Producer: Firebird
Retail Price: £9.95
Author: MD Software

Have you ever been ill and wondered what exactly was going wrong with your poor little body? Sitting there sweating, head throbbing, stomach making horrible gurgly noises and all that sort of thing. Playing Gerry the Germ might help throw some light on the subject of diseases and how they affect you. On the other hand - it might not!

Gerry, the hero of this piece, has been thrown out of the IIIstitute of Infectology for failing to get his stinkploma ... he's out on the street, no money, a bacteria and a colony of viruses to support. Most ordinary germs would be defeated by this crushing blow, but not Gerry. He's a fighter, a rebel, a rapscallion and he's going to show the world that he's the best by infecting an entire human body on his own.

You play the part of that heroic, teensy-weensy little germ, and have to successfully infect six regions of your reluctant host's body. The playing area spans six separate screens, one for each part of the body Gerry has to attack - and should he fail at any stage it's back to the beginning. Counters on the status screen and a thermometer monitor your progress as you spread your pestilential influence through your host.

Gerry starts his quest in the lungs (coughs and sneezes spread diseases). Four red blood corpuscles perform a square dance in the middle of the lung screen and every time they cross, a bottle of oxygen is produced which Gerry has to collect. Starve the lungs of oxygen for long enough and they become diseased and it's time to whizz down a handy vein to the kidneys.

To wreak havoc in the kidneys, Gerry has to eat as many kidney beans as he can and then go to the toilet to cause kidney failure. Antibodies floating about the screen in the form of a plunger and toilet attendant make Gerry's life difficult, and he must avoid red and white cells if he's to succeed. The kidney beans aren't too keen on being scoffed either, and have a habit of running off the screen.

The bladder is the next port of call, and it's a sea of liquid, authentically enough. Gerry has acquired a little rowing boat in which he rows around. A bull and a cockerel swim around and can overturn Gerry's boat, tipping him in the drink and turning him into a piece of bladder wreck. Fortunately Gerry isn't defenceless: he can pick up a toilet roll and hurl it at a nasty, stunning it and sending it to the bottom of the bladder sea for a while. The aim of the bladder game is to land on the island - the loo roll can be used to block a dripping tap and thus control the liquid level. After the bladder it's on to the stomach or back to the lungs, depending on whether you succeed or fail.

Lots of nasties trundle their way around the stomach - a tapeworm, a gas pocket and lots of healthy food. Some stun, others shunt you about the screen so care is needed to complete the infecting. Gerry has to dissolve Mr Aspirin, guardian of the exit who stops the stomach from going wrong Mr Aspirin can be dissolved with the acid bottle that wanders around the screen, and once he's safely out of the way the stomach gets all acidic and packs up.

The next stop is the pancreas, which looks rather like the inside of a train. The screen is split into two, one half representing the inside of a railway carriage and the other the driver's compartment, where a fireman and driver beaver away. The aim is to infect the medical supplies in the carriage. Gerry's touch is enough to infect the medicines, but he has to watch out for mean white cells, ticket inspectors and deodorants while he bounces around. Once the medical supplies have been ruined Gerry has to stop the train, by climbing unseen into the driver's compartment and lobbing coal at the driver to start a fight between the driver and his fireman!

In order to complete the game and prove to his fellow germs that he's a jolly infectious fellow, Gerry needs to get to the heart and inflict a massive coronary by dodging the defensive antibodies and turning their fire onto the heart itself.

Careful how you play the game - Gerry could grow on you...

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable
Joystick: Kempston
Keyboard play: reasonable
Use of colour: very cheerful, if that's the right word
Graphics: jolly
Sound: a nice little ditty on the title screen and a few spot effects
Skill levels: one
Screens: six

Great, I thought, loading up Gerry the Germ, having read the fab cartoon instructions. It loaded, and played an amusing tune. I started on the game: some neat graphics here! In fact, I was all set to give it a really nice review. After ten minutes play I began to realise something was wrong. Soon I was really bored. Eventually, having played the game to my wit's end, I can say that I think Firebird have mined what could have been a really cool product by making it far, far too difficult. Someone's bound to say 'persevere, and you'll succeed', but quite honestly I don't have infinite patience. I'm not going to be coming back to this game for a long time because Gerry the Germ is really beginning to make me ill.

Lots of lovely, witty ideas are contained in this game and its scenario. The presentation, from the packaging to the on screen graphics is very good. Sadly the game is let down by its sheer unplayability and rapidly became so frustrating I didn't want to continue. A nice try, which falls short of the mark by being so unplayable….

The most notable thing about this game is its humour - although lavatorial in tone, the funny scenario has some very neat touches. The gameplay, however, is sadly lacking and the whole thing boils(!) down to being a rather dull six-screen arcady type game. The way it works is silly - once you've completed a screen you move onto the next one, and if you fail you have to complete the first screen again! This quickly becomes frustrating, especially when you don't know what to do on a new screen and consequently return to the first screen very swiftly. A lives system would have been much, much better. This game costs too much: there are some better releases in Firebird's Silver range.

Firebird
£7.95

Gerry the Germ comes in a square box. Gerry the Germ has its instructions in the form of a cartoon poster. Gerry the Germ is obviously supposed to be a fun game. Well let me tell you, fun it ain't. At the heart of this biological misadventure is a good idea. Somebody's brain was working when they came up with the idea of showing your effective infectiveness by undoing all the good of a body's antibodies. But somewhere between hand and mouth something went wrong.

The problem is that the interlinked arcade games just aren't fun. What they are is infuriating. This must be the first time a germ has come close to causing a purely mental state - a breakdown. I battled for ages to try and capture oxygen in the lungs or stop that leaky bladder but in the end the main lesson I learnt wasn't biological. Bad taste jokes and funny sprites do not a good game make. Somebody forgot to ensure that it was playable.

