Producer: Virgin Games
Memory Required: 48K
Retail Price: £5.95
Language: Machine code
Author: Terry Murray and Roy Poole

Your task in this game is to protect a domed city on an asteroid from the ravages of alien attack. You control a small spacecraft armed with lasers, in this game written by the authors of Yomp and Rider.

The city is protected by a two-stage force field whose energy banks become weaker after many impacts. This force field will be lowered to protect the civilian parts of the city, thus leaving the large communications dish unprotected. If the dish is destroyed, you lose a life. Your ship's lasers will run down with repeated use and take time to recharge; similarly fuel may run out before the attack wave of aliens.

The screen shows the surface of the asteroid at the bottom with the force field emanating between opposed wins of hillside. Between the hills can be seen the domed city, communications dish (in the centre) and the space port. Below the display are two bar codes for laser strength and fuel level.

An eight-option menu allows for joystick or keyboard selection, customisation to the extent of having armed or unarmed aliens and the type of space ship you would like. There is also a very good demo mode on offer. Aliens hitting the force field weaken it, so having unarmed aliens does not necessarily make the game any easier. The screen wraps around horizontally, and diving your ship into the force field will kill you off.

COMMENTS

Control keys: Z/CAPS up/down, M/SYM left/right, SPACE to fire, ENTER = engine boost; alternatively, cursors and 0
Joystick: ZX 2, Kempston, AGF, Protek
Keyboard play: responsive
Use of colour: good
Graphics: reasonably smooth, large, detailed and fast
Sound: above average
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 4
Attack waves: 10
Originality: quite a novel space shoot 'em up

Quite a reasonable shoot 'em up here with good graphics. The game is fun but not really varied enough to make it truly addictive. Options to arm or unarm the aliens and have different spacecraft help. Quite good graphics, smooth-ish, fast movement of the ship and aliens. Virgin are improving. This is a good game but without much addictiveness.

This game plays so fast that it is almost impossible to concentrate on your targets. Graphics are large and detailed and the colour is well used. Other than shooting down aliens there isn't much else to this game. Overall, quite a good game but with low playability because of the impossible speed it plays at.

I know I shouldn't compare games across computer types, but sometimes damn it, you have to. Space Command looks like the same sort of game as Metroblitz by PSS for the CBM 64. Now I know the 64 graphics are much stronger, but I have seen games for the Spectrum which I think are better than on the 64. In this case it isn't so, nor is the level of playability. After all, the screen area is the same, yet PSS manage to make it seem infinitely bigger. This spaceship has no momentum, zipping about like a gnat quite unrealistically. Also the game has been mis-paced, everything happening too fast for the size of graphics for you to be able to do much. The key positions are terrible, all in a straight line on the bottom row. It's a pity, because the game in itself is reasonable, just the general working seems to have gone adrift somewhere.

Encounter alien life-forms, whose orders are to seek and destroy, as you guide and protect the asteroid and its doomed city through many star systems. The city is protected by a two-stage forcefield which only actually protects the populated areas.

Alex: Virgin's still living in the past with unoriginal space games - although this one's a little better than some of the earlier offerings and the action is fast and furious. Colours contrast well, and the resulting display is quite clear. Mastering the game isn't too easy, so it stays mildly addictive. Using a joystick improves playability quite a bit. HIT

Alan: The graphics are a strong point. They're flicker free, highly detailed and move very smoothly. There's also a radar dish which goes through six frames of animation to revolve through 360 degrees. It's by no means a dull looking game; everything is very bright, with multi-coloured aliens and a psychedelic base. The big problem is the lack of originality and content; the game fails to hold your attention for long. MISS

Alan H: Every colour imaginable seems to be included - which makes it look rather interesting, the trouble is the lack of content makes it just a multi-coloured mess. The speed is much too fast, making play virtually impossible without a joystick. The sound is made up of nothing more than a few zaps, bangs and wallops. There's no choice of skill level, but you get the option to choose which pretty space ship you use! MISS

BETTER BUT...

MAKER: Virgin Games
FORMAT: cassette
PRICE: £5.95

Space Command is the best offering yet from the elderly (cough) team of Poole and Murray, authors of Yomp and Rider, also from Virgin. Here the quasi-militaristic tone of their earlier work has been replaced with good ol' SF. You play Defender (no relation) to a domed Kandor-style asteroid which is busy ploughing through the galactic spacelanes. As you might imagine this reckless behaviour is guaranteed to arouse the ire of local lifeforms and they do their best to flatten the flying city.

It's all very similar to Imagic's old Atlantis ROM. The graphics are nice, although nowhere near as sensational as the promo blurb would have you believe, and the gameplay is tough. I've yet to clear the first wave, who look like renegades from Jet Pac. Limited laser fire and shallow fuel tanks add to your problems.

I guess if you're still in the market for a space shoot 'em up then this is worth a look, although after an hour or so I wasn't so much addicted as cheesed off. Hope the next one's a little more original boys.

MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
CONTROL: Keys, Kemp, Sinc
FROM: Virgin, £5.95

In Space Command it is your objective to defend the domed city for as long as possible against the hordes of aliens whose sole purpose in life is to destroy you. You know the sort.

Once the game gets started, you are presented with the display, which apart from the aliens never changes throughout the game. The lower portion of the screen is taken up by your city which is protected by a force field. As the aliens hit the force field it becomes weaker and eventually reduces its range. A hit by an alien on an unprotected area costs you a life.

Although the city looks good and is well coloured the remainder of the graphics are poor. You can have one of three spaceships, ranging from a space shuttle-type to what looks like a green fish, none of which are spectacular.

There are a variety of aliens from an uninteresting asteroid storm to an attack of Mutant Cornflakes, and although they scroll across the screen smoothly, they occasionally jerk as they descend. Your laser beam is a straight line and the explosions are too fast to be effective.

Sound during the game is substandard consisting of beeps and bangs for shooting and explosions.

Not being able to move diagonally makes control of your craft extremely difficult. Another complaint is that level 1 is far too difficult for a beginning stage. The chances are you'll die of boredom before reaching the second.

Virgin have produced one or two good games, but this does not rate amongst them. Space Command isn't worth the time it takes to load.