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Beyond praise

ARCADE GAMES involving alien spaceships and destructive droids have taken another step forward with the release of Psytron by Beyond. The scenario is not startling - you have to defend a space colony against alien attack. The aliens try to bomb various installations and drop saboteur droids into the tunnels below which self-destruct when they reach their target.

What sets Psytron apart from the herd is its staggering complexity and extremely high-quality graphics. The game is played across 10 screens representing different areas of the colony and each picture can be called-up instantaneously. Beneath the view are status reports, including a continuous scrolling report simulating the kind of screen window associated with far more sophisticated machines than the Spectrum.

The first level may seem tedious. All you have to do is hunt the saboteur droids through the tunnels; when you have achieved a 50 percent score five times in a row the game allows you to continue to the next level, where you shoot at spaceships. More and more elements are included, until the final level arrives.

At that advanced stage not only do you have to keep zapping the aliens but you must also manage your crew numbers, deciding your defensive priorities to ensure the survival of the colony's buildings and the population. If the medical unit is destroyed your wounded will die; if the docking bay is damaged vital supplies may be lost.

Beyond is offering a Sinclair QL to anyone who can survive for an hour at the highest level. If anyone can, they might be better employed running the NATO central defence systems, or imprisoned forcibly as a potential danger to the public.




PSYTRON Memory: 48K Price: £7.95 Joystick: Kempston Gilbert Factor: 9

PSYTRON
Beyond Software / £7.95

The player eventually becomes the Psytron - something less than human and more than a computer - and is put in charge of the Betula 5 installation. Your job is to cope with the defensive demands when the attack comes. The overall aim is to process the information (and highly detailed it is) supplied in the 20-page booklet accompanying the program.

Ian The graphics are excellent, with instant access to the ten views around your base, all of which detail the surrounding buildings and landscapes. And a near perfect use of colour goes even further towards making the overall display startlingly clear. Each year a program comes along that sets the standard by which the others must be judged. Psytron is 1984's yardstick.

Frank The idea is simply splendid, and there's so much going on it's impossible to get bored. With its well-defined, clear and colourful graphics, and a manageable but challenging speed, the game is addictive from the very start, and gets more so as the player progresses.

Phil There are six levels to the game, but it'll take a great deal of practice to get there - especially as the speed is very fast. However, there's not a lot of sound used, but this goes unnoticed alongside the superb graphics. Overall, it's one of the most interesting games to come on to the market.

Ian Hemmingway, Phil Morse, Frank Pelling, Owen Pugh, Monty Trent

Producer: Beyond
Memory required: 48K
Retail price: £7.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Tayo Olowu and Paul Voysey


After a less than auspicious start with Space Station Zebra (reviewed last month) Beyond Software (part of the EMAP group who also own Computer & Video Games magazine) have really launched themselves with this colossal arcade strategy game. A program which makes other programmers gasp, it says on the excellent packaging - and perhaps it will.

Psytron comes in a large box containing the cassette, a competition entry form (more later) and a very detailed 20-page booklet explaining how the game is played, and what Psytron is. It looks rather daunting but is essential reading. However it can be read in stages until all the six levels of the game have been absorbed. Psytron is not a game for a few moments play it will take ages.

The action all takes place on a huge base on the planet of Betula 5. The planet's atmosphere is not compatible with humanity, so the base is sealed within its own life support system. The base has an inner ring from which radiate the various surface installations. These are the medical centre freezetime generator, oxygen unit, docking bay and teleport centre, recycling unit, pleasure dome, crew quarters, fuel dump, power plant, matter disruptor and the food store. The game provides 10 screens which are views of the base, seen from the centre and all the way round.

The Psytron is in sole charge of Betula 5, and as the Psytron, you will have to undertake everything to protect the base. Shooting aliens out of the skies and dealing with the remote droids they drop which run around the inner ring to blow up the vital airlocks make up the arcade component, but repairing facilities and deciding what installations to sacrifice at critical moments makes up the strategy element.

