Producer: Visions
Memory Required: 16K
Retail Price: £5.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Kevin Bezant

This game deserves a few percentage points in its favour just for the inlay cover design, possibly the most vivid and accurate description of a 'Panic' game ever seen!

Sheer Panic is a conventional 'Panic' with five floors, the bottom one of which is undiggable. Your man carries a very long shovel with which to dig his holes into which, hopefully, the three monsters encountered on the first screen will fall. As is customary, monsters getting out of holes turn another colour and then have to be knocked through two holes, or even three holes in a row. The game is played out against a background of falling oxygen. Between lives as well as games, the layout of the ladders is changed.

COMMENTS

Control keys: 6/7 left /right, 8/9 up/down
Joystick: Kempston
Keyboard play: responsive, but Sinclair keys are not the best arrangement
Use of colour: good
Graphics: fair to good
Sound: very good
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 3

The game seems to lose its addictivity after a couple of hours playing, probably because there's no change in the idea. Also, the keys are very inconvenient, so a joystick might be better. Fair graphics on the platforms and ladders, but the aliens aren't so good.

This is a fairly typical version of Panic. The graphics are very simple and the game is unexciting - not a patch on the original. Basically, I did not like it.

There are quite a few versions of 'Panic' now for the Spectrum, but none match up the quality of this one. The keyboard is very responsive, there is a good use of colour and the graphics are fast, smooth and the sound is great. The monsters are incremented by two with each screen successfully completed. All I can say is that this is the best 'Panic' for the Spectrum with all the features of the arcade original. A very active game.

Producer: Mikrogen, 16K
£5.85

Panic is a standard digger-filler game, where you rove several floors with your spade trying to clean up the monsters by digging holes for them to fall into. A neat touch is that you must reach them quickly and batter them to death or they change colour and get out of the hole, which means you must mash em up through two holes before they die. The going gets tougher as you progress. Not bad and reasonably addictive.

Producer: Mikrogen, 16K
£5.85

Panic is a standard digger-filler game, where you rove several floors with your spade trying to clean up the monsters by digging holes for them to fall into. A neat touch is that you must reach them quickly and batter them to death or they change colour and get out of the hole, which means you must mash 'em up through two holes before they die. The going gets tougher as you progress. Not bad and reasonably addictive.

HEADBANGERS - PANIC GAMES

Armed with little more than a trusty spade, nimble fingers and wilting joystick, our two arcade playing reviewers, CHRIS PASSEY and MATTHEW UFFINDELL, enter the dusty platforms in search of monsters 'Panic' games involve climbing ladders to various levels within the screen, digging holes in the floors and letting the monsters fall into them. When you trap a monster in this manner, there is usually a short time in which to reach it, bang it on the head so that it falls through to its death, filling in the hole as it goes. Failure to kill it in time will result in the beast escaping and becoming a super monster. The more super a monster becomes, the more holes it must fall through in one go, which means digging holes in a vertical line. You have an ever-diminishing supply of oxygen, so speed is important. This selection contains some close copies and some slight variations on the theme.

SHEER PANIC
Visions
Memory Required: 16K
Retail Price: £5.59

This is a reasonable version of 'Panic'. It contains the features such as the limited oxygen supply and the increasing strength of any monster that is not buried in time when in a hole. The graphics are quite good with character movement being used but working quite well. Colour content is about right but I think the sound is limited. The major drawback to this version is the key layout, the top row being used in a straight line (6 to 9). Digging and filling is done with the up/down keys, which does reduce the number needed to play the game. On the subject of control I found it one at the worst games for moving off ladders on to levels. All in all, a decent and fairly addictive game, especially when played with a Kempston.
CP

This version has four well drawn platforms, connected with varying lengths of ladders. All movement is by blocks - although this doesn't spoil the playability of the game. The monsters have a low intelligence level so you don't have to wait around for a monster to fall into a quickly dug hole - good! Your man is nicely animated and moves quickly. Different coloured monsters, as usual have to be knocked down on equivalent number of platforms before they are killed. Sound and colour are put to good use and it's well worth considering. There is, however, an oddity involved. The game is the same as Mikrogen's Panic.
MU

HEADBANGERS - PANIC GAMES

Armed with little more than a trusty spade, nimble fingers and wilting joystick, our two arcade playing reviewers, CHRIS PASSEY and MATTHEW UFFINDELL, enter the dusty platforms in search of monsters 'Panic' games involve climbing ladders to various levels within the screen, digging holes in the floors and letting the monsters fall into them. When you trap a monster in this manner, there is usually a short time in which to reach it, bang it on the head so that it falls through to its death, filling in the hole as it goes. Failure to kill it in time will result in the beast escaping and becoming a super monster. The more super a monster becomes, the more holes it must fall through in one go, which means digging holes in a vertical line. You have an ever-diminishing supply of oxygen, so speed is important. This selection contains some close copies and some slight variations on the theme.

PANIC
Mikrogen
Memory Required: 16K
Retail Price: £5.95

All my comments on Sheer Panic by Visions apply to Mikrogen's Panic, because unless I'm grossly mistaken, this is the self same program. Well, there are a few little differences and one big one. The big difference is that this version offers the player user definable keys. The small ones are a few peripheral frills like text characters. In all other respects it is identical. How come?
CP

One thing became instantly apparent when reviewing this version - it's an exact copy of Sheer panic. Or is it the other way round? As far as I am aware this Mikrogen version has been on the market for much longer. Keyboard layout is different, and a few other frills have been left out, but the sound, graphics and content are the same. Who copied who?
MU

MACHINE: Spectrum 16/48K
JOYSTICK: Optional
CATEGORY: Arcade
SUPPLIER: Visions
PRICE: £5.95

Space Panic is an old favourite in the arcades, but there are many more adventurous games now available for the Spectrum. However, if you are dead set on adding a version of this game to your collection then Vision's Sheer Panic is fine.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, you control a figure armed with a shovel, whose task is to climb ladders and dig holes for careless monsters to fall into. You then rush up and bury them before they have a chance to clamber out.

Vision's monsters are intelligent, the action fast and smooth, and high scores are difficult to get.

Sheer Panic holds no surprises. The graphics are acceptable, and the sound is what we have come to expect from the Spectrum, which isn't much.

PRICE: £5.95
Memory: 16K

Panic is very similar indeed to the ladders type arcade game. An almost identical version is available for the BBC under the name 'Monsters'. Though Panic may not be 100% original as a game, it is very well written indeed.

The idea is that you are caught in a maze of walls and ladders with a load of rather nasty aliens. The object is to lure them into holes which you have dug and then bang them over the head until they die. As if this wasn't enough you are in danger of running out of oxygen. As time goes on, and especially if an alien gets through a hole without getting hit, they get even more ferocious and difficult to kill.

Maybe not original, but this is the first time I have seen it for the Spectrum. It is definitely a highly addictive and enjoyable game to play.