Reviews

If you like strategy games with a hint of humour (and I do) then this is about as good as it gets. Written by the man who became paper-mache headed Frank Sidebottom (I kid you not), I spent many a happy hour trying to get that elusive No.1. You start the game as a rather bad band desperately trying to get into the charts. With lots of rehearsals and gigs you gradually become good enough to attract a decent manager and release your own single and get into the chart countdown. Do well enough and the major labels come knocking and the sky’s the limit. Pitfalls include your rival band (they nick your band members), drugs (you’ll find out) and Paul McCartney, but if you get that Documentary you could be on Top of the Pops. About time someone did a remake of it, because it’s a bona fide classic.

Start a band and aim for the top of the charts. Watching your single climbing up the charts is genuinely exciting and there's some nice moments of humour.
Top stuff.

Absolutely fantastic game, such a simple concept, and visually it won't any awards, but the off the wall Chris Sievey humour shines through (the man who had 23 flopped singles on 17 different labels!) Even though I've cracked how the game works I've still only ever got to number 1 once, just a shame Chris isn't around anymore for me to get on top of the pops with him! Reportedly he never got number 1 and he wrote the game!! Check it out, if you like a bit of good fun and you've been in a band in the past, this will definitely ring some bells!

This is a music strategy-management game written by the late Chris Sievey who was a member of the band The Freshies but is best known as Frank Sidebottom, a comedic character who was instantly recognisable by his giant paper-mache head. The goal here is to write a single that gets you to the top the charts, which is quite a pain as the game likes to shit on you any chance it gets, which I guess is an element of the real-life struggles of an aspiring up-and-coming band. It is a nice game and it has something to keep you intrigued into playing it longer, but that was almost two hours I played and while I got better results every time I wouldn't necessarily say I got significant results to be satisfied. It's a game that does require plenty of patience but you have to remember, I'm 50 now and so I have no patience anymore. But it's an interesting concept and it's a lot better than some of the other music management games I've played in the past like Rock Star Ate My Hamster and It's Only Rock 'n' Roll.