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With a name like that you know it can't be that original, but this attractive and involving shoot 'em up is certainly a damn sight more imaginative than many works of the time. Earth is under threat from a big ugly mechanical planet that is clanking its way inexorably through space. You start off by launching into space to meet an onrushing drove of fighters that need to be destroyed. From there it's into the Death Star's gun-filled trench to launch a torpedo down the exhaust vent and blow that evil metal moon into oblivion. Then it's onto the next Death Star for more of the same. This is a well-thought out and exquisitely presented title from the man (David Aubrey Jones) who went on to bring the brilliant Mercenary to the Spectrum.

DEATH STAR INTERCEPTOR
System 3 Software / £7.95

Ross: Yep, you guessed - it's a Star Wars rip-off with solid colour graphics. It's even got the Star Wars theme tune. I won't tire you with the tale that accompanies the game - it's the usual old tosh about the Death Star approaching Earth in order to destroy it. You must launch your Starfighter with the aim of confronting the enemy.
The game's split into three stages, the first launching sequence requires little skill and less strategy and soon becomes very boring. The snippet of software speech saying 'prepare to launch' sounds like the speaker had a nasty dose of flu when it was recorded. The second stage, out in space, shows your fighter desperately trying to avoid destruction from the barrage of enemy fighters constantly bearing down on you. Rather than battle it out with them it's best to avoid the bulk of them and shoot only those you can't avoid. Quite a doddle as there's a 'dead-zone' where you can sit it out in safety.
The final stage in the trench is not pulse-quickening either, and the final explosion's just a flash in the border. So much for saving civilization. I'd heard good reports of this game but it's arrived with a whimper, not a bang. 2/5

Roger: Three stages of Star-Yawns didn't keep me awake long enough, despite tolerable speed and shootiebang quotient. 1/5

Dave: Zap Ping Whoosh Yawn! another fast, almost 3D shoot 'em up with reasonable graphics, the usual storyline and a boredom factor of 10! 1/5

Producer: System 3 Software
Memory required: 48K
Retail Price: £7.95
Language: machine code
The Encyclopaedia Galactica (AD 4020 edition of course) is almost as oft-quoted a tome of learning as is its primitve forebear the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The inlay of this new game from a company new to the Spectrum has a long quote from Galactica which, in the time-honoured tradition of cassette inlays, has suitably little to do with playing the game itself. What it does tell you is that the Death Star is approaching and threatening Earth and only one hope is left. You guessed it, sucker, that’s you, tucked safely inside Star Fighter One. No one needs to be told what a Death Star is in detail; it’s a big, round metal moon with a deep and heavily defended equatorial trench, and a single weakness, the central core vent down which an accurately placed photon missile will be able to reach the core and blow up the Death Star.

Death Star Interceptor kicks off with a very good rendition of the ‘Star Wars’ theme (the game is officially licenced) as your fighter waits at the base of the screen to be launched into space. There are three playing screens, the first is really an effect rather than a difficult game sequence. When the music finishes the computer says, ‘Prepare for launching!’ quite without the aid of a Currah Microspeech unit. You must then take off and fly the fighter through the dead centre of a series of concentric rings representing entry into hyperspace.

The second screen is set in space. Earth is seen receding on the right, leaving your fighter alone with the stars — but not for Iong. Some of the stars look as though they’re moving, and getting bigger — and they are. Several fighters and other types zoom towards you, weaving and spinning as they come in to the attack. You are so busy dodging their lethal blasts and blowing them to smithereens that at first you fail to notice another star getting brighter. Suddenly the point of light grows and grows until you realise it the dread Death Star itself. If you survive this screen until approach to the Death Star is concluded, you will dive down on the metal moon and into the equatorial trench.

Screen three is a 3D birds’ eye perspective view of the trench which scrolls towards you. Your fighter can move left or right as well as up and down. The sides of the trench are dotted with laser cannon, the base with fuel dumps. More tie fighters come screaming up the trench at you, and later there are laser beams ranging across its width which you must fly under or over. If you survive this section for long enough, there will be a chance to drop a photon torpedo down the rapidly approaching vent. Success will see you fly up put of the trench, and turning round, you will see the receding Death Star disintegrate in a massive explosion. But don’t worry — with one down, there are many more to come with tougher defences!



Prepare for launching!

CRITICISM
‘I saw this game some time ago on the CBM 64 (by the same company) and there isn’t the slightest doubt that the Spectrum version is far superior (nothing to do with petty inter-computer jealousies either). The ‘Star Wars’ theme at the start is excellently done and the speech bit isn’t bad either. The first screen is simple enough not to become too serious an irritation between games. The second screen is pretty amazing, a real fast shoot em up with astonishingly smooth 3D graphics that really do come rushing at you. The perspective effect and sense of depth has to be seen to be believed. In the trench the colours are perhaps less effective, but the saving grace is the speed and clarity of the scrolling. Death Star Interceptor (along with Incentive’s Moon Cresta) mark a new era of sophisticated shoot em ups. Great stuff!’

‘Death Star must be one of the fastest solid 3D shoot em up games yet available for the Spectrum. Once loaded, you are greeted with a glorious ‘Star Wars’ theme music — try amplifying it, it’s worth it. ‘Prepare for launching!’ as I shot through the time gate, the computer shouted. The 3D a