Cat burglar in somnambulism theft shocker

Producer: Gremlin Graphics
Out of Pocket: £7.99 cass, £12.99 disk
Author: Volker Marohn, the reLINE team (from an idea by Rolf Lakamper)

Feline star of many a cartoon, the Pink Panther never seems to have much luck. Due to his excessive lifestyle (he only drinks pink champagne) he's currently broke. So the oddly-coloured cat burglar takes the drastic decision to get a job as a butler, working for the filthy rich.

Of course, he doesn't plan to keep his light claws to himself. No way, Jose - he aims to steal as many valuable items as he can during the night. There's just one problem - his master is a somnambulist (no, I don't know what it means either). ('Sleepwalker', use your dictionary - Ed.) if he should bump into a wall or other solid object, the boss awakes and catches the naughty panther pink-handed.

You control the puce pussy (it's a sort of red, not the stuff you throw up after a ba-a-aad party) as he carefully guides his sweet-dreaming master around the mansion by physically turning him around or by jingling a bell. And grabbing valuable objects on the way.

Other tricks up his fur are a variety of objects in his possession which can be inflated and dropped. These include a Pink Panther lookalike, catapults and boards to guide the master round obstacles. Also wandering around the house is that diligent detective, Inspector Clouseau. He can be dealt with by positioning an inflatable hole (honest!) in his path.

The idea of inflating objects sounds intriguing, but in reality the game's frustrating and unplayable. The slightest mistake causes the sleepwalker to wake up, ending the game. Worst of all is that you never have enough time to experiment with the positioning of objects, so progress is very much a trial and error affair - an extremely frustrating one at that.

PHIL [37%]

THE ESSENTIALS
Joysticks: Kempston, Cursor, Sinclair
Graphics: garish backgrounds and sloppy sprites
Sound: awful effects and no tunes!

This game is a faithful conversion of the cartoon Pink Panther, it's just a pity the cartoon's rubbish. The amount of clash is the first thing that amazes, but the worst is yet to come. The sleepwalker is just impossible to control. It's easy to make him change direction but when it comes to getting him across rugs in his way it's impossible. There are no tunes on the 48K or 128K machines and just the odd feeble effect.
NICK [26%]

The game looks horrible; the colour scheme is garish (pass the sun shades, vicar), and the rinky-dink pink himself looks little more than a small misshapen pussy cat than a large mother of a Panther. Control of the game is so difficult that it interferes with pilfering. All this adds up to a game interesting in concept, but poorly implemented. My attention quickly turned elsewhere.
MARK [37%]

Gremlin Graphics
£8.99 cass/£12.99 disk
Reviewer: Jonathan Davies

It's clear from the pink cassette inlay, and pink instruction leaflet that this game has definite pink connections. Even the tape itself is, er, red.

Pink Panther is a game that's been around for a while on those big, juicy 16-bit machines, but I won't go on about that - I know how tetchy you all get. Let's just say that it got a pretty cool reception, and unfortunately it looks as it this conversion will meet a similar fate.

With his credit limit reached once again, PP has decided to get a job as a butler. There are four jobs to choose from, and he has to buy smarter, more expensive clothes to qualify for the better-paid ones. The idea is that once he's wangled his way into the job he'll be able to do the rounds (once his lordship's in bed) and clean up.

There are three options on the title screen. Press 'up' to buy clothing and 'left' to choose a job. Pressing 'right' prints a flashing desert island on the screen and the game locks up. This would be fine, except I must have done it about 6,357 times by accident, so I spent most of my time re-loading the darned thing. Still, at least the gameplay whiffs of originality, obviously a result of its German origins.

Once inside the house of his choice, PP discovers an unfortunate fact, his employer's a sleepwalker. So unless PP can stop his employer bumping into things as he wanders around, PP's employer will wake up and catch him in the act. But luckily, there are a number of ways to prevent this. The simplest is to face the chap and press 'fire', which will push him in the opposite direction. Ringing a bell makes him turn in or out of the screen. There are also catapaults, and boards which can be left around the place to point him in the right direction.

Another snag is that as always the formidable Inspector Clouseau is on the trail, and he'll have to be avoided too.

It has to be said that the graphics are quite good in this game. Considering the critical lack of the colour pink in the Speccy's palette the programmers have made rather a good job of it, if you don't mind the slightly garish colours and the obligatory attribute-clash.

