Producer: Mastertronic
Retail Price: £2.99
Author: Jeff Calder

Sport of Kings from Mastertronic simulates a day at the races. At the start you must decide whether the state of the course, weights of jockeys and distances are to affect the outcome of each race. The number of horses running each season is also in your hands. Obviously the more horses you choose the harder it will be to predict the winner. Each time the game is loaded the horses take on different 'personalities', so studying form is only relevant during a single season.

To begin with, horses have no form cards to check against so you can either run a few races blind or set the game to auto-run which builds up the form for you. Once you have Boerne through all the preliminaries, the game can be played for real. A menu screen with eight icons giving access to form cards, the lineup for the next race and the balance of your money - £200 is in the bank to begin with.

The race information icon accesses the line-up for the first race of the day complete with odds, distance and the going. Once a likely sounding nag has been selected, you can check its form card where all the usual information is logged. Then it's time to place a bet - on the nose, each way, straight forecast or a reversed forecast are all allowed.

The screen shows a race course with the horses lined up at one end and a commentator in a box in the top right hand corner. If you have a Currah speech unit you can also listen to the commentary. During the race the screen scrolls from right to left and furlong markers show how much of the course is left to run. When the finish line has been crossed, the results are displayed, and it's back to the bookies to claim your winnings or tear up your betting slip in disgust. The bookie is a mean-looking character with a cigar firmly clenched between his teeth - if you've lost he grins malevolently, but if you've won he looks very dangerous indeed.

COMMENTS

Control keys: cursor keys and 0 for fire
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: okay
Use of colour: simplistic
Graphics: nothing remarkable, simple animation
Sound: clippity clop!
Skill levels: one
Screens: main screen, animated sequence and form data

This is quite a reasonable game - good value for £2.95. I'm not so sure about the BASIC in it though, because machine code could have got around the annoying and tedious 'please wait, I'm calculating' pause which comes up after each game. Up to five people can play, and the more people involved the more fun it is because the atmosphere is far better in a group. For the price, there's not much wrong with it. Not bad, but I'd rather MAD kept to the sort of quality seen in other releases like Spellbound and knight Tyme.

Most betting games are total trash, but Mastertronics usually come up with the goods. I'm afraid the game is a waste of time. This game is like one of the first budget games, in that it's slow to react to responses and contains very basic (literally) graphics. The icon control could have been very good but again it is let down by the slow BASIC calculations. I would suspect that Sport of the Kings could possibly be a fun if you loaded it up during a party and everyone had to use real money, but I'm afraid that's the only case when an appalling game like this could come in useful.

Horse racing isn't really my cup of tea, but after persevering for a while I began to enjoy placing my bets and watching the race, although the fun is limited. Placing bets, reading form cards and so on is very easily done with the icon/cursor set-up, so there isn't any brain ache remembering what key does what or how to get through the various menus. The graphics used vary from good on the main icon page to awful during the races. The sound effects are minimal; only the odd spot effect here and there. This might well appeal to racing fans, but I can't really see myself playing it for too long.

Publisher: MAD Games
Programmer: Jeff Calder
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Protek, Cursor, Kempston, Interface II

Now you look like a gambling gent so can I interest you in The Sport of Kings - all for the princely sum of £2.99?

And we're not talking gee-gees but laundry... namely how to lose your shirt on a line of winners.

First thing to do is state the number of players, how many horses will run in the season and what factors will affect results - the more the merrier. Then, because you wouldn't want to waste your money on maidens, make a slow cup of tea while it auto-runs some races.

Consult the race card and peek at the form book to check who rode that dead cert to win over what trip.

Now to the bookies, honest as the day is long, chewing on a fat cigar. You've got a choice of win and each/way flutters, plus straight and reverse forecasts - you can even stake money you don't have which strikes me as unrealistic, unless the program later breaks your legs!

Everybody makes their selections and places their bets.

The race itself has nice graphics with touches like waving spectators and, then it's collect your winnings or take out a second mortgage.

I can't see this being one of Mastertronic's biggest sellers. To anybody who isn't a disciple of the Tote it's likely to appear slow and boring.

Mastertronic
£2.99

This latest release on the MAD Games label is a very high quality icon driven racing simulation. For the price it's an obvious bargain but you have to be mad about racing to fully appreciate it.

Up to five players can take part and choose up to 75 horses to race in a season. All the horses start out with no form so there's an option to auto-run some races to build up a picture of the horses' abilities.

The number of icons gives some idea of the sophistication of the program. Icons are included to give you details of the next race your financial status, the form book on all the runners, a save to tape feature and an icon to allow you to print out the form or racing information.

The bookie icon allows you to make four kinds of bets. As you risk your shirt you are confronted by an animated picture of a dubious looking bookie puffing away on a cigar. After the race if you've had a winner the same bookie appears, this time with a frown on his face.

As for the races themselves they are the usual straight dash for the line with each horse restricted to its invisible lane. Visually there is an attention to detail that makes it a cut above most racing simulations, with each jockey's bottom bobbing up and down in realistic fashion. If you have a Currah Microspeech unit you can plug into a commentary on the race but if you haven't you'll have to be content with lipreading the animated commentator.

If the game hooks you from the start it will exert a greater hold as time goes on because the form book builds up and should give you a greater chance of taking the bookie to the cleaners. Jockey's weights, going and form can all be included in the computer's decision on the race result so theoretically you should be able to work out the result by deduction. If only it was like that in real life.

Sport of Kings will be avidly welcomed by anyone who likes to be up to their elbows in racing statistics and form guides. It also makes for a reasonable competitive game but unless you are a racing fanatic it's appeal is not immediate. Stick with it and the fun may accumulate.