FOUR OF A KIND

Memory: 48K
Price: £14.95

You may think there are sufficient chess programs on the market, not to mention 3D Noughts and Crosses. We tend to agree but so far as we know nobody has yet offered four games of skill and strategy under a single heading.

Mind Games from Oasis Software does just that. For an admittedly high price you receive two cassettes containing Chess, Backgammon, Draughts and 3D Noughts and Crosses. Oasis calls the latter invader Cube in the documentation but the Spectrum knows better and prints 3D-OXO on the screen, so you know where you are.

The Chess program is a version of the successful Dragon Chess implementation. It is not the fastest chess program available but plays a strong game at three levels, with facilities to save games, swap positions, take back four moves, and alter the Spectrum playing style from strategic to tactical.

Backgammon is possibly the weakest of the quartet, not on account of the computer skill level, which played a safe if stolid game, but because of slow response times. That is mainly due to pretty graphics of the dice and the pieces moving but takes so long that such refinements should have been sacrificed to the requirements of speed.

Backgammon is a very fast-moving board game, unlike chess and draughts in that respect, and deserves a correspondingly fast program, or much of the pleasure is lost. The programs are good value if you do not already have them in your collection and would certainly make a good buy for any newcomer.