
Milk Race, ZX Spectrum, Mastertronic – IS 0179
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5/10
Summary
This is based around the real 1987 Milk Race. Although it can be frustrating at times (with some fairly long delays), this doesn’t spoil the game entirely. It’s the type of game that you may want to play it for a while and then just load every so often afterwards.
Although this isn’t a classic, it does have a unique touch to it being a cycling game. I’d say that this was worth the £2.99 price tag and not a case of saying “on your bike mate!”
User Review
( votes)Presentation
It’s clear that some time and effort have been well spent with the presentation of Milk Race. The loading screen is nicely detailed with good use of colour. What really hit me though, is once the game has loaded, there is a nice map of the UK and good music. The map names the location checkpoints along the route, and these are clearly marked with the numbers 1 to 13 (hopefully not too unlucky for some!) The distances between each checkpoint are shown in miles and this gives you a scale of how long each section of the race will be.
The instruction inlay case instruction also has the map in there too.
Gotta Lotta Bottle…
Every so often, large milk bottles move along the top or bottom of the road. By passing closely by these, you will boost your energy level and save yourself from becoming exhausted. After all, 1000 miles is a long distance to cycle! The faster you peddle, the further across to the middle of the screen you go. Although going fast is good, that also means that you use more energy, and it makes the milk bottles much harder to collect them.
There is also a timer counting down (rather quickly) to give the game that more competitive edge.
Playability
Your bike is equipped with 12 gears which need to be manually changed. The gradient of the road is shown in the top-right corner of the screen. Downhill obviously means benefiting from using the higher gears and vice versa if going up a slope.
The collision detection is acceptable during gameplay. Racing your way past the other cyclists is not too bad as the controls are quite responsive, but changing the gears isn’t quite so great.
When you do eventually drive off the side of the road, or hit another cyclist, potholes or car, you will suddenly stop and end up looking at your buckled bicycle. All the other cyclists will continue racing off the screen (as if nothing had happened!!) This prompts the rescue car to appear from the left-hand side of the screen traveling towards you and your bike. This is rather frustratingly slow and really does cost you a lot of valuable seconds. After then, your bike is repaired and you are ready to continue (just mind you don’t hit the car again straight away!)
Checkpoints
You don’t see any checkpoints (so no there are no flags or lines across the road). What happens is when you get to one, the game stops for a few seconds, whilst making a noise giving you bonus points for the time you remaining. The exception (spoiler alert!) is when you complete the game and see someone at the top of the road with a flag.
Realism and Atmosphere
At the top of the road in the distance, you will see a backdrop of various buildings that nicely scroll along. In the meantime, at the bottom of the screen, you will see some spectators appear and move across the side of the road. Use of colour is good here too as each person has either different hair (or a cap!) and clothes colour.
There are a lot of things happening on the screen when you are moving. The number of bikes on the screen at once doesn’t appear to cause any gameplay to slow down, which is very good. The only noticeable time you do see something looking a bit jerky are the milk bottles when you are in a high gear.
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