EYE-HAND WHAT'S NEW IN VIDEO

EYE-HAND WHAT'S NEW IN VIDEO

CARTS

MS. PAC-MAN Atari

(Atari VCS)

Wow! Four changing mazes! Floating fruit, from cherry cherr to banana! A cartoon at the end! It's enough to make the hardcore Pac Fan palpitate. And it's all true, Betty Lou—so how come it's boring?

Atari has not seemed to catch on yet that the point of PacMan is to 1) avoid the monsters or 2) eat a power pill and catch the monsters. So they give us again, as they did in the PacMan cartridge, flickering "ghost monsters" that alternate from blinking to invisible and make the game both annoying and pointless.

Contributing to the problem is the structure of the four different levels of play. The first level, with one "gnost monster," is perfect for two year olds. The two ghost level is great for four year olds, and the three ghost for seven year olds. The fourth and highest play level tosses in Speedy, the red monster. He moves three times as fast as in the arcade version. Between Speedy and the floating, slowto-turn corners joystick action, level four is too hard while the other three levels are too easy. Improving your game to cope with level four would have to involve being able to see the ghost monsters and is therefore unlikely.

The sound effects of Ms. PacMan contribute to the frustration. Although the game begins with a great reproduction of ’he arcade theme, the sound made when the dots are eaten is the blip, blip, blip from a 1950'$ robot movie. The sound changes to the drip, drip, drip of a leaky faucet when the power pill is eaten.

The rest of the extras—the four changing mazes ond the floating fruit—do their best to add interest to the game. It's all there, and she is "the one and only Ms. Pac-Man." Too bad she turned out to be □ one night stand.

Joanne Zangrilli

SPACE PANIC SPACE FURY Coleco

(Colecovision)

I would say these games both play like their arcade versions if I had any idea what galaxy the arcocles might be located in. I thought i knew a fair share of arcade apparatus but I guess some games just don't get everywhere. So rather than the compare 'em to their arcade counterparts, we'll approach them on their own merits.

Which doesn't make it any easier. Take Sega's Space Fury—wanna bet it didn't make big bucks at the arcade for a reason? It's Asteroids all over again, basically, and that's one game that isn't too easy to improve on. Which is probably why the arcade Space Fury died the death.

But don't let that stop you. Actually there are more grins than you think here, particularly the first time you play. Go for tne easy game option and the first thing you'll see is the face of a green alien with lips moving just like Clutch Cargo's used to. Underneath, a banner flashes a greeting along the lines of "Hello, puny earthling, prepare to meet your doom/' and suddenly you're in Asteroids territory, spinning 360 degrees here and there and fending off attacking thingies.

The opportunity for game variation is w^hnwo—« preliminary blnz, me successiui player has his/her choice of one of three "mother ships" to dock with, each of which has a different firing system. It's up to you to decide what you want. After a barrage of three or four different types of attackers, they return all at once, and from then on you work on your skill alone. Your only reward remains the alien's final words upon his return at game's end: "Congratulations, Pol, you've

been a . opponenl," or

something like that. The blanks are filled by cutesy adjectives like "laughable" "capoble" "outstanding” and probably even funnier ones, the higher your score. In all, thumbs up all the way. While there's no tremendous amount of screen variation after you've met Ol' Greenface, there's enough skill involved in successfully shooting to keep your interest going a long time.

Space Panic? ft's "cute," I was told by two women who played it with me, and it wasn't meant as the kiss of death. Fact is, it's another one of those what-arcade-wasthat-in? games, but this time it's no Asteroids imitation or anything else for that matter, either. It is cute.

The premise: you-thespaceman are pitted against cunning monsters, each of which can kill you upon contact unless you fight back. How? Urn...with a shove/. Basically, y.-t.-spaceman run up and down a series of girders and ladders while evading the creatures long enough to dig holes in which the unsuspecting beasts are to fall. As they fall, you get points, and when they oII fall, you get a new screen variation.

