TURBO ESPRIT by Mike Richardson
MISSION BRIEF An armoured supply car is carrying drugs to the centre of the city. One after the other, four delivery cars will drive in to meet it, and then drive off to their hide-aways. After the fourth pick-up the armoured supply car will leave the city. Your mission is to stop the delivery cars after they have made their pick-ups and before they disappear in their hide-aways, and to stop the armoured supply car after it has passed its drugs to the last car and before it leaves the city. You will score extra points for catching the drug smugglers alive, rather than shooting them. Your vehicle will be a Lotus Turbo Esprit capable of driving at 150mph. You will lose points for injuring the general public. There are traffic lights at junctions which should be obeyed (though the smugglers will probably ignore them), there are pedestrian crossings where people will have the right to cross, and there are road-works that you should avoid. Drive well. Drive carefully. JOYSTICKS You may use the "ALTER PLAYING KEYS" option to make adjustments for your own particular joystick (ie: instead of pressing keys in response to the prompts, just move your joystick) STARTING After loading, you will be asked to choose a city (choice of four) in which the game will be played. Once selected, you will only be able to change to a different city by completely re-loading the tape. Next, an OPTIONS MENU will be displayed, and you should select "PLAY" or "PRACTICE" to start the game. Your car (black) is displayed on the screen in front of you. At the beginning of the game it is in the centre left lane. At the bottom left of the screen you will see "Penalty Points" which you get if you crash into innocent cars or kill pedestrians. Next to this is your "Score" which you get for catching drug-smuggling cars; and beneath this you will see the occasional message from HQ control. STANDARD CONTROLS S Joystick up Increase speed A Joystick down Decrease speed J Joystick left Move to left-hand lane J + K Joystick left + Fire Turn left (90 degrees) L Joystick right Move to right-hand lane L + K Joystick right + Fire Turn right (90 degrees) K Fire Fire gun M Map on/Map off T Terminate game and re-start NB: The Up, Down, Left & Right keys also move the map. STEERING The "J" and "L" or "left/right" keys will just steer your Lotus from one lane to another (providing you are moving). To turn around a corner you must press the "K" or "fire" key at the same time. You can do a three- point-turn by using the "A" or "decrease speed" key to put you into reverse, and by using the "turn 90 degrees" key to swing around. Your car will not turn until it is moving. RECOMMENDED TACTICS Check out the city with the map. Drive carefully straight to the city centre (ie: mid-point North/South and East/West). Park. Turn on the map and watch and wait for the smuggler's cars. The one circling the block will be the supply car. After the message "Drugs exchanged", check the direction the delivery car is using to get away. Go get it. Don't stop at junctions. Bump it into submission. THE SCREEN On your screen you will see the top of your steering wheel, a speedometer (centre right), a rev counter (centre left), a fuel gauage (left) marked "E" for empty and "F" for full, and a temperature gauge (right) marked "C" for cold and "H" for hot. Gear changing is done automatically by the computer when you change speed. PRACTICE OPTION Select this from the OPTIONS MENU for driving practice. You won't get any smugglers or "hit" cars while you are practicing. Your gun will still work though, so be careful. Even though you fire at a car, your bullets may not always blow it up straight away. Similarly, if you bump a smuggler's car it may not surrender immediately. Keep trying! THE CARS All cars in the game are black, except those used by the drug smugglers. These are:- BLUE Delivery cars (4 cars) RED Armoured supply car (1 car) MAGENTA "Hit" cars that will try to shoot you THE MAP You can use the map (press "M") to find your position (little flashing circles indicate your own car, and those of the smugglers. When you first turn on the map your car will be shown near the centre). Small petrol-pumps indicate the position of garages. Four dots at cross-roads indicate traffic lights. Arrows alongside roads indicate that these are one-way streets. Use the Up, Down, Right, and Left controls to scan the map across the city. STREET NAMES Streets are named as for example "E:9" where the street is the ninth street going east/west; or for example, "N:7" where this would be the seventh street going north/south. You will be given messages from HQ such as for example. "Armoured car seen on E:9". In this example you would then be able to turn on your map, see where you were, then scan over to E:9 to spot where the armoured car was, and then proceed to intercept it. MESSAGES At the start of the game you will be told by HQ that a single armoured supply car (red) has been spotted moving towards the centre of the city (message: Armoured car seen on E:9). Once after the other, four drug delivery cars (blue) will enter the city (message: Drug car seen on E:9) and park near the centre. The armoured supply car (red) will then drive to meet the parked delivery car, hand-over some drugs (message: Drugs exchanged), and then carry on driving around the centre. Each delivery car (blue) will then drive to its own particular hide-out, after which it will be undetectable (message: Drug car in hiding). After the fourth drug car has made its pick-up (message: Armoured car running), the armoured car will leave the city (message: Armoured car escaped). STOPPING THE SMUGGLER'S CARS You can stop all the smugglers except the armoured car by shooting at them (simply drive up behind them and press "fire"). However you will score far more points if you don't kill the smugglers, but instead stop them by "bumping" into them from behind when you are chasing them at speed ("bumping" has no effect when the smuggler's car is stuck in a queue - that would be too easy!) When you have successfully "bumped" a smuggler's car enough times (more than four) it will stop and surrender (message: Drug car surrenders). You will then be able to leave it to the police and carry on with your mission. The smugglers will not bother to stop at traffic lights, so watch out. You can stop the armoured car at any time, but if you do this too soon then no more drug delivery cars will enter the city, and you will be unable to score as many points. Because it is armoured, you will only be able to stop the supply car by "bumping" it. You may stop the drug delivery cars before they make their pick-up but again you will score less points for doing this early. The smugglers will also surrender if you chase them into a cul- de-sac (or "dead end"). The smugglers are aware of your position. If you drive past a drug delivery car which is waiting to make a pick- up, it will drive off. You must therefore wait some distance away (watching the map) until the exchange has taken place, when you can make your move. HIT CARS The smugglers have a number of "hit" cars (magenta or purple) which will be out to get you. They travel very fast, and if they pass you on the right their passenger will be able to shoot at you (message: Bang!). If they hit you (message: Lotus incapacitated), your car will swerve and you may crash. You may shoot at, or "bump" the "hit" cars if you wish to score extra points. FUEL, GARAGES, and NEW CARS Keep an eye on your fuel gauge. If it looks low then drive to a garage and park ON THE PAVEMENT along side. Your gauge will then slowly re-fill. If you run out of fuel before reaching a garage your car will have to be "abandonned". You get at a total of four Lotus cars per game, so if one is destroyed by the smugglers, or you crash, or run out of fuel, then you will automatically be given a replacement. After the fourth car the game ends. Sometimes a stray bullet may get lodged in your radiator (message: "Engine fault"), in which case you will have to get to a garage quickly (just park on the pavement along side, like for fuel) (message : Engine repaired). Watch out that your engine doesn't over-heat (message: Engine over-heating), before you get there (message: Engine seized), and don't be surprised if your engine starts mis-firing. SKILL LEVELS There are four skill levels which you may select from the OPTION MENU. The easiest is level 1. The skill level affects the speed of the cars, and the number of times they have to be "bumped" before they submit. SAVING & LOADING SCORE TABLES From the OPTIONS MENU you can select to save or load high-score and penalty-point tables. To do this, first select the option from the menu, then place one of your own tapes in your cassette recorder at the appropriate place, press the PLAY control (and RECORD if you are SAVING) on the cassette recorder, then press any key on your AMSTRAD. appropriate place, press the PLAY control (and RECORD if you are SAVING) on the cassette recorder, then press any key on your AMSTRAD. |