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BLUE MAX, another dubious import from the United States, bears little resemblance to the real dogfights and bi-plane bombing missions of the First World War. You take your light aircraft up from a base which looks as if it is situated within enemy territory. The landing strips must have force fields around them as enemy attacks are sporadic and have little or no effect.

Most of the destruction wreaked upon your aircraft will occur because of your clumsiness in taking-off, landing or keeping altitude.

Rising on the airwaves is only one of your problems. You can release bombs on enemy outposts, tanks and rivercraft by pulling the joystick back and pressing the fire key, or button. If the bombs fail to drop at the correct time you will miss a scant opportunity to gain points.

One touch of realism is the refueling exercise which you should perform every time you sight a landing strip once every four or five minutes.

The bi-plane can perform 3D movements, such as wiggling its wings and casts a shadow on the landscape, but that shows buildings, tanks and shops to be flat as pancakes. Compared to TLL, for instance, Blue Max is clearly second rate.

The Commodore 64 version is impressive but the Spectrum version, although closer to the original, lacks some of its lustre.



John Gilbert

BLUE MAX US Gold Memory: 48K Price: £7.95 Joystick: Sinclair, Kempston, AGF, Protek Gilbert Factor: 6

BLUE MAX
US Gold / £9.95

Roger: I've seen this one before - on the Atari and Commodore 64 if the ol' grey matter serves. And it was a lot better than this!
There I was, togged up to the nines ready to go off blasting at the Hun in yer typical World War I dogfight - and my on-screen jalopy looked a bit like a C5 'killer' with wings! Once you've got the hang of it, bombing factories and bridges relieves a few minor frustrations, but I reckon the whole game's based around trying to land your plane and take off again. Well, it's the only bit that gave me any real trouble! Of course, it might have had something to do with having a propeller with a single blade!
They tell me that the reason the screen's such a mess is something to do with things called 'attributes'. Well, whatever they're called, it's 'orrible!
The whole game's just a rip-off of Zaxxon anyway, so if you don't mind changing your surroundings to the wilds of outer space I'd plump for one of them. Bally bad luck, Ocean! 2/5

Ross: A very old game that offers little that's new. The attribute problems don't exactly help the graphics and there doesn't seem to be a lot going on. Let's hope other US Gold offerings turn out better than this. 1/5

Dave: Why has my plane only got half a propeller? Or is this just an excuse for my score? Or is it that I fell asleep with boredom? (Answers on a postcard ... Ed). 1/5