They don't /ust fall, though. You've got to use your shovel again to cover them up. And when you don't cover them up in time—and it happens a lot— ihey change color. And then you're got to dig two holes, one directly underneath the other, to kill those monsters. And if you don't cover those monsters up in time, guess what? A new monster, this one needing to fall through three holes ot once before you can destroy it.

STARPATH

SUPERCHARGER

The Supercharger. Sounds a little scary, doesn t it? Visions of jumper cobles, stalled Trans

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like me can handle it, anyone with half a pulse can too. Nothin' to it. You simply slide the Supercharger into an Atari 2600 like it's a long cartridge, plug the connected wire into the earphone jack of any audio cassette player (it's not picky like some computers) and you're ready. The program loads from tape to VCS In 30 seconds or less and with a flick of the replay switch, you, the dummy, are in business.

SUPERCHARGE NOW!

What the Supercharger does, basically, is increase the VCS' memory storage by a big 6K (six Kahunas, tecnically speaking). This makes for much improved, flicker-free graphics and games with much more depth than the typical cart.

Special features include a wide assortment of options/levels, automatic high score compilation, sneak previews or other Starpath games and Multi Load tapes that further increase play depth.

Here's a quick look at the games currently available for tne Supercharger:

• Communist Mutants From Outer Space—No resisting this Galaxian-styled shooter. Just scope these epic instructions.The evil ruler ol the planet Rooskee has bunched a cunning Mother Creature, filled with irradiated vodka. ..You've got trouble. Yeah, but you've got options too, like shields,

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psychedelic time warp. Ace feature—the player selects any combination of variations, enabling you to "customize" your attack.

• Killer Satellites—Here's an extremely likeable horizontal scroller where you must protect Hometown, USA from the killer sats and eight other types of invaders, including moon cupcakes, enamel chastity belts and the much-dreaded unidentified flying bamboo steamers. Game features 95-100 difficulty levels and you can start almost anywhere. It's also a riot to crash your own plane at high speeds. Exquisite, fiery disintegration.

•Fireball—This is the best variation on the Breakout theme yet. You're a fireball juggler with a choice of deflecting or catching the flaming spheres that bounce-off-and-eliminate the blocks/bricks. Each time you wipe out a wave of blocks, another fireball Is added, which makes for some real hot juggling once you get past the first ball. Plus five different games: Knock-A-Block (described above), Marching Blocks (rows stomp towards you), Firetrap (two additional balls in block cavities), Cascade (like Firetrap with five balls) and Migrating Blocks, which randomly exchange places.

• Escape From The MindMoster—In this Multi Load

package, you're stumbling

MM uses several tests to measure your intelligence, ranging from pegs V holes to margarine detecting abilities. The "human's eye view" perspective is real neat and doesn't take much time to get accustomed to. •Dragonstomper—This is the adventure game for players who don't like adventure games. You roam the Enchanted Countryside, stop in at the Oppressed Village for a burger and some oppression, then duke it out with tne Dragon on his home turf. There're some bad acts in the countryside: spiders, snakes, golems, demons, maniacs and The Slime, Spiffy, scoreboard-like message block gives you important poop ("OH NO—A SLIME!!!") and play-by-play combat descriptions. Another Multi Load, with separate loads for all three battlefields. •Suicide Mission—The story line we're asked to buy here is that we're cruising somebody's bloodstream—Fantastic Voyage style—tackling the footsoldiers of a Viral Colony, Game action resembles Asteroids, with intriguingly squiggly amoebas instead of space junk. Keep in mind what Perry Mason once said: “A virus can't be taught, it must be exterminated/" •Phaser Patrol—This is the first two-screen space match I've ever been comfortable with. You must have a relatively "handy" difficulty switch, as it's used to change from the Sector Map to Combat Action, The latter features your instrument panel and a sight for blasting the Dracon baa boys. Instead of accumulating boring old points, you try to improve your pilot ranking. I dunno, cleaning up the galaxy seems like an awtul lot of work just for a bad review.

