Reviews

Probably my favorite Christmas themed bit of gaming on the Spectrum, or at least that I can remember. Not quite as good as the other Monty Mole games, but its a good slice of great Monty style platform and ladders action.
Merry Christmas.

Ironically my favourite ever Christmas game actually has no relation to Christmas whatsoever beyond being released as a Christmas cover tape for Your Sinclair back in 1987.

Moley Christmas is a short platformer game featuring the legendary Monty Mole character, who at this time had starred in four previous outings, from the original Wanted: Monty Mole to my personal favourite, Auf Wiedersehen Monty.

It was released as an interlude (of numerous years) before the final Monty game, Impossamole but bears no resemble to what was to come for Monty and instead plays as a retread of the familiar Monty style.

Despite this it's still lots of fun and today serves as a good introduction to the series. The aim is to get the Your Sinclair magazine produced, printed and delivered to the newsagents in time for Christmas, and standing in your way is the usual Pythonesque array of bizarre enemies and cartoonish characters.

Looking back, Moley Christmas stands as the postscript for the classic Monty character. Impossamole was released as an attempt to modernise Monty as a superhero in a video game world adjusting to more brash and modern heroes like Sonic the Hedgehog. At the time I liked it, though it was plagued with slow loading times, but in retrospect it was a sign of a series that had lost it's way and created a more generic platformer in an attempt to stay mainstream.

It was a sad end to a classic series (though by no means a complete waste of time) but Moley Christmas still retains the unique magic of Monty's earlier outings and is definitely worth a play.

Taken from my website: www.zombiesatemyxbox.com

A bit too difficult for my taste, but Moley Xmas sets its sight high !!

This game doesn't come close to the quality of previous Monty games. It's understandable really as this wasn't a proper release.

Love the tune but that's about it really. The Monty Mole games never really caught to me to be honest so this one wasn't going to either. Getting to the third screen was all I could manage.

This was a free game included in a magazine and is one of the best I have ever played, and possibly one of the best games in the Monty series.

All comes together quite nicely, from the graphics, to the sound, to the great play ability and down to the plot. Contrary to other Monty games, who follow the maze-collect-objects Jet Set Willy game play, Moley Christmas goes for the Manic Miner one screen at a time style. Which, for me, is way more compelling and addictive.

A great game, not only for fans of the series but for every lover of platforms.

4,5 points

1987 Your Sinclair magazine (UK)
by Shaun Hollingworth, Peter Harrap and Chris Kerry