Tony Kendle passes on the tips, plus some help with US Gold's PSI-5 Trading Company

In response to a request I printed a few weeks ago here is a welcome letter from James Drever of Church Stratton:

'Dear Tony: I read in your column that you wanted some tips for ST games so here are some notes I have produced for Brattacas. I've had an ST since Christmas and have been playing Brattacas in glorious monochrome with the TOS operating system still on disc. This may explain some of the strange goings on I’ve experienced while playing.

“The overall objective of the game is to escape via the teleport in the arrivals department carrying the correct evidence to prove your innocence. Proving your innocence involves killing (sic) or otherwise tricking most of the population of Brattacas.

“How to go about it: First go to Joe's Bar. reveal yourself as Kyne and he will tell you to find Skweel. Skweel is the snitch who wears a gas mask. To bribe him you must find all of the gold bags on Brattacas to give these to him He will reward you with the final piece of evidence

“Evidence: The two most important pieces of evidence can be found in Commander Stopp’s office and in Kol Worpt's den. Take both of these to the Arrival's teleport to get a The End message. Not very exciting. I presume you must select some more evidence to complete the game, and I also guess you get a pretty picture - once I got a few lines of graphics when I took a certain (but alas forgotten) combination of evidence.

“The Characters: Droids should be killed with an electro bomb by leaving one in their paths. You can carry a pass to avoid them also, but it is time consuming to repeatedly answer their questions.

“Bureaucrats - It is worth killing the droid despatcher as this will neutralise the droids. Before attempting the journey to Stopp's office it may be worth killing the police Despatcher and sending the police to the droid room where they are well out of the way.

Henchman - There is one very useful henchman (recognisable for his white trousers) who knows who you are and will take to meet Kol Worpt. This charming character will ask you to work (or him and if you agree you must prove yourself by killing a cop. There is little point in trying to kill him, he does no harm to you. and the same goes for Stopp.

“Switches: You can leave your pursurers behind in Kol Worpt's den by switching the lifts off as they follow you. Switch off the cameras in Cooms central if you intend to do some dirty work in a room with camera protection.

Control: Always use the mouse. It may seem hard at first but in the long run it is much easier than keyboard or joystick.
"My overall opinion is that as a demonstration of the ST’s power Brattacas is great. As a game it is fundamentally flawed by design faults and bugs. The game's speed is undoubtedly impressive but it does slow down to a crawl with too much on screen - even despite the 16 bit processor. I think Psygnosis was rather too ambitious with the program, but as the first real games release for the ST it is good stuff.

“I hope this is of use as I haven't seen any hints for ST games printed before."

Thanks a lot James for kicking off the ST tips in the column, let's hope we have lots more to come As you rightly point out Brattacas was a very rushed release and is renowned for its small bugs, but since that time the ST has had some excellent new releases Popular has covered a few of these recently in the special games features and I know that companies such as Rainbird are working on some state of the art releases that may well put Atari back on top as the name synonymous with the very best games computers (even if the company would hate to have its machine described as that).

The recent release of the PSI-5 Trading Company is possibly the strongest program that US Gold have released in a very long time It is a superbly animated game that on paper has a plot rather similar to Elite crossed with the ill-fated Great Space Race Don't let that put you off though, PSI-5 has an atmosphere and a humorous quality that is unique and the standard of the programming is exceptional. Peter Avons of Bampton has provided us with these tips for the game

The best crew to pick on the missions is Boris - weaponry, Yenx - navigation, Mike - Scanning, Craven - Engineering. Repairs -T3XR9.

The mission: Step 1 - select engineering and priorities the ship's power classes tp.-Priorily 1 - shields priority 2 - engines priority 3 - weapons: priority 4 - charge shield batteries: priority 5 - scanners: priority 6 - charge emergency battery

Step 1 - select Scanning and get display

Step 3 - select Navigation and accelerate to speed 8.

Step 4 - when the ship comes up on display use accelerate to stop your craft.

Step 5 - select Weapons and fire at will at the ship.

Step 6 - if a lot of damage is incurred during the attack select Repair and get some robots to repair the most important things such as Weapons, Shields etc.

Step 7 - After destroying the ships select Repairs and fix any remaining damage

Step 8 - after all the repairs are complete repeat steps two to eight.