On the whole, this gamer is obsessed with the Supercharger. It's the most exciting addition to my VCS pile since lighter fluid. Tne price is down around $40 now in some places, and individual games are only $ 5 5. Pretty decent for an odaiction, I think.

Rick Johnson

It's fun. And it takes skill—it's something of an art to get the feel of digging one hole directly underneath another, and

There are ail sorts ot strategies you can fool around with for niqher scores. Only problem

scores. Unly or might be the lack of screen variation, but again that's more a fault of Universal's original

In all, both carts show that Coleco is prospering, producing, and doing a fine job of It. Those who are a little bored playing Venture and Carnival—have fun.

Kevin Christopher

OINK!

Activision

(Atari)

This video version of the Three Little Pigs is proof that not everything can be improved by technology. It's real cute, the graphics are great, but the action is duller than a dried-out pork chop.

Oink is faithful to the story we all used to beg for at bedtime, except for the exciting parts.

luuisieps us me pig wuuoies out into his living room, (Despite the title, there isn't o single snort on the soundtrack.) The wolf walks up outside the house and starts using his laser-like breath to play Breakout with the three rows of bricks that form the house's floor. The pig gets a row of thirteen bricks along his ceiling? a hint of the bad luck to come. The player has to direct the pig up to the bricks, press the joystick button to grab one, and direct the pig over a hole the wolf has made. Release the joystick button and the brick drops down and fills a hole. Positioning the porker is not easy, ana if he is not over a hole the brick won't drop—the pig will just stand there flapping his arms.

I he wolt doesn t get bolted and the pigs don't get eaten, so right away the game loses that "life and death" Incentive.

Version One —Player as Pig —begins with the sound of

Meanwhile the wolf is relentlessly huffing and puffing, and when the laser breath breaks through and hits the pig, it knocks the brick out of his hands and drags him down to the floor. If tne hole is big enough, it drags him out into the yard and you go on to the next piq, who has been watching all this from an upstairs window. But not until the dead pig gets up, walks back into the house, and leaves the room! Where could he be going? Is there a barbecue pit in the backyard?

Version Two of the gameone player as pig and one as wolf—offers gamers who enjoy sadistic practical jokes a beautiful opportunity. The wolf who is so slick when the computer controls him turns into a hopeless clod who can never stand in the right spot when o human tries it with a joystick. The torture can go on for hours until the unfortunate person playing wolf either succumbs to severe hand cramps or punches the other player in the snout.

Joanne Zangrilli

DONKEY KONG JR.

Coleco

(ColecoVision)

Coleco didn't monkey around with Donkey Kong Jr., the first in the second wave of cartridges for ColecoVision. The graphics that were so highly praised in their first games have taken another leap forward here.

The arcade game embellishments—the girl's wiggling, Kong's foot stomping— | were missing from the Donkey Kong home version, although the game play itself was authentic. With Donkey Kong Jr., one of these nice touches is included. In the second rack, Kong breaks out of his cage piece by piece with every key Jr. inserts in the locks. On the last lock, Kong breaks free, leaps up, and smiles.

There are three different screens: the ropes and platforms, the hanging chains, and the moving islands. All of them are so sharp, clear and detailed that it's hard to believe you're at home. All the obstacles are here too— snapjaws in two colors, the nitpicker birds and egg-dropping stookybirds, plus plenty of hanging fruit to clobber them with. The game play and joystick action are excellent, Kong Jr. can leap without a running start, unlike poor paunchy Mario in CV's Donkey Kong.

But it's the graphics that do it all for this game—Jr. looks like a monkey, leaps like one (always with his arm raised in the hope of catching on to something) and even walks like an ape. And if a monkey in diapers isn't the cutest hero of a videogame ever, who is? You can't help but want to get involved and rescue his Dad from the evil big-nosed Mario, hopefully before Jr. runs out of Pompers.