Psytron is a game of six levels of progressive difficulty which have been designed to take you into the game step by step, piling more and more responsibility on your shoulders. Each level must be mastered before the next is attempted. The computer looks at your last five scores and calculates an average- if it's over the passmark then you can move on to the next level. The computer keeps a service record of your achievement which may be saved and reloaded after game load. This is all important because the service record is used in compiling your overall score for the final level. Beyond are running a competition with a prize of a QL computer for the winner. If someone conquers the game completely, then they will win, but it is considered almost impossible to survive for an hour on level 6, which is really required to get the special code. The competition closes on November 30, and if not already won, the prize will go to the highest scorer at that time.

The screen display is split, with a little over half the top being the monitor views of the base (10 in all). These views are drawn in detailed black line and cross hatching with a yellow strip for the ground and a pale blue for the sky. It all looks like a comic drawing. Below is the white and black ringway with airlock access. In this ringway enemy droids are dropped and they can be seen running along to their randomly selected detonation points. Below is the screen report which details what section of the base you are seeing, and updates damage and status reports. Other info provided includes fuel levels, percentage of damage, crew status and time.

At the bottom right-hand corner is a 3D view of the ringway looking along it. This will show a droid on the run. Your pursuit droid also shows up on the ringway and may be guided to chase the enemy droid until it comes into view on the 3D panel. It must be destroyed by fire before it reaches its destination.

Meanwhile, overhead enemy saucers are constantly attacking the base from all directions, dropping bombs which explode colourfully. A gun sight is provided. The enemy saucers are animated in 3D as well.

Describing this game in a review would take pages, and there is a great deal more to playing it than we, have said here - after all, it takes 20 pages for the producers to describe it!


CRITICISM
Psytron is a fantastic arcade type strategy game. The graphics are very good, with alien ships in the sky above the excellent views of your base. Challenging, addictive and difficult are words which sum up this game. In fact, the word game is almost an insult to this Beyond scenario. As there are several tasks to be done in maintaining the base, learned at the various levels, Psytron has plenty of lasting appeal! Don't let the useful booklet put you off, you can load and play Psytron straight away although the advice it contains is more essential on the higher levels. Side B of the cassette has a glimpse of their next big game, the adventure Lord of Midnight.

The rapid access to any of the 10 screens, combined with the natural change of views if your gunsight leaves the screen, makes for a very exciting background against which to play this furious and tiring game. The graphics are superb, oddly not very colourful, but the way they have been done is very convincing. At this stage of reviewing the game it is impossible to say what the higher levels are like - it will be some time before I ever get up there! But if the three I have so far seen are anything to go by, it's a great game all the way and very addictive as well.

This game builds up your skill qualities until you are ready for the grand finale - a very good idea. The graphics move about realistically and in full perspective, the 10 segments of the space station are all very well drawn. The upward scrolling information on the Screen Report is great, as you can see what damage is occurring while you're fighting off the alien saucers. Colour and sound have been used well, although there isn't a great deal of colour in the game itself. Your last five scores are taken and averaged for promotion, which is a marvellous idea, although it can be disheartening if one of them happens to be very high. Psytron is fantastic fun to play and the difficulty of each level and the fact that there are six levels means that it is going to take a long time to master, making it dangerously addictive. Definitely a thousand percent better than Space Station Zebra, and overall breathtaking and overwhelming.

COMMENTS
Control keys: (droid) Q=forward, A=turn around, M to fire (Skywatch) Q/A up/down, O/P left/right, M to fire, N=fast scan, S=skywatch mode, D=droid mode
Joystick: Kempston
Keyboard play: very responsive
Use of colour: original and very well used
Graphics: excellent
Sound: well used
Skill levels: 6
Lives: 1
Screens: 10
General rating: well planned, designed and implemented very addictive and overall excellent value for money. Highly recommended.

Use of computer 85%
Graphics 93%
Playability 88%
Getting started 98%
Addictive qualities 91%
Value for money 88%
Overall 91%