Producer: Martech
Retail Price: £7.95
Author:

The planet Earth is, once again, in deadly peril. This time it's not two geriatrics in Iceland threatening us all, but marauding aliens bent on conquest.

The aliens are approaching Earth in a fleet of huge cylinders. These contain cities, fields, factories, power stations, military bases and shoe shops - in fact everything needed for the alien equivalent of the good life. As the cylinders approach Earth, and prepare for the final assault on the planet, you are picked as our last hope. Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to penetrate the defences of each cylinder in turn, and basically make a real mess of them.

The game is a vertically scrolling shoot-em-up. You fly over the surface of the alien cylinder blasting away at everything in sight in an attempt to destroy it. To do this, various parts of it's surface have to be shot up. Naturally there is plenty in the way of defences.

At the start of every cylinder, or when you lose a life, the game returns to an options screen. This allows you to view your score, or to buy various bolt-on goodies for your ship. You start out with a real bucket of a ship, but as time goes on, you can trade in your score for better weapons (or even buy extra lives). When your ship is completely kilted out, instead of the single front laser you started out with, you'll end up with a dual rapid fire front laser, with a single laser on the sides and rear - pretty hot stuff. But it'll need to be, 'cos it's pretty tough out there. There's not just enemy ships, but also plenty of bits of cylinder sticking up in the air which have to be avoided.

If all this-still seems a little too tame for you, then flip the cassette on to the 'B'side and you'll come across the beta version. This contains the same sort of game, but the scenery is totally different, and the meanies are far nastier.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Q left, W right, I up, J down, 0 fire
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: average
Use of colour: good in the border, but monochrome game window
Graphics: well drawn, but a small area
Sound: uninspiring explosion effects
Skill levels: two
Screens: five scrolling stages

Let's face it guys and gals. If the Spectrum were meant to have a play area of about 12 by 16 characters then Uncle Clive would have designed it that way. I found it took ages to get used to the tiny play area. The scrolling is of an acceptable standard, and if it was full screen then I might have been impressed. Even though the game is a definite shoot-em-up I found it very boring to play. I would suggest that everyone steer clear of this, as paying full price for a game that only ever uses one third of the screen is not what I would call value for money.

The pre-production copy appeared to herald a good game. So, when the finished version materialised in the office, I was eager to get my mucky paws on a copy (being the sort of person who looks forward to a good bit of destruction). The graphics are reasonable; the background screen is very colourful, but the game play screen is a li'l bit too small. Though difficult to an extent, I think that WAR lacks something to keep the ol' adrenalin flowing freely.

You'll need a lot of patience if you want to do well in this one. The trouble is that you have to be phenomenally lucky to get through the first couple of levels before you can amass enough points to arm yourself to the teeth. After this point all you have to do hit the fire button/key extremely quickly, then sit back and let your fancy armaments do the work. The graphics are very pretty if a little cramped. The sound is very dull, no tunes and next to no effects during the game. On the whole I wouldn't recommend this as I wasn't at all compelled to play on.

Martech
£7.95

I've been waiting for WAR with a feeling of intense anticipation. After previewing it a couple of months ago, I knew that, when the call came, I wouldn't be backward in going to the front!

WAR - set in the reaches of space where a mechanical world, formed from an enormous chain of cylinders, snakes its way through the eternal darkness. To create such an incredible artificial environment, complete with factories, power stations, cities even, takes a fantastic level of technical advancement. The aliens have that talent.

But they're also consumed by a desire for conquest. Everything that lies in the path of their spiralling home is prey to their bloodlust. And they've set a course for Blackburn... for Birmingham... for Bognor. For (wouldja believe?) Earth!

The action takes place in a long, central window. The super space lighter is free to move up and down, as well as across, and it doesn't take long to discover that if you're too far up the screen you don't have time to react to the waves of enemy craft that rain down on you.

You must blast away franti-cally, just to clear a path that's free front collisions. But if you have a moment to spare, go in for some vandalism and give the surface fittings a little GBH. Nothing senseless about this attack on valuable property... your mission is to disable the cylinder worlds, and if at first you don't succeed you'll be sent back to try again.

Ouch! There goes my first life! Time to take a breather and let's get tactical. Up till this point WAR has been a fairly straightforward blast 'em up, but here's the touch that lifts it out of the son-of-son-of-son-of-Space invaders school. You can trade in your score for additions to your ship.