Joanne Zangrilli

G.l. JOE COBRA STRIKE Parker Bros.

_(Atari VC5)_

OK, here's the picture: We're doing time at the G,l. Joe training camp. Not such a bad place, kinda small, maybe. Gang showers. The view stinks. Bui you don't have to get your skull shaved, so how bad can it be?

Il can be pretty bad. An "evil" organization called Cobra (Crawl Over Barren, Rocky Anthills? Call Off Big Ronnie's Attitude?) have attacked the camp in order to facilitate their planned world takeover. They can have it, right?

Aw, c'mon, that's not the G.l, Joe spirit, little comrades! We gotta take it to these bad guys, whose assault force has arrived "in the form" of a gigantic cobra snake! Pretty symbolic, if you ask me. I'm surprised there aren't any smokestacks or train tunnels around.

This bad Cobra is squirting venom from its fangs and laser beams from its nasty black eyes in a very Kaboom-ish manner. If any of this icky stuff hits one of the recruits, he's either vaporized or beamed up to the snake, Scotty-style. Being up in the slither king is no fun. There's nothing to do up there except scrub fangs and tell venomous knock-knock jokes.

Are you, G.L Joe, gonna let this happen to your poor little soldier guys? Of course noli You're a commando! A lean, mean fightin' machine! And it just so happens you've got a gun that fires missiles. What else ya gonna do, hit the cobra with your hoe? Hoe, hoe, hoe, that's the morale we've got here! Lime Chiffon wears an aparent birthday cake on her ead. The life of the party, I'm sure. The rest of her is...//me. Quick, the Lime Away! Her Parisian ditty would sound best as the background music in a Breakfast At Tiffany's terrace scene.

Seriously speaking, ihough, do you wont to be the good uys oil the time? Rescuing murlette, saving Earth from total destruction and playing usher for lady frogs? Nooooooo way! That's what's so great about Cobra Strike— you can be the meanies instead!

You've probably seen the TV commercial for this cart. You know, the one with the Jekyll/Hyde, John

McEnroe/Brooke Shields announcer? Well, he's right! We all have an evil side! We /ike to stomp centipedes, break out of prison and alienate the affections of that poor dumb ape's dream girl.

In this game, all you have to do is kick the game select switch and you, the paddlewogger, becomes the cobra! Let me tell ya', if you think roasting recruits with your laser eyebalTs is fun, wait'll you cop ! the sensation of spitting venom on ihe suckers! Il's just too bod they don't shrivel up and die like Spider-Man does when he hits the pavement in his game.

Overall, the variety available in Cobra Strike is a big plus. Your precious little humanitarian side might get torn between the satisfaction of protecting your troops and the pure joy of blasting them into Endust, but hey—what are feelings when you can get points?! If only there was a mercenary level where you'd get paid tor it!

Rick Johnson

STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE MUSICAL MATCH-UPS Parker Bros.

(Atari VCS)

Here it is. The one we've all been waiting for. Uncontested game of the year. No...let's say greatest game in videogame history. No, no...this is surely the most fascinating entertainment device of the 20th Century. Ah, why mince words? Strawberry Shortcake Musical Match-Ups is obviously the single most important event in human history, And yet...it's a game! Manyleveled, certainly, but still an alleged source of fun. And to further throw serious scientific researchers off the track, the package says S'berry S'cake is for ages four to seven! Maybe future historians unearthing the remains of our primitive rec rooms will be better equipped to interpret the scope and impact of this so-called toy.

Here's the specifics. On your screen, you'll see a member of the S'berry cast standing in a perilously cute gazebo. Glenn Ford is nowhere in sight.

After a brief musical intro, you'll see one of the gang, say the impish Blueberry Muffin, all happy and smiling. Only, their bodily parts have been mixed up with those of the others. There stands little Booberry (a mite nervous, but that's understandable), only she's got Lukeberry's denim legs and the Purple Pieman's...uh, torso, shall we say?

