The Half Ashes

By Steve McCrea

Genre: Sport: fine legs and silly sods.

Oh wow, I’m so pleased my excessive bleating about there being too many football games has paid off – this year’s CGC finally has a cricket game.  It’s an especially well timed one too, because at the time of writing England are about to launch the most heroic sporting comeback resulting in them winning the 2013/14 ashes 3-2.  The Half Ashes is here to help us celebrate this historic victory to come.

Programmed in C, and like so many of Steve’s other CGC games, this has so much to it.  Going by most people’s standards T.H.A. is a crap game, mainly as the graphics are simple but I would say the spectrum’s palette was heaven sent for a cricket game.

You take control of the fielding side, and unsurprisingly have to bowl out 10 batsmen within 30 (rather unorthodox) overs.  At first glance the keys appear a little unwieldy but bearing in mind you need to control 11 men they are actually excellent once you get to grips with them.  Once you have set (your ideally unorthodox) field you get to the task of bowling, the speed and aim of the ball can be regulated by bowler position and the rate you toggle keys ‘C’ and ‘M’.  It is possible to get a batsman out in the usual ways, run outs being most common, then being bowled, followed by catching least.

Cricket is not everyone’s cup of tea, so for those people The Half Ashes will be just as tedious as the long Wednesday afternoons spent standing around playing pocket billiards on the boundary during P.E.  But for people who enjoy such a profound game as cricket it’s a real treat.  As said, there is so much to it – setting fields, getting the ball right, stopping the ball hitting the boundary.  Absolutely fascinating, and I will keep returning to this game.

At least I would, if it was a bit more stable.  I managed to make it return to BASIC (Out of Memory Error) and crash over about 1 hours play.  So Steve has just about saved face with these rather irritating flaws.  But if he sorts the bugs and gives it a bit more polish (starting with a nice wicket clattering noise), this would probably be the best cricket game for the Spectrum ever!

Thank you Steve, and as Geoffrey Boycott so often says:

“My Grandmother coulda programmed that wi' a stick o' Rhubarb.”

Download TAP here.
Download support files(remote link)
Download my RZX playing it,until the unfortunate ending.

2013 Football Manager

By ardentcrest

Genre: Strategy: dicaniator

 
Don’t know much about footy, but even without the lofty position of hindsight Paulo di Canio seemed a bad choice of manager (for posterity PDC was recently fired as the manager of Sunderland football club, after a 3-0 loss to WBA (West Bromich Albion).

More of a loading screen than a game, but thankyou ardentcrest!

Download here.

 

 

 

 

 

Football Managerless

By Rebelstar without a cause

 Genre: Football: hapless manager management
 

Well Saturday 17^th August marks the start of the football season, which on a personal level means there is less time available on Radio 4’s today programme for cricket news.  However, this is the CGC and it is not the platform to entertain such gripes, nor is it the place to bemoan the absence of any ashes themed cricket games thus far.
 

This excellent management game by RebelstarWAC is reminiscent of Kevin Tom’s seminal 1982 game football manager (just without the cool UDGs and more swearing).  You start the season as a manager of your choice, I chose the most ‘football managery’ name I could think of, in this case Roy Briggs (for 'foreign' readers I also tried as Marizio Peroni).  At the start of the season you have, as seems to be suggested by the tedious farrago that is the media storm, the full 100% support of both the fans and the chairman.  Your team is the promising WOSFC and it’s you versus the premiership.

 
Before each match day is the team selection, and WOSFC roster is naturally comprised (mostly) of ZX-Spectrum legends.  Using Rebelstar’s advanced team setup, you move players on or off the bench according to their skill and aggression.  You don’t get any new players, and the players you have keep the same attributes throughout the season.

 Although this does seem to be based on the RND seed, for some reason poor old (Steve) Crow seems unfairly down on both every time!  It also broke my heart to put Smith on the bench (though I couldn’t decide if it was Matthew or Jonathan).

I gather the idea of the game is that fan & chairman support is linked to performance, and the lower support is the higher the likelihood is of being sacked.  However, unless I’m doing something wrong, it seem totally random as and when you get sacked!  I have been sacked in week 3 with a >90% rating, yet also survived to week 7 with a <56% rating!  I can only assume this is an intentional part of the game, and as such is a comment on the transient, potentially unecessary and haphazard nature of the football manager’s profession (in which case may I congratulate Rebelstar on an ingenious satire).  I’ve been assured it’s not the case but I’d swear blind that the more changes I made to my team the worse they did!

