***** - Teenage Fanclub

**** - Teenage Kicks

*** - Teenage Riot

** - Teenage Rampage

* - Barbara Cartland

NEWS

C64 supremos System 3 have a couple of major releases lined up in the extremely near future, and both are looking impressive in different ways. Last Ninja 3 is the final (?) game in the series which has garnered more accolades for the company than pretty much any other C64 game ever, and this cartridge version looks like comfortably the best of the lot. System 3 have tweaked the gameplay in an attempt to appeal to a slightly more 'mature' market than the previous titles, with strong role-playing elements added to the usual beat-'em-up and exploration aspects (it says here), and enormous success seems inevitable. At more or less the opposite end of the gaming spectrum is Turbocharge, a stunningly fast driving-and-blasting game which has already pulled in some ecstatic reviews, including a huge 93% from our sister mag Commodore Format. The review ended with the words 'Any Commy owner who lets this one pass him by is on the one hand stupid, and on the other hand incredibly stupid.', which would seem to suggest that C64 owners are in for a major treat when this hits the streets in about three days' time. 

After some success with the Amiga version of the Simpsons licence (soon to be available on general release after a period of exclusive bundling with new Amiga packs), Ocean are proceeding apace with other machine versions. The Spectrum port is the most advanced, and it looks like a surprisingly faithful translation of the 16-bit game. All the levels and enemies are still there, and loads of colour has been packed in in an attempt to maintain the cartoon appeal that's so important in games of this nature. The actual graphics, which admittedly weren't Amiga state-of-the-art, are practically identical, and for once it looks like the Speccy version of a big game isn't going to be a pale, rushed imitation of the big machines' effort. Owners of the much-maligned 8-bit can be impressed for themselves any day now.

BEG, BORROW AND BURN

BEG

Rodland (Storm)

If you're just a little bit fed up of Mega Drive owners getting all the good arcade games, here's something to cheer you up no end. Programming stars The Sales Curve don't churn out games in a hurry, but when you see how much care and attention they devote to their products, it's easy to forgive them. Rodland is a better-than-perfect conversion of Jaleco's cute and straightforward coin-op, with gorgeous graphics and sound and the kind of gameplay that they just don't make any more. Rodland bursts at the seams with beauty and entertainment, and if anyone else comes anywhere near me saying 'But it's just a shallow boring arcade game for little kiddies and it doesn't make use of the machine's capabilities' they'll be taking their sad little kidneys home in a box. Utterly wonderful.

BORROW

Utopia (Gremlin)

Crossing Sim City with Mega Lo Mania sounds like a brilliant idea, and indeed it is, but this god sim from Gremlin narrowly fails to pull off either element with sufficient style to make the idea work. The fighting side runs out too quickly and the city-building side lacks the depth of gameplay that this sort of thing really needs. It's a long way short of being a bad game, I enjoyed it a lot, but the chances are it'll leave you feeling just a little short-changed at the end of the day. By all means check it out for yourself though, if you found the other god sims a bit too complex it might be exactly what you've always been looking for.

BURN

Magic Pockets (Renegade)

Did you love Gods? Did you love Rainbow Islands? You'll hate this, then. The 'infallible' Bitmap Brothers (is there anyone else out there who thinks that the Speedball games are the only decent things this over-rated crew have ever done?) have produced a real turkey this time, and don't let any other blinded-by-hype idiots tell you otherwise. Slow, uneventful gameplay and some of the shabbiest design for quite some time are hidden beneath an exterior of 'cute' graphics and undeniably nice touches, but it doesn't take much scratching at the surface for the true horror to become clear. Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull.

GAME REVIEW

THUNDERJAWS (Domark/Tengen)

£25.99 16-bit formats, £12.99 8-bit formats

Rolling Thunder, eh? Didn't you just love it? Those tall, elegant sprites, that well-judged and challenging gameplay, those terrible home computer conversions... It's lucky, then, that the nation's programmers have been given a second stab at the job, with the release of the coin-op sequel Thunderjaws. Consisting of much the same stroll-along shoot-'em-up gameplay, but with an added underwater element whereby every other level took place in a shark-infested ocean full of harpoon-armed enemy divers, like something from any of half-a-dozen James Bond movies, Thunderjaws presented an ideal opportunity for coders The Kremlin to show off just how much programming techniques have improved in the three or four years (a lifetime in computing terms) since US Gold put out the Rolling Thunder conversions. Funnily enough though, it proves exactly the opposite.

Cheap, characterless graphics, 60-second accessing pauses between levels and horribly jerky scrolling are just a few of the flaws in this game which can't be put down to the lifeless design of the original coin-op. If I was to go into all the problems with that, we'd be here all day. Gameplay in Thunderjaws is a simple matter of holding the joystick to the right, pummelling away repeatedly at the fire button, and nipping off to make a cup of tea every other minute while the disk drive chugs away loading the next five screens of tedium.

