is explained anywhere on the cassette packaging for either Spectrum of Commodore version sent to us. I assume CRL forgot to include the instructions.

The players - two can play - control a floating bat and all they have to do is stop the ball hitting the far walls. Points are scored and the first to 35 wins.

The screen is split in two allowing each player to view the game from his end of the court.

The Spectrum and Commodore versions play virtually in the same way.

CRL
£7.95

This game glowingly described on the inlay as being "the stunning game of the future" could more accurately be summed up as 'Pong revisited". There's a sophisticated split screen display with 3-D graphics but even after a few moments on court it's apparent that the ghost of Pong has returned.

The aim of the game (you've guessed it) is to get your bat in the way of the oncoming ball and direct it back up court. Gone is the tiny oblong of yesteryear as now you've got a good sized bat which you can move around in space. One limitation is that you are stuck on the back wall and the main challenge of the game is adjusting to the angles of the ball as if bounces off the wall - if it gets post you your opponent scores five points and the first one to reach 35 wins.

There's an adequate variety of game options, with five speed settings and a computer opponent who can play on three levels of skill. Playing the computer is okay (it's very sluggish on the low setting and very Becker-like at the lop level) but this is the sort of game, like the original Pong, which is best played against a human opponent. Room Ten will definitely appeal to those who like instantly accessible competitive games, and as an update of Pong it suffices. It would have been nice though to have seen a few changes in the rules and gameplay to make it more interesting and the split screen, although necessary, gives the game a claustrophobic atmosphere that could become wearing after a few games.

If by any chance you missed out on the simple pleasures of Pong or want to rekindle memories in a 3D court you may wan! to sample Room Ten, but if you want something more than following the bouncing ball, go elsewhere.