But the worst thing is this - because it's a 'fun' game, Gerry doesn't die. Indeed it seemed set to go on forever until I rembered that advertisement. I reached for my Domestos. Well, it is guaranteed to kill 90% of all known germs. From now on I'm leading a clean life.

Publisher: Firebird
Price: £7.95
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Kempston, programmable

Firebird has rushed straight from the toilet with its latest game in which Gerry the Germ tries to prove himself by giving some poor human victim a massive coronary. The company has been caught with its pants down as the game is unplayable.

Inside the cassette box you will find a poster illustrated with blue-tinted cartoons, rather like the ones you find on the walls of doctors' waiting rooms. The diagrams and cartoons are supposed to show you what to do on each screen. Instead the author has gone OTT in a guided tour of the human body's sewage system, with the help of bog rolls, deep water in the bladder and gas pockets. (Note to sensitive readers: STOP READING HERE).

Gerry has failed his Stinkploma at the Illistute of Infectology. Now he's fighting back and hopes to get that beauty prize of Virulent Virus of the Year. To do that he has to go through a healthy human's water works and give it the wobbles. If successful body temperature will increase and things begin to cook.

However, the only thing simmering was my blood, when I was faced with the task of getting off the first screen, 'humorously' entitled Lungeroo.

In the Lungeroo Gerry must collect a bottle of oxygen which is created when blood cells get together at the centre of the screen. Firebird gives some advice for conquering this bag of hot air but it's damn near impossible to carry out.

Gerry is supposed to go to the bottom of the screen and position himself in the middle. He should then wait until the blood cells split up and follow one as it does its acrobatics while helping to form a bottle.

According to Firebird you can then go in and collect the bottle. Nobody in the office could collect one of the bottles - let alone the six required to finish the screen. If you do succeed on this screen, then you pass into the kidneys, where a rather unpleasant incident in the loo gets Gerry into the bladder.

If Gerry gets hit by a blood cell in the lungs he's evacuated to the bladder. He must paddle his boat which rises and falls as water comes in through a tap and leaves in a flush of glory.

A toilet roll will block the flow if you don't keep it out of the way of the tap and under your boat, while avoiding a cock and bull (what? Ed) which will try to sink you. If that happens you're sunk for good and you immediately return to the lungs - it's so true to life it actually has you throwing up.

From the bladder you pass into the stomach - this sure is some sick person. To do this the water level must touch the bottom of a palm tree on an island. It's difficult because when Gerry tries to defend himself the zapper repels the bog roll which flies across the water and flips up into the tap's mouth.

In the stomach Gerry has to avoid tapeworms, gas pockets and healthy foods such as apples. The stomach also contains aspirin which can be controlled with an acid bottle and junk food which gets in the way of Gerry's fun.

The pancreas is even more disheartening, with its white blood cells, medical supplies and body driver who controls the digestive systems. You get rid of the little man by burying him under an avalanche of coal.

At last, the heart and the quest is almost over for the gallant germ. Gerry must get past heart boxers, arrows, axes, and a spring which will take you back into deep water where your troubles will start again.

The graphics are excellent, the characterisation well done and the plot is almost original. The only problem is that it's unplayable even with a joystick.

Gerry the Germ may be part of Firebird's top range but it's hardly hot - just a little flushed.

MACHINE: Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Firebird
PRICE: £7.95

Nice graphics - shame about the game. There's a germ of a good game lurking within this new release from Firebird in their HOT range. Unfortunately the game is so unplayable that it's hard to discover just where it is.

The idea of the game is for you to help Gerry become the most virulent virus around by running riot through screens which represent various parts of the human body. But this isn't so much a Fantastic VOyage - more of a budget trip on the Broads.

The screens look extremely attractive. Gerry is a cute little monster. But thanks to inadequate instructions - drawn cartoon style - you're never really sure just what you're supposed to be about.

Gerry could be a nice character given the right outlet for his obvious comic talents - but this game doesn't make the most of them. Overpriced and unplayable.

Firebird
£7.95

This has to be one of the most infuriating games I've ever played. My initial reaction to the packaging was favourable, as the instructions come on a large glossy sheet in cartoon form, making a small poster.

It was only when I started to play the game that I discovered that the instructions, glossy though they may be, were no use whatsoever in letting me know what was going on.

What I could glean from them was that Gerry is a bit of a failure in the germ stakes, and his ambition is to prove himself as a virulent little microbe by causing some poor sod to have a coronary. This is done in stages as Gerry progresses from the lungs into different parts of the body, doing his germy business along the way.

Except for one problem - I couldn't work out just what it was Gerry was supposed to be doing. The first screen (the lungs) requires you to avoid white and red blood cells and to collect oxygen cylinders. Fair enough, but the blood cells stick so closely to the oxygen that only on one attempt did I even manage to collect a single cylinder. Falling to collect enough oxygen causes you to be dumped into the bladder, and this screen had me completely baffled.

Here, Gerry is in a little rowing boat, in a lake with an island. There is also a dripping tap, a roll of loo paper, and a cock and bull (ha, ha) which fly/swim around trying to sink the boat. It took me well over an hour to work out how to complete this screen - not because it was a tough or challenging task, but because I just couldn't see the point of it all. If I hadn't had to stick with it in order to write this review I would have given up.

Once I worked out how to get through the bladder (if you know what I mean) it turned out that the solution was a repetitious task involving rowing the boat to and fro a lot. Then, when I got onto the next screen it was back to square one on another screen that was just as irritating as the first two.