This confused anatomysymbolic of American youth?— doesn't just stand there, oh no. It dances to its own personal theme song. Or it wou/d, but (pleez sit down) the song is all mixed, just like the character!

Hold on a minute! We still haven't introduced the entire cast! Rude City!

First and foremost is S'cake herself, who looks a little like Shirley Temple in a snakecharmer's hat and soccer sox. Her tune is the probable theme song of the Tilt-A-Whirl in a seedy Tuscaloosa amusement park.

Huckleberry Pie wears a straw hat and coveralls. You've seen him everywhere in Collegetown, USA. His name should be Luke. "Satisfaction" in some odd minor key is his number.

Blueberry Muffin is highly reminiscent of Annie Oakley in her "blue" period. Her song is "On Wisconsin" done oompa-pa style.

The bad guy, Purple Pieman, looks like a cross between Evil McGreedy and Famous Amos, with a violet new wave handlebar moustache. He has the best song, a Cossack hopper that makes you want to shout "Hey!" a lot and jump over fires.

Five of the swellest youngsters around, don't you think? The Kids From Fame got nothin' on this group.

Graphics are real sharp, especially for a VCS cartridge. They're very simple, of course, but definitely eaible.

Ditto all the music. This is the first cart where I've voluntarily enjoyed the tunes. They're real crisp, even —dare I say— sprightly? My alwaysmiscnievous fingers hod trouble staying at the controls. They wanted to slam dance from the start.

Speaking of fingers, the game action is just right for the age group it's designed for. Match the bods, match the tunes, match the nose, all that good stuff. It only took me two plays to master, but—of course—/ cheated. Shame, degradation, Just compared the on-screen tangle to the actual portraits in the directions. C'mon—I know when I'm whipped.

Plus + + + + +the bjg extra: a free "Thank You" postcard featuring the whole smiling cast with little baby animals. You just fill it out and send it straight to Aunt Bernice.

She'll be tickled.

Rick Johnson

REACTOR Parker Bros.

CHINA SYNDROME Spectravision

(Both Atari VCS)

In Reactor, one practically expects their skin to tingle with a green glow. The sound almost does it, but neither the action nor the graphics are very entertaining.

The player's ship is trapped inside a nuclear reactor's containment structure. With the core going critical, the mission is to stop the meltdown and stay alive. Individual nuclear particles like neutrinos bombard your craft until they or you touch the walls, which represent Instant vapor-death. Meanwhile, the interior core grows like an aroused flyspeck, shrinking the safe area needed to work on reducing the control rods.

The "ship" is a clumsy floater, moving like old jitterbuggers through ankle-deep caramel until you try to stop it, when it slides a few more spaces as if iced. Ultimately, Reactor is a complex Pong, with bouncing positrons and photons taking the place of the innocent, square pong ball,

China Syndrome's meltdown-and-out is as inevitable os Reactor's, but it's more enjoyable, since you have a better chance of keeping everything cool. Like Reactor, there's an irritating audio (think of o drunk cat stumbling across an out-of-tune piano) but Spectravision's new cart does contain some thrills.

An earthquake-damaged nuke is rotten to the core. The player must use a joystickdirected robot arm (called a Decontamination-DefussionVacuum) to remove leaking fuel particles before a meltdown starts. This fall-out roundup occurs on nine levels of increasing difficulty. It has similarities to Breokout in flames, with added obstacles like steam vents which disintegrate your mechanical arm.

The long and (appropriately) uncontrollable meltdown is depicted as a blood-red sheet that slowly falls until it fills the screen, accompanied by an obnoxious noise that shares common ancestry with dental drills.

Although Reactor comes in a distant runner-up fun-wise, both it and China Syndrome show that you might be able to keep going in a dangerous and difficult nuclear "simulation," but—like real life—you'll never win. You're the Human Element.

And you know how we are.

