BARGAIN BASEMENT
Cheaper than a speeding bullet. Leaps small molehills in a single bound. Is it a bird? Is it a small piece of putty? No, it's budget hero Marcus Berkmann with the latest in low-price Spec-fun.
Alternative
£2.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann
The roving eye of the software industry has finally reached this classic old show - running on ITV now for well over 1,000 years - and the small yellow one and the grey squeaky one are now a computer game. What would Matthew say? Well, not a lot probably (too busy counting the huge pile of fivers they've bunged him), but we old sooty fans can only be disappointed. It shapes up nicely - the graphics and instructions lead you to expect a fairly detailed and well-thought-out arcade adventure - but there's really not very much to it at all. On each screen you have to jump around a series of platforms (disguised as furniture in Matthew's house), collecting Sweep's bones and avoiding, or neutralising if possible, the various nasties. And, well, that's it. Rooms are fairly limited, and the challenge soon wears thin. There are Easy and Hard versions, a nice idea in theory, but the gameplay is so weak and repetitive that you couldn't really give a monkey's. Great licence, shame about the game.
Overall | 49% |
---|
Alternative
£2.99
Reviewer: Rich Pelley
I used to know this really disgusting Sooty joke, but I don't quite think this is the time or the place to tell you. Perhaps when you're a bit older.
The thing is, you see, as with practically all the other Alternative 'kiddy' programme tie-ins of late, this game is a bit on the ludicrously simple and tedious side. So ludicrously simple and tedious in fact, that assume it's market consists merely of sweet little children and poor disillusioned parents, and no-one who is actually looking for a decent value for-money game.
All that you have to do is to walk around a house collecting one bone per screen, and delivering it to Soo (another infamous character from the show) who appears at the bottom. There are creepy-crawlies to stun, a vaguely competitive simultaneous two-player mode, and a few uninteresting special objects. But it still rather lacks a challenging edge. The game doesn't become harder as you progress (collecting bones is all that you do) so it soon becomes utterly Boring (with, as you've probably noticed, a capital B).
As you can imagine, all this makes what to say extremely hard for the humble reviewer - something which Andy should take into account when the next pay day arrives. It's fine for someone so young/stupid that they couldn't manage anything more complicated, but whether anyone in this category would be into computer games anyway is a bit questionable. In all fairness, unless you're knee-high to a mushroom or a die-hard Sooty And Sweep fan, then I'd leave well alone.
Life Expectancy | 32% |
---|---|
Graphics | 52% |
Addictiveness | 38% |
Instant Appeal | 43% |
Overall | 47% |
Coming, erm, now actually, to a cinema near you...
THE COMPLETE YS GUIDE TO FILM AND TELLY GAMES
Knowing full well what a square-eyed bunch you are, we thought it was about time you were given the facts on film and television licenced games. Once again, JONATHAN DAVIES was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
(Cough. Deep, manly voice.)
'In the beginning there were loads and loads of Speccy games. Loads of them. They sold all right, but not exactly in enormous numbers. The trouble was, you see, that none of them seemed particularly exciting. They had nothing that caught the public eye. They were just computer games. Had no 'cred'.
Then a small cog within a long-since-extinct software house had an idea.
"Why don't we give our next game the same name as an incredibly popular film? Then everyone would buy it just because they'd seen the film and they'd foolishly think the game would be just as good. How about i, eh?"
"Er, we could do, I suppose."
"Great."
"But what if the film company finds out? They might sue us or something."
"Oh yeah."
"Tcha."
"I know - we could ask them first."
"That's a point. Go on then."
"What? Me?"
"Yeah. Give them a ring and ask if they'd mind."
"Oo-er. Cripes. Okay then." (Dials very long trans-Atlantic phone number.)
"Hullo. We'd like to name our new game after your film and we were wondering if it was okay by you. Right... yes... oh, I see." (Cups hand over receiver.) "They want us to give them lots of money."
"Erm, well in that case we'd better." (Removes hand.) "Yes, that'll be fine. We'll send you some right away. Bye."
"Super."
"But. er..."
"What?"
"How are we going to come up with a game that's anything like the film?"
"I don't know really."
"How about if we have a bloke walking around shooting people?"
"That sounds fine. I'll program it right away."
And so the film and telly licence was born. It... cough. Choke.
Oops. There goes the deep, manly voice.
Anyway, film and telly games, eh? Everyone's doing them these days, as they're one of the few remaining ways of making serious money with computer games. Run a grubby finger down the charts and you'll find nearly all the top-sellers are film and telly licences. (Or arcade conversions, of course.)
But why do we keep buying them? After all, just because a game's named after a really brill film doesn't mean it's going to be any good, does it? Surely we aren't buying them simply because of the flashy name on the box?
Erm, well in the old days, software houses assumed this to be the case, and chucked out a stream of absolutely appalling games with 'big name' titles. Things like Miami Vice, The Dukes Of Hazard and Highlander were all pretty dreadful, but it was hoped that they'd sell on the strength of their names. But we weren't fooled. Oh no. The games didn't sell well, and the companies were forced to think again.
Eventually they came up with... the 'bloke walking around shooting things' idea. And they've used it more or less ever since. Lucky then that they tend to be jolly good all the same, and sometimes come up with the odd original idea to spice things up (like The Untouchables did, or perhaps Back To The Future Part II).
RATINGS
As always seems to be the case, the trusty YS ratings system doesn't really seem adequate when it comes to film and telly games. So here's what we've put together instead...
LIGHTS
What does it look like? Nice? Or not very nice at all? (You mean are the graphics any good? Ed) Er, yes. That's it in a nutshell. (Then why didn't you just say the first place? Ed) Erm...
CAMERA
How does the general atmosphere compare to the film or telly programme the game's meant to go with? Have programmers just taken a bog-standard game and stuck a flashy name on it? Or have they made an effort to incorporate a bit of the 'feel' of the original?
ACTION
Does the plot follow along the same sort of lines as the film or telly programme? Is there plenty action-packedness? And is the game the same all way through, or does it follow the original's twists and turns?
CUT
Um, how does the game compare to all the licences around at the moment? Is it better? Or worse? In other words, is it a 'cut' above the rest? (is that really the best you can manage? Ed)
LICENCES ON THE CHEAP
A fiver doesn't buy much these days, but it's generally the most the budget houses can afford when it comes to licence purchasing. Cheapie film and telly games, therefore, tend to be a bit, er, obscure.
SOOTY AND SWEEP
Alternative
Here's another mystifyingly well-known program. But why make a game out of it? it was bound to end up as a walking-around-collecting-things game. Sweep's left his bones lying around all over the house and, rather than kicking his teeth in, Sooty decided to help him clear them all up. This means wandering round, picking up bones and trying to avoid all the creepie-crawlies that have sneaked in from the garden.
It's a dire idea, of course, and the only ray of hope is the two-player option where Sooty and Sweep are competing to collect the most bones. And calling it 'a game for younger players' is no excuse either.
Lights | 45% |
---|---|
Camera | 50% |
Action | 35% |
Cut | 29% |
Overall | 36% |
All information in this page is provided by ZXSR instead of ZXDB