Producer: Pulsonic
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £2.99
Language: BASIC

Opposition is a board game that may be played between two people or one against the computer. It is one of those sort of games at which computers tend to excel. The screen is divided into a board of 40 squares, five high and eight long. Each vertical base is a 'goal' line and vice versa. Each corner square is a 'goal post', so the defensible area is only three squares. Each player takes a turn consisting of a one-square move diagonally or up and down by entering the co-ordinates N, NE, S, SW, etc. You may not move on to an adjacent square to one already occupied by your opponent.

As it says in the instructions, if attacking, the computer always wins. But you do have a chance to beat if if you are attacking. The second game is played out on a larger board of 70 squares with seven of them occupied by obstacles. Played in the same way the Spectrum, however, defends and only on the back two files. With this game it is possible to type in CHEAT and the Spectrum will make a silly move - you don't get your score if you cheat though. Game three is the same with more obstacles.

COMMENTS

Control keys: compass point abbreviations
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: limited
Graphics: very poor
Sound: very poor
Skill levels: 3
Features: one player v computer or two players against each other

Opposition is quite a clever board game, but it's been designed so that the computer is pretty much unbeatable. This being the case you must either cheat constantly (which robs the fun) or give up on it quite quickly. It's better to play a human opponent with the same fallibilities as yourself! The graphics are not very wonderful at all, but that's hardly a drawback in a game of this type.

Played against another human, I found this game to be not bad, but not too good either. The graphics are poor. Not much lasting appeal,

After giving you the instructions the final command is 'Put on CAPS LOCK now.' I know this is a simple game and in BASIC but surely the programmer can do better than this? As to the game itself, it's a simple and quite clever idea, made totally unplayable by the parameters for programming it. In which case, I don't think there was much point doing it in the first place. The computer will always win.