Alternative
£3.99 cassette
0977 797777
Reviewer: Linda Barker

My friends responsible for checking the safety of the cases that they put all the nuclear waste in. Did you know that each person makes enough nuclear waste in a lifetime to form into a large glass ashtray? if this ashtray was placed in a lead box, it would produce enough heat to fulfil all your requirements. My friend insists that its all perfectly clean and safe and I remain unconvinced. I'd rather plug the old Speccy into the electricity rather than place the lead gingerly near the big lead box.

Hideous is the tale of one man on a mission to save the world from nasty radioactive mutations. These beings weren't always horribly disfigured. It was mankind that made these once peaceful beings into a destructive, man-hating race. Y'see, all those clever-clog scientists thought they could solve the world's fuel problem by developing a new kind of radiation. But these top scientists aren't as intelligent as they like to think and, instead of coming up with a mild form of radiation that could soften carrots at five hundred yards, they invented a wholly new kind of power. Delta Radiation was so strong that it burst through the feeble walls of the reactor and started to seep into the ground. (Obviously my friend wasn't around to check the casings!) Soon, instead of ants and worms and things, people were finding what looked like B- movie escapees in their rose beds. (The roses themselves were unaffected.)

NUCLEAR POWER? NEIN DANKE!

Not content with ruining carefully planned gardens from Eastbourne to Whitby, these creatures decided that they had to lay waste to earth and the entire human race. Their first step was to take over the underground nuclear complex which you have to infiltrate. To save the world you're going to have to find some lumps of lead and place them in the reactor - thus making it safe. In time, the prehistoric-like worms will return to their natural shape and size and the rose beds of Purley will bloom once more.

On loading up Hideous the first remark you make will probably be, "They don't look very hideous." Why? Because they don't. Hideous mutated things have loads of teeth and eyes, their skin is oddly coloured and often peeling. One thing they do not look like is mini-spaceships. The graphics, and the gameplay, remind me of all those maze-type games that we've had on our covertapes from time to time. (Klimax is the one that springs immediately to mind.)

Theoretically, the gameplay is disarmingly simple. Wander round rooms avoiding, or shooting, mutants, find the lead, take it to the reactor, save the world. As is usually the case, in practice it's a lot more difficult. There are four levels and 30 screens to each level. As you can see from the map of the first level, that's quite a lot of wandering. The mutants get braver and braver as time goes on, by Level Three they actually start firing back at you. Ants alive! Have they no respect for human sanctity. Well no, they're cold-blooded you see. As well as shooting aliens, refuelling and getting all that lead you'll also have to find your way around. This is the tricky bit as lots of rooms are blocked off by strange lasers or blocks that you can't move. There are ways around this, like using the smart bombs, but you could be placing yourself in danger.

Unfortunately, there isn't really enough to Hideous, and what there is is a tad dated. There's nothing horribly wrong about this game, nothing to make you throw the whole thing aside. On the other hand there's nothing brilliant either, nothing to make you sit in front of the Speccy 'til dawn. Hideous is fun while it lasts, but thats simply not long enough.

Label: Alternative
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £3.99 Tape
Reviewer: Big Al Dykes

Nuclear power. A touchy subject, isn't it? Who remembers the Chernobyl disaster? Is it true that all the chickens in the area now have three legs, which grow back every time one is eaten? Can nuclear radiation really cause people to look like American TV presenters?

Alternative would make it seem that way, with their new game Hideous. Those top scientist bods are just too clever for their own good. Now they've invented a whole new form of nuclear radiation so strong that it has leaked out of its production plant and caused all the local (and some not so local) underground organisms to become, well, hideous. And rather deadly, too. Apparently Des O'Connor lives near this plant too.

The only way to stop more animals mutating is to get down to that reactor and block it up with lead bricks, hopefully stopping the rays from escaping. And that's your job. Mr. Guinea Pig.

There are four levels, each comprising of 30 glorious technicolour screens (five screens by six). On each level there is a nuclear reactor. There are also eight lead blocks. So get into your tank, locate the reactor and go searching for the mutant-preventing metal.

On each progressing maze level, there are more and more mutants per screen for you deal with (ie. shoot), and on the last level they even shoot back. So, the game does get progressively more difficult.

There are various other icons to pick up or avoid. These range from extra fuel and ammo boxes to bomb emplacements. If you trigger off a bomb, you'll lose a shield, and once all six are gone... byee! You can also pick up extra lives.

Once you've found a lead block, you'll have to take it back to the reactor. When all eight are in place, find the exit screen and move to the next section.

The graphics are very colourful but also very blocky. While sound effects are sparser than four star hotels in the Sahara Desert. But Hideous is still very playable and addictive. The game has a very strong puzzle element. And, luckily, the puzzles are extremely well thought-out and challenging. There are force fields to turn off, doors to open, buttons to press, bricks to push around. They'll keep you thinking until you solve them, and until you do, you may not be able to get to a certain position or screen critical to completing the level.

However (that dreaded word!), Hideous can get extremely tiresome. This is because you can only carry one object at a time. So, once you've picked up a lead block, you'll have to go all the way back to the reactor and pop it in place before you can pick up another one, which means you end up going backwards and forwards over the same old screens.

Basically although Hideous is good to look at and play, you'll soon get fed up with the same old routine. The puzzles are well devised though and it's the sort of game you'll go back to.

STEVE:
When I first saw Hideous I thought it looked rather too old and dated. Still, it plays quite nicely and there's quite a bit of fun to be drained out of it. It's just that once you've drained the fun out, there won't be any left again.