Cartoon Time
£2.99

Gosh what a fun scenario for a game! Run around the haunted castle collecting bits of your dad and keeping away from skeletons, ghouls and ghosts, sew all the bits back together and stick 1,000,000 volts through the quivering flesh and bone to bring him back to life. Wow.

The inlay says this is an hilarious spoof and terrifically funny: sorry but I can't see the joke. The graphics are all in 3-D. The backgrounds are detailed and quite good, but the main sprites leave a lot to be desired. The whole game bears a striking resemblance to Bride Of Frankenstein. In fact the whole layout of the game is identical, with just the main sprite changed! There is a different colour monochrome on each screen to add some variety.

The way the game has been set out is strange. Exiting one screen by a door at the top makes you enter the next also by a door at the top! This means that by continuing to push up on the joystick you can flick from screen to screen in a very annoying way.

You could get some enjoyment out of Frankenstein Jnr if you've never played Bride Of Frankenstein and have the nack of getting about that game, and there are some puzzles that will keep ya playing for a while.

BARGAIN BASEMENT

A bit short of the readies? Low on the folding stuff? Totally borassic? Then pop down the Bargain Basement with Marcus Berkmann, and see what goes "Cheep!" (Eh? Ed).

Cartoon Time
£2.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann

This looks suspiciously like a game that I believe Ariolasoft were working on about two years ago (although I can't remember its name for the life of me), but here it crops up again as a cheapie from CodeMasters. And this time, I'm afraid, the Darling boys have come a bit of a cropper. The game, by Paul Smith and Steve Howard, is a tame arcade adventure set in the usual haunted-castle-full-of-ghoulies. Here, the young Frankenstein, who we'll call Ken for no real reason at all, has to run around the castle looking for bits of his dad. Hmmm. When you've put him together, there's the small matter of plugging 1,000,000 volts through his limp frame, and as long as he's back in the land of the living by the end of Beadle's About, you'll be all right. Chasing Ken around, though, are untold nasties and things - business as usual. Unfortunately, you can't kill any of the nasties, and they can catch up with you and kill you all too easily, which rather mucks up the arcade adventure aspect of the game. The graphics aren't bad, but the gameplay doesn't really hold up. Perhaps CodeMasters should have thrown this one back in the water...