Your Sinclair


SAS Combat Simulator
By Codemasters
Spectrum 48K/128K

 
Published in Your Sinclair #41

SAS Combat Simulator

Or Commando, by any other name, as you blast and shoot yourself through some benighted warzone in the knowledge that sooner or later your number(31) is up.

Instead of scrolling vertically, as all previous Commando 'tributes' have done, this at least has the wit to scroll horizontally, and the sprite too is satisfyingly large and visible. In fact this is really quite fun, even if it is more derivative than Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Your little fellow can move diagonally as well as in the normal four directions - good news, as his main task is to avoid the many bullets that his opponents fire at him. Fortunately, although the game itself is as fast as you'd wish it, the bullets are dead slow, so dodging them is not too tricky.

Also important is to avoid getting close to the enemy, as there's hand-to-hand combat in this game - find yourself next door to a gook and you're severely dead. In all there are four 'combat zones' (levels), which should keep anyone who's seen Platoon too many times very happy. The programmers have also picked up loads of tricks from Green Beret, Vindicator and such like, which makes SAS Combat Simulator (surely the most desperate "Simulator" title yet) rather a greatest hits of programmers' tricks, but it's no less fun for all that.

Still, I hope you'll excuse me if I return to Technician Ted...

Marcus Berkmann

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