@~The start of a new section, emulated Spectrum games for the PC @~and Amiga from Zenobi. Two are reviewed this issue. The emulator @~is provided in each case and the RRP are œ2.49 for the Amiga @~version and œ2.99 for the PC plus P&P. ------------------------------------------------------------------ REVIEW FOR "MURDER!" HE SAID by Jack Lockerby Available from Zenobi Software Dwarfed on a PC only (under Spectrum emulation) By Grimwold Another Spectrum game becomes available for the PC, having been ported by Zenobi to run under the shareware version of the emulator: Z80. This version of the emulator is supplied with the game and is fairly straight-forward to install on your hard drive, although it does appear to be fairly temperamental on my machine - but that's probably just the quirks of this PC. Full instructions on loading and running the game are included both as text files and printed sheets from Zenobi. Since this is the first Spectrum-emulated game I've reviewed, I'll go over a few questions that I had when I first tried the Z80 emulator. Firstly, I wasn't sure how to load and save game-positions, or even if it was possible. I thought this because if you simply type 'SAVE' from within the adventure, you are told by Z80 that you can't unless you register the emulator (which, to be truthful, is cheap enough at œ15). However, Z80 can save 'snapshots' of any program. That is, it saves the whole program that is in memory, exactly where you are. This is simplicity itself and only takes a few seconds on a half-decent PC. Other than that, the game plays exactly as it would on a Spectrum (though you now have a better keyboard), even a little faster. Anyway, the game. Now, before I start reviewing the adventure proper, let it be known that I dislike the 'detective' genre of adventures. But then, I like sci-fi adventures and a lot of people don't, so it's all down to personal opinion. I shall try to give a balanced review all the same. You play the part of Detective Vance, called to investigate the murder of Philip Stone, who was shot at 1AM that morning. Starting from your office, you collect a few items and then drive off to the manor which was home for the deceased. Turning up on the doorstep, you find the Police Constable who is going to help you in this case. His way of helping you is to take various items that you find off to forensics to be tested, leaving the reports on the hall table for you to read. You have with you your casebook, giving known information about all the relevant characters involved in the plot which can be referred to throughout the game. You wander around the manor, searching and examining everything and picking up a few clues on the way. There are quite a few empty rooms with nothing to do in them, and the people there aren't very helpful. In fact, none of them seem pleased to see you. The atmosphere of the game builds nicely, leading you along so you think you know 'who done it' then some new piece of evidence turns up to change your course of thinking again. Written with PAW, the game flows nicely, isn't very big but quite playable. Some nice use of fonts has been used for the reports, and the colour scheme doesn't clash. No sounds to speak of, other than the default Spectrum 'click' every time you press a key. There are few (if any) spelling mistakes, none that jumped out at me anyway. Nor are there any 'real' bugs, but a few commands resulted in a blank line which was a little disorientating. Overall, a nice little game. A good example of the type of 8-bit adventure that has kept the Spectrum and others alive for so long. Not too big, not too small, just...right! Grimwold's ratings: Graphics - N/A Sound - N/A Puzzles - 6/10 Atmosphere - 7/10 'Grabability' - 7/10 VFM - 7/10 Overall - 7/10 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Twelve Days Of Christmas - Diane Rice/Zenobi Software Available on PC and Amiga Review by Phil Darke Twelve Days of Christmas is a Spectrum text adventure by Zenobi Software. It was written with Gilsoft's Quill. The game runs on an Amiga using a Spectrum emulator. The emulation is very smooth. 12 Days is loaded from disc and has the feel of the Spectrum with the familiar Quill prompt. When the game is loaded you have a number of options such as story, vocabulary, or begin game. Saved games may be saved to or restored from disk or RAM. It took me some time to figure out what to do in the first location and in fact I was beginning to think I was being stupid when, after 20 minutes or so all I had achieved was to get a branch and a net and the response to practically every entry was "try something different". None of 8 different compass directions produced any response until I eventually went through the arch. Here I found a box, some string, grass seed and a Partridge I spent some time trying different commands to open the box until I noticed the word 'wedge' in the vocabulary and it was this that I used. I enjoy playing text adventures but find it most frustrating when the solution to a particular problem is perfectly obvious but the seemingly obvious command is not accepted. Why, for example, is 'tie branch to string' accepted but not 'tie string to branch'? The pleasure in playing adventures lies in pitting your wits against the author, not playing guessing games with the parser. 12 Days is a novel idea with endless possibilities but is so unfriendly as to make it unplayable. I was also more than a little puzzled as to why it was presented in the way it was. If Zenobi wanted to write a Spectrum game, then OK, fine, do it in the normal Spectrum format which would have worked perfectly, but why bother with the emulator? There are a number of excellent Amiga adventure writing programs and any one of them could have produced the same game to run on an Amiga. Perhaps this is a nostalgia trip, my first computer back in 1982 was a Spectrum and it now resides in my loft along with many excellent games. Although the Spectrum is an excellent computer and was ahead of its time, the sad truth is (though I will doubtless be condemned for saying so) The Spectrum is dead, LONG LIVE THE SPECTRUM. On the other hand there were many fine games written for the Spectrum and I understand that some classics, eg Jet Set Willy, Manic Miner and others have been re-written for 16 bit machines. If this is an attempt to revive some of the Spectrum classics then I applaud it whole heartedly, but emulation is NOT the way to do it. The humour and puzzles in many of the old Spectrum adventures was in a class of its own and if revived would be a certain success. @~Just to clarify matters, the Spectrum games provided under @~emulation for the Amiga - and the PC in some cases - by Zenobi, @~are written by authors who ONLY have Spectrums. John decided to @~make them available to a wider user base by offering them as @~emulated games. As so many people still enjoy text games, @~despite what they say in the glossies, I think it is an @~excellent idea as it is the only way that 16-bit users would be @~able to play them. @~For full details of Zenobi's catalogue, or to order, contact @~Zenobi at 26 Spotlands Tops, Cutgate, Rochdale, Lancs, OL12 7NX. - o -