 So after putting my all star team together you get to play the giants of the premiership: Manchester UTD, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Swansea.  Each game is a 90 minute thriller, with a written commentary throughout.  Watch (, chuckle) and be enthralled by missed goals from Kevin Toms, well wides from Ritman and over the bars from Gollop.

I’m still not sure if that missed chance by ‘Jones’ was Mark R or John George, but either way this is a corker of a game, and also that Cauldwell chap needs to be played up front more often.  Despite the games shortcomings I really watched each match with interest and got excited about the result, so there is still a good idea at the heart of this game (who knows Kevin Toms may even be in touch for some tips). Thankyou Rebelstar!

 

Can you think of a more ‘football manager’ name than Roy Briggs?  If so please post here!

 Tipshack:
Even if common sense suggests to select a better team, don’t – it may or may not be worth the risk.

HACKSACK:
Near infinite mercy: Line 50: change fansup and chairsup to 10000%

Download here.

SQUASH!

By Richard Bos

Genre: Sport: Carp

Firstly bonus points and some kind of prize (I keep saying that don’t I, at the end of the year I’ll have to invent a fair few special prizes…so be it) for the first inlay of the competition!  Just imagine, it’s 1985, you walk into John Menzies to see what’s new and you see this:

Wow!  Action!  Pace!  Strategy!  This beautiful inlay invokes all this, so like all inlays the game must be equally as good…mustn’t it?

Well, let’s see: no loading screen?  Check.  Doesn’t autostart?  Check.  No text wrapping?  Check.  ROM font?  Check.  It’s probably a safe bet to assume it’s not going to be in the same league as R-Type then.  Well sorry to be so harsh, because actually I rather like this little game.

SQUASH! is a two player game that can be played with two joysticks, though the key selection is nicely spaced out anyway.  The aim of the game, like Squash, is to keep the ball in play and try to wrongfoot your opponent.  It’s not bad as it goes, the ball jerks around in a barmy fashion and there is a feeling of tension as you race (well, trundle) to reach the ball.  There is a little attribute cleanup bug but that’s not a problem, and actually gets bonus points!

 

I’m ashamed to say that I currently find myself short of time, a playmate, a DivIDE interface (ok I could put onto tape but see time) so I’m not going to play this on my real Spectrum just yet.  I do think it would suit the real hardware experience quite nicely though.

Ball bouncingly CARP!

Thank you Richard!

Tipshack:  Give your squash partner a dead arm so you have the tactical advantage, if not the moral high ground (use that trick with the middle knuckle protruding).

HACK SACK: Why not change line 7020 to give you a really big, though ineffectual bat.

 

Download game here and the inlay here.

Kick the ballboy!

By Rebelstar without a cause.

Genre: Ballboy management.

Well, you can’t accuse the Spectrum community of not having its finger on the pulse – barely a day has passed since a big football story and a satirical game has appeared.  You don’t have to know much about football to enjoy this game, if you can recognise Wayne Rooney doing one of his famous backflips after scoring the winning goal for the Magpies you will know this game refers to Chelsea’s Eden Hazard being sent off after a ‘set to’ with the home side’s ballboy.

The opening screen creates a dramatic atmosphere, and tells you what you need to do: KICK THE BALLBOY!  The game boasts some animated sprites of Brobdingnagian proportions, and as the ref’s eyes scan the field left and right, you need to press K to kick while he’s looking the other way.  The referee is a creature of habit, and his eyes follow a somewhat hypnotic (and very predictable!) rhythm.

My best score is 102, and it’s harder than you might imagine as you become impatient and attempt to squeeze another one in before the ref sees.  In this way KTBB is a very clever, if open ended game.  However, it is silent and cries out for some grating BEEP effects.

I may not have said many negative things about this game yet, but rest assured, it is most definitely CRAP!  An excellent start.

Tipshack: when the referees eyes have just moved away from the right, you can squeeze in 6 or 7 good kicks.

HACK PACK: Lenient referee: 2020 LET SOCCER=0

Download here.