PUBLIC HOUSE

'It's a game! It's a show! It's the Game Show Show!' But enough of these obscure quotes. Here's Jonathan with a bumper Christmas number of Public House at entirely the wrong time of year (the clot).

No sooner had the words 'lack of Brit software' tripped from my keyboard than I received a packed disk from Dominic Morris of Worcester. Phew, eh? Not only that, but there's also another jolly selection from the old European Demos box. Hurrah! (Good old 'hurrah' - always a good get-out if you can't think of a natty pay-off line.)

Chef's Mate
By Dominic Morris
Reviewer: Jonathan Nash

It's a hard life being a BASIC rip-off of Fast Food. (Oh what a giveaway.) Cheerfully naughty in its depiction of the totteringly old Codies Ms Pacman rip-off (oh what another giveaway) Chef's Mate is the story of Dozy, the coincidentally-eggish chef's mate who has to recover the lost ingredients from the mousehole of doom. (Oh what a ludicrous plot.)

Okay. Being BASIC, you wouldn't expect Chef's Mate to be much cop, eh? Well, you'd be wrong. Sort of. Erm... Hang on a moment while I collect my thoughts. (Pause.) Right. Chef is an undistinguished maze game with no enemy but time as you wander around the place picking up the grub. The graphics are surprisingly big and colourful, unsurprisingly sluggish and jerky and suspiciously Fast Food-ish but we'll let that one by without comment. (Except that one of course... damnation.) Everything plods along, erm, undistinguishedly until you come to the end of a level. The idea is to race (okay, plod) back to the centre where a doorway has phantasmagorically appeared but, unless you've planned your route very cleverly, you won't have enough time to make it. Considering it's BASIC, and a rip-off etc etc etc, you wouldn't believe how hideously suspenseful Chef's Mate gets as your little egg (oops) dodders towards the exit, while in the corner the timer clicks down towards zero. Completely brilliant, heart-stopping stuff and far more enjoyable than Fast Food itself. (Oh what a giveaway.) (Oh what an unscrupulous duplication of phrases to fill up space. Ed)