No, I'm not talking about Rachael and Gwyn window strips and fluffy dice. These are goodies like Photon Lasers and Rear Phasers, just the sort of things that would really supercharge a Cortina.

It's just like collecting trading stamps. Of course, you'll need more points for the really good stuff. 10,000 even gets you an extra life, it's up to you whether you add one of the lower power accessories, or save up for a more devastating addition to your arsenal.

POW! I've lost my last life. Time to come back to earth and get critical for a moment. How does WAR rate in the Rachael Hall of Fame? Pretty good. It's nicely presented, right down to the alien type-face, that'll keep you puzzling over your high score for ages. And the trading side is a great plus.

Sadly though, its singularly lacking in sound. A pity when at last the Spectrum is capable is giving its noisier neighbours a run for their money. On the plus side, you get two versions of the game - for Rookies and Captains.

But the acid test has to be the comparison with Uridium. It shares so many similarities that it would be ridiculous to ignore them. And - sorry, Martech - but Hewson's classic just has the edge. Uridium is close to being the perfect zapping game.

But don't get me wrong. WAR is still a whole lot of fun. So strap me back into my armchair. I'm off to nuke the nasties again. Well, somebody has to save Bognor, don't they?

Label: Martech
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: Kempston, Interface 1
Reviewer: Jim Douglas

"Being a hero is easy. Staying alive is more difficult."

Skimming low across the mechanical landscape, I threw the joystick left, then right, right again, lurching out of the way of an oncoming assailant. As he sped away, I matched his horizontal position and blasted him with a rear laser. The tiny silver ship expelled a ploom of white smoke, and fragmented, sending shattered metal in all directions.

This is W.A.R., from Martech. And it's very good.

The whole game plays on a small window, surrounded by a picture which attempts to be extra ordinarily atmospheric but manages instead to look confusing, owing to the jumble of colours. It's a scrolling zap like a cross between Lightforce and Uridium. The actual gameplay is two-colour, although brief excursions into colour are taken every so often, allowing you to improve your armaments.

After a short time dodging and zooming, it's apparent that in the early stages it's a straightforward shoot-em-up.

Waves of differing aliens scream down the screen with various degrees of psychosis. The backgrounds will alter to bring variety, but when you take a long, hard look, it's a game we've all played before.

Yet there are two things that save W.A.R. from being classified a run-of-the-mill arcade game. One is the second-game feature, the other is the rather innovative way in which you can improve firepower.

The former is a quite simple idea. On the second side of the tape, you will find another copy of the game, - more of the same except much, much harder. You'll find yourself flying over a Spectrum circuit board. Aliens swoop around in a most impressive fashion, and finish you off in a second.

The other idea is rather clever. You can opt to sacrifice some of your score in order to obtain superior weaponry. Each weapon retails for a different number of points. If you can hold out long enough, it is possible to amass a great enough score for you to purchase a large piece of artillery. It may be worthwhile, however, to get some superior, though small-scale guns to help in the short-term. It's up to you.

Scrolling bashes are suddenly in vogue again and W.A.R. is a tricky one.

MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Martech
PRICE: £7.95

Now here's a funny thing. A game that's completely different from version to version. The 64 War is Uridium-ish and not terribly original.

But the Spectrum version is something else again. OK, so it's still a straightforward shoot 'em up but thanks to the "different" graphics and original small screen layout War has a really nice feel about it.

War will be fighting it out with the soon to be released Spectrum version of Uridium - but shoot 'em fans might like to have both.

Oh yes, you do get that cute flipping effect - but in this case it's more like the 1942 fighter's roll.

Martech
£7.95

Fast action games seem to be making a comeback led, undoubtedly by the long awaited conversion of Hewsons Uridium.

In it's original C64 format, W.A.R. was little more than an Uridium clone but it has changed dramatically during it's conversion.

The action takes place in a tiny window with the rest of the screen there to add atmosphere.

In this window your laser firing fighter must blast the assembled aliens and destroy a scrolling spaceship background.

As you clear these levels you advance along the tubular space station illustrated on the game's cover.

W.A.R. is saved from the obscurity of being yet another shoot 'em up by the inclusion of a separate advanced version on the other side of the tape and the ability to trade hard earned points to improve your ship.

The Captains version, as it's known, is fought over a giant circuit board that is protected by incredibly violent alien ships in this advanced test your standard ship won't last very long.

By trading points you can actually add to your fire power and buy extra lasers, more weapons and even a bonus ship. This might just save you. It saved the game.