Bill Knight

CADES

SUPER ZAXXON

_(Sega)_

Something about the first time I played Super Zaxxon reminded me of an eight-year old phenylpropanolamine freak steering a Ferrari wide-open through someone's living room.

The object is simple. Invade the enemy's Floating Fortress, avoiding walls, turrets, rockets, space snips, laser barriers, fuel tanks, minelayers, and radar units. Next, fire six volleys down the Dragon's throat before he fries your projectile with his breath. Then repeat the process with minor variations, mostly speed. And watch your fuel gauge if you're not busy.

Super Zaxxon's graphics are more elaborate than its predecessor's, with castle walls from Disneyland and a hexagonal red tile floor from House Beaut/fu/. Catatonic gamers could just groove on the colors.

The tunnel action is more dynamic. If you pass under the bridge in the first asteroid, the screen changes and you're hurtling through a passage where enemy ships, swinging like Jello bats, explode on contact and ruin your afternoon. Constantly pressing the Fire button will determine altitude and direction. This will also clear the screen of undesirable objects.

The low point in the game happens to be the encounter with the Dragon, Super Zaxxon. Following three adrenalin rushes in two asteroids and one tunnel, you meet what Sega calls "the ultimate obstacle." The excitement level here is roughly equivalent to having both legs in plaster casts and outmaneuvering an eight-foot slug. The dragon inspires as much awe as a Pez dispenser. The act of dragonslaying is slightly less annoying than hosing blood off the mat between Toughman bouts.

Helpful hints: for maximum points, destroy enemy ships, etc., while they're still on the ground in the first asteroid. Keep your dipstick level up by blasting fuel tanks disguised as soft-boiled eggs on tripods. And follow a zig-zag path close to the grouncTon the right side. You'll figure it out.

If you mastered the diagonal movement of Zaxxon, you're halfway home. This version's not for heart patients or terminal droolers. The novice Zaxxonite should plan on bouncing off walls for the better part of $2.00 or 10 minutes, whichever comes first.

George Piner

TIME PILOT

(Centuri)

This seemingly simple air combat game is deceptively difficult. The premise is interesting. Time Pilot takes the player through decades of military advances step by step. But what looks eosy from across an arcade becomes Joystick Jitters when the game begins.

Zaxxon-like graphics depict the player's plane in the center of the screen sky. An aerial dogfight begins against early aircraft, circa 1910. Biplanes attack in formation and singly, shooting guns and dropping bombs like their military budget was bottomless. In fact, there is no ground here. No matter how far you dive, you're up in the air. Besides the principle opponent, a larger prey eventually floats by: the zeppelin. When the hot-oir dirigible clanks on the screen like some dilapidated International Harvester your Grandpa keeps covered up in his barn, it offers a sizable point bonus and, when destroyed, a gateway to the next stage.

After a nice light show time warp to separate the years, the player is in the middle of a World War II battle against prop fighters and an occasional bomber. As with the first group, the enemies emerge from all directions and come in such numbers as to threaten collisions as we! as cannon-fire. If you're successful (don't look at me; the upper 40,000s were my best), Time Pilot visits the near Past, the Present and the Future, facing helicopters, jets, and flying saucers, with various planetoids and "mother ships" cluttering the screen.

The game has an excellent warm-up demo mode prior to coin-drop. Stand and watch— the tips are obvious. Be aggressive; spray a stream of fire as you rotate constantly (you need 56 kills from each stage to keep moving forward). The larger bonus crafts need more than one shot to fail, and they're most vulnerable from behind. Aren't we all?

A few other hints: loop-theloop regularly, sneaking up on your attacker. Make plenty of right angle turns to elude the slow-moving fire. Don't forget you can snoot an incoming bomb, the quickest exit from Boom Doom. Lastly, stay above the bombs, which drop with gravity (in fact, I prefer to fly straight up, "higher and higher"). The joystick's direction control limits maneuverability, so concentrate on wiping out the attackers, not stacking up points.

