February 1988 - Mosaic, RADs

Editor Notes mentions COMPUTE!'s founder Robert Lock and the Editorial Director Robert Lock starting a new company. Wonder what that was?

Mosaic - Jay A. Reeve

I love the background mosaic of this game. It's a decent little strategy game for 2-3 players, 1-2 of which can be the computer. (Actually, a few weeks ago I played a roughly similar physical game called "Finito!") Your goal is to get your row of tiles in ascending order before your opponents. A tile comes you, and you press the number key you want to swap it for, or press space to get a new one...  the one you swap out is eligible for the next player. Not really my cuppa, but the 3 player option and pretty background make it solid, Rating:3/5

RADs - Bill Chin

A fast paced and highly original game. You control a "Rotating Alignment Droid" (the titular RAD) You have a little peashooter gun that turn the more radical spark enemies into slightly safer and more docile ones. (There are also these little bubble things floating around that you can shoot to slow down the enemies for a bit.) The goal of each level is kind of odd... there are those blue/yellow bars, and if you maneuver the droid over it, pressing the button left or right changes the color balance... the little bar at the bottom shows you the ratio of all-blue and all-yellow bars you need to make to complete the level. The one player mode was a lot of fun; the enemies drift in menacing but not entirely predictable ways, and trying to sneak around and switch over the panels has a neat multitasking feel. There is a pair of two-player modes, competitive and co-operative, that seemed like fun as well. Rating:4/5