Producer: Firebird
Retail Price: £1.99
Author: Conversion by Probe Software

Harvey and his drinking partner Hamish Highball like nothing better than to slope off early from work to catch the Happy Hour in their local bar. After a few beers they start to become rather violent, and start scrapping - their favourite occupation. Being a bit short on brains, they use their beer bellies and tough heads to beat the living daylights out of each other.

The basic idea of this game is to out-manoeuvre your opponent or the computer. The screen is divided into horizontal sections, divided by wires which the characters move along by swinging with their arms. Harvey and his chum can move vertically, by leaping from wire to wire. As they move over the background it changes shade, and the two combatants try to turn as much of the screen to their own colour as possible. The idea is to isolate your opponent inside a zone of your own colour.

There is a squiggly straws at each side of the screen, one for Harvey and one for Hamish. Cocktail appear in the playing area, and the more drinks a rotund fighter slums, the higher the liquid level in his straw rises.

When Harvey and Hamish collide, they are both stunned for a while by the impact, and start to move around the screen erratically, out of control. The more booze you have in your straw, the quicker you recover from this dazed state and if the other boozer is still helpless it's possible to hem in in with your colour and win.

There are five levels of difficulty, and the start level is selected before play begins.

COMMENTS

Control keys: definable - up, down, left, right
Joystick: Kempston
Use of colour: adds greatly to the playability
Graphics: good animation
Sound: spot effects
Skill levels: five
Screens: one

I'd go as far as saying that this is the most playable budget game I have seen to date. The gameplay is fast and frustrating. It does lack a little something graphically, but it's hard to say what the sound is a bit lame - but there are a few tune-ettes and minimal effects. I'd say that this is well worth the couple of quid FIREBIRD are asking. Go out and buy it - NOW!
BEN

What a weird old game this is. It took a bit of getting used to, but I began to enjoy it when I'd finally discovered what it was all about. Harvey Headbanger is not as playable as it should be, but with two players careering out of control it can become fun. The presentation is quite original, with lots of cutely presented instructions and menus. It would have been even better with a friendly little tune and a well drawn title screen - but for two pounds one can't complain, can one?
PAUL

I'd heard the Amstrad version had received acclaim, but from the brief and very unatmospheric instructions (typical of FIREBIRD!), I must confess I didn't really expect any great things from its Spectrum counterpart. Nothing great was revealed to me on my first single player game, but everything became clear after having played two-player. The pace isn't over fast, but it becomes very frantic as your opponent comes close to hemming you in. A very simple idea on the part of FIREBIRD, but well worth the two quid.
MIKE

Firebird
£1.99

Actually, I've always preferred a good Harvey Wallbanger... Still, the cock and bull story about cocktails at the heart of this game is enough to warm the cockles of my liver!

This original concoction costs less than something cool and colourful in a glass, but will it leave you shaken or stirred? It's played on a grid where Harvey and Hamish Highball hang around - and even swing around - on bars. Their aim is to run rings round each other.

The secret of all this circling is that even if Banana Daquiris don't grow on trees, Singapore Slings spring up whenever the path of one of our two imbibers encompasses an area. If one player traps the other amidst the emerging cocktails, he forces a taste of his medicine down his opponents throat, which proves fatal. Never have two characters been so avid to avoid accepting a drink.

To add to the fun, all that time spent propping up the bar has taken its toll on Harvey and Hamish's waist-lines, and they positively bounce around. This can be distracting when you're trying to stay by the wall, but when the two collide it's real balloons-ville!

The battle that ensues leaves H and H reeling, with severe control problems. The only way to survive these encounters is a little oral anaesthetic of the alcoholic kind. Yes, drinking your own cocktails increases your resistance to pain.

It took a short while for me to get into headbanging with Harvey, but it's a game that's much simpler to play than to describe. Eventually your reactions become quite finely tuned to what your opponent's up to, and you work out the best manoeuvres to trap him.

As if that wasn't enough, there are options unlimited - one or two player games, changing computer opponent skill levels and even swopping characters during the game. You can play and play, and then play again.

Yes, I was getting happily inebriated on the thing, when Hiccup! - I crashed off my bar-stool and it crashed into Basic. But as it's so cheap I'll overlook it - just this once mind - as it should give you a happy hour or two, if your order's fast arcade strategy.

Label: Firebird
Author: R Hughes
Price: £1.99
Joystick: Kempston
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Graham Taylor

Harvey Headbanger begins badly. Not only is the name of the game naff but the instructions are difficult to read and in places misspelt and I couldn't get the Kempston select option to work on the office 128K.

The game is a little different, though slight admittedly. Budget with a vengeance but maybe it has something.

One or two players control what look like Humpty Dumptys. The game is played in rounds and involves a mixture of vicious belly contact and cocktail drinking!

As your Harvey passes over a square it changes to 'your' colour - if you can enclose an area bounded by your colour it will be filled with energy revitalising cocktails, if you can catch the other player in that area you have won the round. It's sort of madly entertaining in a stupid sort of way.

Graphically the actual game is effective enough and I liked the swing on the bars performed by the winning Harvey.

On the other hand the instructions for the joystick and the curious key select all lose the game points.

Moderately entertaining.

C64/128, £1.99cs
Amstrad, £1.99cs
Spectrum, £1.99cs

Startlingly original and tremendously playable, this boozy budget number combines elements of classic coin-op Qix and ancient oriental boardgame Go in its brain-bending gameplay. As your spherical character swings round the screen, hand over hand, he trails colour behind him. Surround areas of your opponent's colour with your own and you'll make cocktails (very handy); surround the opponent himself and you'll win the bout. Five levels of computer opposition make this one great value as well as great fun - and with a human Player 2 it's even better!