Alternative
£3.99 cassette
0977 797777
Reviewer: Jon Pillar

Okay, cards on the table. I'm a big fan of Cosgrove Hall animation and of Count Duckula in particular. (Somehow I knew you were going to say that. Ed) On the whole the crazy scripts are very funny indeed, and although the animation is horribly limited, Duckula's to-camera looks are great.

The first Duckula outing, No Sax Please We're Egyptian, was a respectable platform game with an extremely silly cheat mode (the Count turned into a bottle of banana milk, or something), and this sequel lifts its snappy plot straight from one of the shows (Duckula gets marooned on the Planet Cute and has to avoid the teddies and fluffy bunnies and escape back to dear old dreary Transylvania) so it comes as a hope-dashing disappointment that Duckula 2 is such a dreadful game. Once again, platforms are the order of the day, with the Count advancing through single-screen levels, his task simply to get from the left of the screen to the right. To make life as tricky as possible, cute baddies (or goodies, or whatever) patrol the platforms, which themselves have a witty habit of disappearing. As Duckula is armed with a ketchup gun, gameplay consists of avoiding or shooting the cuties and waiting for a platform to appear in front of you so you can get that bit nearer to the exit. This game has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. As only one platform is within reach at a time, you simply stand there and wait for either (a) another one to appear so you can jump onto it, or (b) the one you're standing on to disappear, dropping you fatally to the ground. (Whereupon you have to leave the room and come back in, because the game doesn't reset the platforms.) Dodging cuties is no better - you either squirt them (until your ammo runs out) or, erm, get killed by them. The whole thing seems to play quite happily by itself, with the player being a sort pf novelty bonus. The Count is doing himself no favours at all by endorsing this very sad, can't-believe-it-wasn't-written-in-1982 game. Saying this is aimed at younger players is no excuse. What tmakes Alternative think they can get away with giving younger players such a rubbish game?

Label: Alternative
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £3.99 Tape
Reviewer: Marc Richards

I've never actually watched the Count Duckula cartoon series on TV, so I don't know a lot about the various characters and stories. However, I do know a good computer game when I see one, and Count Duckula II isn't the best example. It does have a few redeeming features though. Read on.

Von Goosewing (boo, hiss!) has managed to blast Duckula (our befeathered hero), Nanny and Igor into space by attaching a rocket to their castle turret. After dodging all the asteroids, satellites and empty bottles of baby lotion, they collide with none other than the quacking COunt's all time hero. Tremendous Terence and - bang, they all crash land on the planet Cute.

This is where you come in. You have to guide the Duck through the planet to find the lightning conductor that fell off his turret during the collision.

The planet's surface is covered in a series of platforms and ledges, some disappearing, some moving, some just standing still being really boring. But (but! But!), as this is the planet Cute, the inhabitants are things like Jack-in-the-Boxes, dolls and teddies. Touching these "cuties" makes Duckula become cuter, and if he ends up completely cute he'll have to stay on the planet. So avoid them!

You're armed with a limited amount of tomato ketchup which will temporarily disable the Cuties, but more can be picked up along the way.

There are other things to pick up to make you invincible for a short period of time, and also a wonderful feature where you can get Tremendous Terence to carry you across a screen if you just can't do it! (But you can only do this once so use sparingly!) There are two difficulty levels (easy and hard), but all these do is change the number of lives you have (20 on the easy version, 8 on the difficult).

Aiieee!! What happened to the graphics? They're virtually monochrome, very simple and very flickery. If this is intended to be a take off of the old black 'n' white Hammer Horror movies it succeeds. But at least they're clear.

The playability is flawed by the lethargic and sluggish controls. plus the fact that you only have to fall through about a quarter of the screen before you die, making the game a pain to play. (Sometimes you land on a platform only to lose a life because it was one pixel below the tiny amount you're allowed to fall).

Count Duckula II is not completely ruined by these faults though, and there is quite a bit of entertainment value stored away inside it and the storyline is quite amusing. However I can only recommend it to those who are fans of the TV series or are true platformer fanatics.

GARTH:
Count Duckula II does play slowly and jerkily, it does have suspect collision detection, but it is quite an entertaining way to spend a couple of hours (if you can stand the frustration!) Whether it'll last longer than that will depend on what you think of it. Here at SU Towers, we'd gone back to Seymour after half an hour.