But unfortunately, despite the nice graphics and original design, the whole thing just fails to come together. The way the sleepwalker responds to your attempts to control him seems a little erratic, and the system of choosing objects is far too slow to use at awkward moments.

So, in a wrapping-it-all-up-nicely sort of way, I'm sorry to report that this one seems to be a bit of a wasted licence. A shame, really, considering the thought that must have gone into it. Give it a miss and you'll be tickled pi... (Snip! Ed).

Label: Gremlin
Author: Magic Bytes
Price: £8.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

"Think of all the animals you've ever heard about, like rhinosorousntigercatsnmink..." remember that one? Well, sincethe Pink Panther cartoons have been on TV since the year yonk, and the Peter Sellers films seem to be on every holiday, you jolly well ought to remember the Pink Panther theme. Whether Gremlin's game will remain in the memory for that long remains to be seen.

Written by a German company called Magic Bytes, and suffering from a very poorly translated manual, Pink Panther is an arcade adventure with all the zany humour and graphic style of the cartoons. The Panther character himself is nicely done, and Inspector Clouseau pops up too. The supporting cast have the bulbous noses and rudimentary bodies we've come to know and love. Unfortunately, there's a good deal of colour clash when characters move in front of backgrounds - one case where it wouldn't have made sense to try using monochrome graphics (the blue panther?)

If you can make any sense of the instructions - ("Pink Panther is on the run! You are right, I am back indeed... even the inflatable hole has unhappy consequences for the inspector!") you'll figure out that the aim is to plunder five houses, and get away with enough loot to afford a holiday on a tropical isle.

Your first move, then, is to go to the supermarket. For each "job" you need an object which convinces your potential employer that you are suitable for the post of butler. For the first, it's a top hat, for which you have to hand over a certain sum of money. For subsequent jobs, you need a watch, a reference and a car, most of which you can only afford once you have completed the previous job.

From the supermarket you move to the employment agency where you choose your next job, then to the office where your employer interviews you. Come up with the right token, and you get the job.

The idea is that once you get into the house, you have to loot it without allowing your sleepwalking employer to wake up. This involves guiding him around the obstacles while you rush around picking up objects and avoiding the wily Clouseau.

The problem is that the control method is so involved and baffling, and the instructions so self-contradictory, that it's practically impossible to play the game.

Each room has a certain number of exits and entrances. It's easy to steer the Panther around, but your somnambulistic boss will bump into furniture and doorframes unless you guide him. You can do this in two ways; stand in front of him and raise your arms, in which case he'll turn around or ring a bell (which is the first object you pick up) upon which he'll follow you. It's harder than that, though; in some cases, to avoid obstacles you have to use other objects. To get over the bearskin rug, for instance, you have to get the springboard, put it in front of your slumbering boss, and let him leap over it.

Despite the instructions and corrections to the instructions, things still don't always work according to plan; for instance, in some cases the sleeper, rather than turning away from you and walking backwards, simply turns and runs into the wall, losing you the round. It's more than a little annoying.

Now, I liked the films and I loved the cartoons, but the game just doesn't cut it. the basic idea's good, but the gameplay's a turkey and if you can't play it, there's not much point in buying it just to look at the box, is there? A disappointment.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £8.99, Diskette: £12.99
Amstrad CPC Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99
Commodore 64/128 Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99

The Pink Panther leaves Durham once more to stalk the mansions of the rich. He is planning a luxurious holiday in the Sun, unfortunately his paltry butlers pay is not enough for the vacation he dreams of, so he takes to burglarising his employers houses.

This is not as easy a task as he thought, for he invariably chooses sleepwalkers as bosses! You, controlling the Pink Panther, steer the somnambulists away from obstacles to prevent them from waking and discovering your pink plans. You can shove them out of the way, ring a bell or blow-up an inflatable pant her to guide sleepwalkers. Catapults and planks lying around the building can be used to direct him over more tricky obstacles. As this is done, flashing valuables are collected to fill up a money bag and make the holiday affordable.

The graphics are cartoon-like but predictably fall short of the 16 bit versions. Visually, the Commodore 64/128 comes out best, the Amstrad featuring cramped sprites and the Spectrum having noticeable attribute problems.

However, like the Atari ST and Amiga versions it is the control system which lets the game down. Pushing and bell-ringing to steer the sleepwalker is an awkward system and requires rapid and accurate reactions, and 11 a single mistake is made, you have to go right back to the beginning.