Don Priestley's Popeye, Flunky, Gregory Loses his Clock and both Trapdoors are some of the very best games made for the Spectrum (ehm, in my humble opinion, that is) and if Benny Hill Madcap Chase wasn't so simple it would be too!
Review by Stack on 12 Sep 2013 (Rating: 4)
Benny Hill, a gurning comic, whose televised saucy Blackpool postcard cheeky humour made so much impact across the world... Each episode always ended in a silent movie Yakety Sax madcap chase. It was an unlikely candidate for an official ZX Spectrum game licence.
So cue the irrelevant platform game with a sprite wearing a cap to vaguely represent Benny? Not if you give the job to the amazing Don Priestly, who delivered a game that is more true to the source material than almost any other Spectrum tie-in licence.
What you get is a large sprite, a colourful character that anyone can see is Benny Hill, goose step running his camp way away from chubby spinsters, eyebrow raising farmers and porcine policemen, all of whom want to stop him collecting washing from their line, scrumping apples or nicking off with jumble. The chasers all have funny movements and facial expressions as if they are doing comic asides to the camera.
If they should catch Benny, they'll not just swipe the item he has fetched back, they'll jump up and down on his foetal corpse in anger accompanied by comic caper beeps and peeps.
Anyone familiar with Don's work will know what to expect in terms of animation and the strange '3D that is 2D' perspective, though normally these are used in his problem solving games, not this type of arcade chase.
This game sees Don Priestley’s design in playful mode; run like hell from the pursuit and avoid the street furniture or you bounce off it and onto your arse, losing points and ground to the daft chasers.
The more you play this game the more it reveals of its grasp of comic timing. Dodge the farmer and watch him brain himself on a lamp post and whilst stopping to cheer, get flattened yourself by a reckless tractor...
The essence of slapstick in a 48K game? It's a true marvel. 5/5 for the witty response to brief, 3/5 for average playability and the only true sadnesses, no chasing girls in lacy bras, and no Yakety Sax soundtrack whilst playing.
Big, colourful and cartoonish graphics from the legendary Don Priestley, but the gameplay seems a bit lacking, to me.