Bill Knight

THE ULTIMATE TIP!

How To Beat Home Video Games Vol. 1-3

(Vestron Video)

Trying to pick up good playing tips on home videogames is a thankless, time-consuming task, like deodorizing swings or trying to solve the Italian Dubbers Union strike. It's not like the arcade, where you can play it close to the nose as long as the victim you're watching doesn't turn around and peel you so you'll fit through the coin slot better.

At home, there's nothing you can do but blunder-hack away at an enjoyment level similar to sitting around watting for paint to crock.

Reading the strategic poop in vidmags can be helpful, but so can learning how to hot wire shrimp boats. And, as for checking out the actual instructions, well, we all know how that works. Either the directions are incomplete or your attention span is, us’n's being hot to play the muthuh.

Vestron's How To Beat Home Video Games videotapes are such a good solution to the drudgery of learning, there's just no comparison. What could be better than watching the games being played on your own personal TV?

Each of the three volumes covers 20 different games, with a friendly announcer introducing and discussing each game in turn. Besides demonstrating the play action, slow motion and highlighting are used to point out "those super strategies, those little-known tricks and secrets, those techniques that will take you farther into each game than ever before," like the guy says.

Volume I: The Best Games covers 20 well-known VCS cartridges, including Space Invaders, Demon Attack, PacMan, Missile Command, Froger, Asteroids, Defender, onkey Kong and Atlantis, as well as duds like Barnstorming and Circus Atari. Not only do you get to see all the screens (including mufti-screen games like Donley Kong), but also uick flashes of hands esperately clutching joysticks and real kids playing real games.

As the first games are analyzed, you begin to notice things you should've spotted during previous contests or stumbled onto In the instructions. For example, the stupid author didn't realize the diving demons were worth more points than the hovering birdies in Demon Attack, or that the side cannons in Atlantis produce higher blommo.

Volume II.The Hot New Gomes, examines 20 newer VCS entries, including E.T., Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Starmaster, Berzerk, Pitfall, Riddle Of The Sphinx, Megamania, Astrochase, Space Attack, Mouse Trap, Lock 'N' Chase, Super Breakout, Venture and more. By now, the announcer has loosened his tie a bit and the kids are starting to get a little itchy, squirming around in their seats like they're suffering mass pantyhose crawl or they have to qo to the bathroom real bad.

The game selection here may be a bit uneven, but the approach remains thorough. Seriously though, I have to admit to leaning on the Fast Forward a bit. I mean, E.T.— why don't they skip the facts and show you how to burn off the little creep's face with rocket exhaust? And nowhere in the Riddle Of The Sphinx segment do they cover the proper dancesteps for stomping the cart into little pieces ana then grilling it.

Volume III: Arcade Qualify For The Home introduces games for the Atari 5200, ColecoVision and GCEA/ectrex systems, including the 5200 versions of Pac-Man, Centipede, Space Invaders, Galaxian, Defender, Super Breakout and Star Raiders; Coleco's Donkey Kong, Zoxxon, Venture, Lady Bug and Smurfs Must Die; and Mine Storm, Scramble, Rip-Off, Cosmic Chasm, Clean Sweep and Hyperchase for the Vectrex.

By this point, the little guinea pigs are fired and sullenlooking, like they're about to vandalize the announcer's cheeks. Got no complaints, though, as they only get about 45 seconds out of each tape's 60-minute running time. Hey twerps—that's show biz!

How To Beat Home Video Games is a good idea carried out with technical excellence. Picture and audio quality, as well as special effects, are outstanding throughout. The suggested list price ($39.95 per volume) compares favorably with most prerecorded videocassettes and both VHS and Beta formats are available.

"Your scores should increase dramatically," says the host in the intro and he's right, of course. And if you don T want or care about high scores, hey—erase it and re-record old episodes of Haze/ instead! (Vestron Video, P.O. Box 4470, Stamford CT 06907)

Rick Johnson