Graham Goring
Submitted by Dan Dooré on Sun, 2006-04-23 12:40.Pog, GaspCo, Anonimity Smith
Coder and Artist, wrote the original Sam FAQ at the Sam Coupé Scrapbook
Last seen lurking at http://www.auld-games.co.uk/auldbl0g/?p=32
Neil Holmes
Submitted by Dan Dooré on Sun, 2006-04-23 12:38.Coder and artist, founder of Masters of Magic.
E-Tracker
Submitted by Dan Dooré on Sun, 2006-04-23 10:08. Utility
1992
The first ‘tracker’ music composition program for the Coupé, based on the ZX Spectrum port of the Amiga SoundTracker program.
Your Sinclair review, courtesy of The YS Rock ‘n’ Roll Years.
Review by Lee Willis from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook
Excuse me for being a bit late with this review! As by some lucky fluke of chance (Hah!) Lee has sent me a load of notes about E-Tracker, and wants me to put those arkward notes into some sort of review. Ah well, here goes… Considered by many (especially ESI) as the “best 8-bit music utility yet” which I could also be as bold as to say it compares well to other 16 bit utilities I have seen, this is indeed a stiff bit of competition. This music utility is exclusively designed to use every last drop of the SAA1099 sound chip in terms of it’s love juices (ahem!). That means 2048 tones, 96 notes, 8 octaves and 6 channel sound with full control of left and right stereo speakers. The last music utility was of course, The Sound Machine. Reasonably priced at 14.99, this was pretty to look at, but the disadvantage of being a bit user-friendly to any bod with a mouse, and abuser-friendly to the saps on keys. I suffered terribly from the sluggish cursor movement, but enough of my troubles! Help is here…
The utility comes in a professionally painted box, with a manual (surprisingly) in English. I know that ESI (the blokes who wrote this) are foreign, and their English in their scrollies is terrible, but I can find little wrong with this manual! A reasonable size of 20-odd pages, this talks you through the utility in a damn-spunky manner. You also get two disks - the E -Tracker and compiler disk, and a programme disk. More on these later…
Oh No! More Lemmings
Submitted by solaris104 on Sat, 2006-04-22 19:46. Game
1994
Lemmings Sequel and an expansion pack to the original Lemmings
In order the play the new levels, the player has to load the origianl Lemmings game, select “New Level” and enter the code “HNBVBVPN”. It will prompt for the “Data Disc” at which point you insert the “Oh No! More Lemmings” disc. The new game data will load - this includes adding one new difficulty level. The levels are now: Tame, Crazy, Wild, Wicked and Havoc.
Review by Steven Pick from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook
Yipe! I’m still recovering the morning after my 3rd Gloucester show, and what a show it was! Colin Macdonald is the man to thank here, for giving me more software for my Coupe than I expected for payment out of doing the graphics for Football League Manager. Anyway, to the review. You must have your copy of Lemmings to load up this disk, after adding in a passcode. Once the smoke has cleared, you’ll notice that the menu screen has got neater, and there are FIVE sets of 20 levels, each one as mad as the next.
What? You don’t know what Lemmings are? If you do, sorry for putting you through this, but there still are people out there who lead sheltered lives. To cut a long story short, you have to rescue a certain number of Lemmings from all manner of perils, by giving them certain talents which will help or hinder their progress to the exit. A mini review in itself, I have seen every level of the SAM version of Lemmings now (even had a go on a few of them!) and what can I say? Buy the bloody thing!
So then, what can we expect from this great-sounding data disk? Well, there is plenty in the way of new graphics to oogle at, including some horrible new ways for those Lemmings to die! More on that in a minute… The five levels are aptly named Tame, Crazy, Wild, Wicked and Havoc and all live up to their claims. One which is looking really nice to any anti-animal rights person (like myself?!) is the Wicked level. The first (and I must add, incredibly difficult) level took me ten attempts to even START showing Lemmings the way out, but the name of the level - “Lemming Tomato Ketchup Factory” leaves little to the imagination in the ways your Lemming chums can die.
Joystick Power
Submitted by Dan Dooré on Sat, 2006-04-22 17:40. GameJoystick waggler
Review by Steven Pick from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook
Yipe! Weird warning! What you are about to see is a review of, erm, not your average SAM title. Wayne Coles of Innocent Productions invites you to sample what he probably calls a “new age” SAM title. No puzzles to it. No sub-plots. Just plain man power (Grrrrrr!). Remember all those athletic games on the Speccy (someone write a SAM Athletics Simulator!!) where in some events, joystick waggling was the name of the game in order to get anywhere? Well, relive those moments once again with Joystick Power. First off, Wayne looks as though he’s now joined the ranks of the Illusion demo group, and the presentation of Joystick Power is quite nice in the graphics department. You start off with a normal demo-type screen with scrolly, starfield, you know the sort of stuff. Lee ‘Bubel’ Willis struts his musical stuff with some excellent tunes, and fitting for the events.
By the way, the events in question involve “Joystick Power” and “Button Power” relating to your joystick (or keys) or your fire button (or key 0). When you play, there are no athletic events to play - just a (large) graphic of either a joystick or a fire button. You then have a certain amount of time (which can be changed by the option Time Warp) to waggle the joystick furiously or tap on the fire button incredibly fast (you can’t hold down the button). Very arthritis-forming.
That’s it. Told you it was strange. Though the strange thing is that it is rather addictive. The possibilities of getting your mates over to waggle their joysticks (Ahem) are unbounded and I can just picture the great contests you could be having with each other. One problem. Price. It is a little bit steep for a posh looking-demo which would just about look out of place of a normal Public Domain library. And yet, the fun you have with mates around is brilliant - group contests can be set up, which unfortunately this game doesn’t have - it would of been nice to see a “joystick olympics” without the fancy graphics. But a high score is enough for me.
Amalthea
Submitted by Quazar on Sat, 2006-04-22 16:35. Game
1995
From the Sam Coupé Scrapbook
Top-down and side-on gauntlet-ish game, played in an alien infested base.
Review by Steven Pick from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook
Hooray!! Scream from the highest mountain, and relish in a NON-PUZZLE (in massive capital letters) game from the non-puzzley lads at Jupiter Software. Now you have the chance to power-up on weaponry, shoot the living daylights out of assorted alien foe and basically enjoy yourself!
Amalthea is a seven (SEVEN!) multi-load game involving two different game styles - a top-down style game, which has a certain “Alien Breed” about it, and a much-polished (erm, thanks to my graphics, ahem) side-on viewed section, but cleverly involving the same elements of the top-down game, but in a different layout. The game kicks in with a Alien Breed-style “mission printout” telling you about each of the seven zones. In all cases, you have to collect power crystals dotted around each of the zones and then find the exit (a skull and crossbones before you’ve collected all the power crystals) to escape. Along the way, you can collect a multitude of various odds and ends including multi-coloured (and multi-valued) credits which can be used at a computer terminal in each zone to buy weapon power-ups, first aid, etc.
First aid icons can be found to increase your health, while ammo is for.. go on, guess. Various sections of the complex can be accessed with the help of keys, key icons of which can be found around the game zone, and generously allow you to open five doors. Alternatively, you can always blast a door open with your weapon (no sexual innuendo intended, you dirty minded person). Weaponry, by the way, can be upgraded to include more powerful shots, and even two guns for the price of one - at a price of more ammunition needed!
Alan Miles
Submitted by mikenicholas on Sat, 2006-04-22 16:15.
Alan Miles is the Miles bit of Miles Gordon Technology.
After SamCo went under he reportedly “went back to Saudi Arabia to teach”
