Jahangir Khan World Championship Squash |
Copyright/Publisher: Krisalis. Programmed By: Andy Ware, Graphics By: Phil Hackney,
Music By: Matt Furniss, Genre: Mixed Sports, Release Year: 1990, Number of Players: 1 or 2
Although its lightning fast rallies and claustrophobically small courts have so
far prevented squash from becoming a big spectator sport, Jahangir Khan's
achievements deserve broader admiration: he became the youngest ever professional
World Champion at 17, has subsequently won every squash title in the world and over
a six year period played in 500 international without a single defeat. It's an
astonishing record, so can Krisalis do him justice?
The program gives you the choice of entering either the Club Tournament (league)
or tougher World Championship competitions - both separate loads on different
sides of the tape (or disk). The Tournament is organized in a series of eight rungs,
each a miniature league with 4-6 players.
Once everyone in the rung has played everyone else the top two are promoted
and the bottom two demoted. By contrast, the Championship game is simply
a knockout cup.
Both games are absolutely packed with players, each with six individual stats
including fitness, tactics and judgement. If you win a match you can upgrade
one of your stat bars a unit. You can also change player names, have any number
of other human players and even watch a computer player's matches.
On the squash court you move your player into position then hold down fire to
begin your stroke, left/right controlling direction with up/down accessing lob or
drop shots respectively. The ball moves quite fast and things soon get very frantic.
It's as well there's an option change the type of ball - the bouncier it is,
the more time you have to intercept it. Even so, the players don't move incredibly
fast and it can be difficult bringing bat and ball together - I certainly found it
a tricky to begin with.
Once you do get the hang of it, there can be some wild rallies with all sorts
of weird ricochets. As the ball, can bounce off a couple of walls so quickly,
picking out the right intercept point really gets your mind working.
Personally I don't think any squash simulation can compare with a good tennis
game for depth of play - you don't have the range or degree of tactics. However,
this is a very good squash game and certainly makes a nice change.
|
SQUASH |
The squash court is dominated by a wall marked with two horizontal lines. At the
bottom of this there's a short metal strip known as the tin which counts as
part of the floor.
Serving is done from one of the two service boxes. All serves must hit the
wall above the top line (the cut) before landing in the opponent's half of the
court. The ball can then bounce any number of times off any walls before or after
hitting the end wall. Then it can bounce just once on floor before being returned.
The server wins a point for every rally won. If he fails to win a rally, service
passes to the other player. The first to nine points is the winner. However, if
the score goes to 8 all first, the receiving player has the choice of playing up to
9 (No Set) or 10 (Set Two).
|
?.?. |
I'm not that much of a squash fan, but I still found this great fun to play. There
isn't a great deal of tactical depth to the game - just trying to surprise the
opponent by varying your shot type - but rallies are often long and always
hectic.
With excellent league and cup options, and some very tough computer players,
this should have you sweating over your joystick for ages!
|