Reviews

Egghead is back in his fourth outing (as suggested in the title) and this adventure finds him cooking a meal for his missus, Shelly. As Egghead, you must travel through various screens/locales searching for the right ingredients, picking up items along the way to help you.

In terms of structure, Egghead Four is no different from its predecessor, Egghead In Space. However in terms of content it feels like a step up in almost every area. Whereas Egghead In Space had rather meek sound effects to fill the silence, Egghead Four has a stomping Eurovision-esque soundtrack, which although a bit too brash at times, overall adds to the anarchic air that so often permeates creator Jonathan Caudwell’s games. Graphically the game is a lot more colourful than its predecessor and the Spectrums arch-nemesis colour clash is kept firmly in the background allowing the screen to be filled with interesting backgrounds, providing a bit of eye candy to go with the object hunting.

The intro screen provides instructions, which is useful for the download version that as such has no real manual. Each screen also has its own title in the tradition of Jet Set Willy; another feature the game has over its predecessor, giving each location a bit more character. The game is littered with what are now becoming traditional ‘Caudwellisms’ including gravestones bearing the names ‘CPC’ and ‘C64’ and in-jokes snuck in amongst the locale names.

Overall the game is an enjoyable romp and scores well in every department. It’s difficult without being fiendishly so and the levels are well balanced and designed. Features such as the Burger Kong mini-game help make the game stand out from others of this genre, including Caudwell’s own previous releases. Available for free as a download from Cronosoft’s website, it’s well worth getting.

Rating: 82%

Taken from my website: www.zombiesatemyxbox.com

Now onto Egghead 4 and for some reason he's a cook now and he has to prepare tea for Shelley, his girlfriend? Well for starters, 10 times improvement on the music, which doesn't fit the game but then neither did the ones in the first two Eggheads and they were public domain tunes so I'm calling this a huge step up. The gameplay though? Not so. The design is nice but it's just confusing trying to find what a proper ingredient is and where to drop it correctly. I will say that it's an improvement on Egghead 3 in the very least, but it's missing something to provide some charm, or maybe I'm just missing the point.