Even when it's finished, you've still got some serious bugs to negotiate (on one occasion I lost a life in one of the 'indoor' sequences, only to be reincarnated in the middle of the floor, from where I fell to my death repeatedly until my lives ran out), and on top of the distinctly unpleasant controls (jumping is an out-of-control nightmare, as is falling from a high to a low platform) and useless physics of later levels (female divers executing underwater somersaults which a dolphin couldn't manage - I'm all for artistic licence in games, but this is just crap laziness), what you've got for your £26 at the end of the day is a fun-free catalogue of mediocrity which may well put you off buying full-price software for life. (Especially when you see the dismally cheap packaging). Really boys, even with such uninspiring source material, if this is the best you can do then don't give up the day jobs. **

COCK-UP CORNER

Game Boy fans disappointed by last week's one-star review of Dragon's Lair may be slightly less diappointed by the fact that it should in fact have been a three-star review. The person responsible for this teeny mistakette has been shot.

GAME REVIEW

ROLLING RONNY (Virgin, £25.99 on ST and Amiga)

I've been looking forward to this for quite a while now, having been impressed with the Amiga and ST demo versions which went on our sister magazines Amiga Format and ST Format. Now Virgin (Sega Europe, surely?) have come up with the finished versions, and I must admit to being just a tiny bit disappointed. Only a tiny bit, mind you, but this just isn't quite the classic Mario-inspired platform romp I'd been hoping for. It's a beautiful-looking game, pin-sharp graphics with loads of character added to great playability and addictive qualities, but there's something lacking in the way of action.

The collision detection's a tad iffy for one thing, and the sonic balance between music and sound effects on the Amiga leaves a lot to be desired, as does the ST scrolling (what's new?) and the fact that on a TV screen it's often hard to spot the tiny jewel cases which Ronny has to collect to complete a level, but I think the bottom line has to be that there just isn't enough happening. Too much of the time, our Ron (who, it has to be said, is one of the central characters of the year in my book) finds himself skating along unopposed with only the far-from-tight time limit to worry about.

If the stages had been halved in length with the same number of baddies, then Virgin could have had a real winner on their hands. Don't get me wrong, after the first level there's no shortage of difficulty, but it's of a faintly unimaginative design, consisting largely of to-ing and fro-ing backwards and forwards solving platform- negotiating problems and relying on the special pick-up items rather than keeping it all simple and testing the player's joystick-manipulating skills. Often the wrong choice or use of a single item will leave Ronny unable to complete a level, which is just a bit too lazy for my taste.

I've gone on about memory-testing as a substitute for proper game challenge at great length in the past, but when it crops up in an otherwise excellent game like this it's even more depressing than usual. Don't mistake this farrago of nit-picking for a real pasting, because Rolling Ronny is a lot of fun and I enjoyed playing it hugely, but with only a small amount of extra care it could have been one of the games of the year. Mario lovers, don't sell your Famicom just yet. ***

PLAYING TIPS

CARRIER COMMAND (Mirror Image/Realtime)

This all-time classic for the Spectrum, Amiga and ST has recently been re-released on 16-bit budget label Mirror Image, so now might be a good time to help struggling commanders out with a few top tips.

1. General Strategy

Make the first two islands captured factory islands, the next two resource islands, and the next four defence islands. The high number of defence islands is to protect your home island - if this falls it's game over. Keep advancing towards the enemy base island - once this is captured the enemy supply line is destroyed, effectively immobilising the enemy carrier.

2. Fuel And Supply Priorities

These should be set as soon as possible as supplies run low very quickly. Carrier fuel should be high priority, with Manta and Walrus fuel on medium. High priorities in supplies should be Mantas, Walruses, ACCBs, long range coms pods, all missiles, and viewing drones. Keep moving the supply islands up or you'll end up stranded without fuel. Try to have a number of routes from your home island to your stockpile island so it's harder for your opponent to cut your supply lines.

3. Attacking Occupied Islands

Method 1 - Cruise missiles

Deploy all drones to the rear of the ship and then reverse towards the island. Stop the carrier before you run aground and launch a viewing drone. When the command centre comes into view, let it have it with a couple of missiles. When the command centre is destroyed, simply occupy the island with a Walrus armed with an ACCB.

Method 2 - Mantas

Arm a Manta with 7 missiles (these CAN be used against ground targets), launch it and fly at the command centre at full speed, ignoring the attacks which will be coming from all sides. Launch missiles at the command centre until it is destroyed, then occupy with a Walrus as usual.

4. The Cheat Mode

Pause the game, type 'THE BEST IS YET TO BE' and press '+' on the keypad. This renders all your craft invincible, meaning you can land Mantas on enemy runways to refuel! It also gives your Mantas the ability to hover without using fuel.

METAL MASTERS (Infogrames, Amiga)

If you're having a desperately hard time (of the wrong sort) playing this unexciting robot beat-'em-up, simply hit the F4 key during the game to disable your opponent's movement functions, allowing you to wander across and smash him to pieces at your leisure.

OBITUARY CORNER

'But it is already time to depart, for me to die, for you to go on living; which of us takes the better course, is concealed from anyone except God' - Socrates

Bye bye Newsfield!