Reviews

1985 16/48 Tape Magazine (UK)
by Peter Watson

This game was written by the same author of 'Piggy' and in my opinion is much better than the first.
The game was published by Tape Magazine in 1985, and although even at that time it was outdated, it worked fine for the style of game it is suppose to be.
I specially like the swallows flying in the herb garden room. The game is quite harder than it looks and it takes a lot of patience and fast reactions to surpass some nasties, but its completely finishable.
If you started playing games in '82 and you are used to simple games, you may enjoy this one, even if only for nostalgic curiosity.
The tune between kills is a real spoiler.
Poke to silence annoying tune: 33292,0

It looks nice but getting by the enemies is a pain in the ass! They're like they are doped it's so hard to get by them. And when you do happen to collect one item you have to start all over again after death. Even some BASIC games have more playability than this.

Back to the beginning after losing a life . . . so damn hard ! ! !

1,5 out of 5 .

Let's look at the author of Piggy's other work shall we? Released three years before Piggy is Ned's Garden where we control Ned's head around a maze collect items for his shed. It's faster than Piggy but just as difficult. The speed can be more of a detriment as moving is tough and the enemies can be hard to avoid, even entering a room can cause instant death because of the sheer difficulty of the enemies. It's a slightly better game than Piggy but it's still pretty unenjoyable.

If a game emerged with this title these days the garden in question would actually probably just be as lethal as the garden portrayed in this game.

You'd risk life, and limb as you tried not to fall over the rusty wheelbarrow, as you tip toed through the patch of filth encrusted used heroin needles, shimmied carefully through the square of dogshit, only to be attacked by the 2 sickly malnourished and half crazed with starvation pit bulls that laid all of those turds in the first place.

You'd then have to take a running leap to clear the massive pile of broken glass, left behind by broken bottles of almost expired 50p a bottle on clearance Spar lager, and landing safely in a pile of crushed plastic White Storm, Frosty Jack and Pulse cider bottles.

Only then can you safely clip your ganja plants. After that it's s trip to the jobcentre to sign on, and then off to the backlane behind the local chippy to sell the weed from the garden to a 12 year old.

Sadly the game in question isn't anywhere near as interesting as a day in the life of one of those gutter rat people who live a symbiotic relationship with a Diadora Shellsuit and a pair of second hand Britsh Knights Basketball boots.

I suppose the game was alright for a freebie, but the rest of the tape it came on was actually more interesting. Still not as bad as a Harry Price game, although a game like Ned's Garden would've probably made a perfect template for one of his pieces of work.