Producer: Mosaic
Retail Price: £9.95
Author: Level 9

I'm sorry if my mind strays during this review - you see, I'm trying to listen to the Omnibus Edition of The Archers on Radio 4 while writing this stuff here. It's difficult to know how to sum up this program if you're not aware of what it's all about (and if you are aware of what the program's about just what kind of boring fa.. fellow are you?).

You could think along the lines 'eee, isn't this decadent listening to a load of old rural twaddle that no-one else listens to', a kind of Oxbridge aloofness and 'when does the grouse season end' (or start for that matter)? Alternatively, you could take offence and think 'isn't this just typical of BBC Radio 4, the view of Britain which has Americans take the view that this little island here is a floating comedy museum'. And who could disagree? Since, increasingly, Britain's only future is as a museum all I can say is more power to your elbow and let's have less of this unsettling alternative comedy (only a vehicle for intellectual malcontents) and more of this Archers stuff - it's brilliant (and mine's a rural retreat and a fuel-injected turbo grouse).

Wait a minute, I've just got to adjust these cans (headphones to you). Ah, that's better and who the heck's talking now? You see, usually at the start of a scene someone says something really obvious like, 'Ooooh, Aaaaar, here'rr comes that old raaascal, Jooooe Grrruuuundy, he's looking rrraaather miserable, pessimistic, and lazy, and I think he's got a touch of Farmer's Lung' and so you know who's going to speak next, but there's two characters twittering away at the moment and I haven't the foggiest who they are.

As I write this, Ambridge is rocking the establishment with really juicy titbits - like Joe Grundy's American ladyfriend who he's trying to propose to; Sid Perks, the barman and licensee of The Bull is up to the same sort of thing with... er... someone else (a schoolteacher, I think), and David Archer is thinking of selling his house, or land, or both, or something.

Hey, wait a minute, what's all this North Ootseera, South Ootseera, I think I've fallen off the end of the Archers into a gale warning and now they're getting stuck into a question from Gardener's Question time (sorry about the spelling of Ootseera, but it doesn't exist alongside Tyne and Dogger and must be a figment of Radio 4's imagination). Well at least I can think straight now without those rural rustics filling my head full of arable silage and food no-one in Europe wants or can afford. I think it's about time we had a long-running series all about everyday ship-building folk - or is it too late?

Leaving hobbyhorses in the paddock let's get this one properly introduced. Mosaic released the more commercial-sounding Adrian Mole at the slightly more commercial time of before Christmas last year. In that game you guided Moley around his environs via one of three options, the fourth option offering facilities and help. With The Archers you have exactly the same kind of program so if you are familiar with the Mole game and the Archers radio program, you should know what to expect.

This program could have been terminally dull, as you might suspect, but has been saved by a humorous treatment, good writing, and a concept which I really liked, that of posing as a trainee scriptwriter for the radio programme. The aim of the game is therefore to keep up the audience figures and hope for a record number of listeners, with memos from the Controller of Radio 4 keeping you on the straight and narrow as regards plot lines - people who listen to the Archers are notoriously dull (and the very sort who will be surprised when adverts pop up right in the middle touting for their inherited wealth when everyone else saw it coming a mile off).

As with Mole, the extent that you understand the concept (there it was popularity with peers, here it's getting the balance between tradition and titillation) will govern how successful you are at playing the game. I think the game is much better than the radio programme. Some of you might well say that isn't saying an awful lot and I might be tempted to agree.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: high on playability
Graphics: not as surreal as Adrian Mole, pleasantly mainstream
Presentation: super
Input facility: one of three options
Response: immediate with type-ahead

FAX BOX
Title: Archers, The
Publisher: Mosaic
Price: £9.95

Not so much a program, more a way of country life, or perhaps a course in scriptwriting in this Level 9/Mosaic joint venture which follows the success last Christmas of the similarly styled Adrian Mole. After a quick burst of that well-known theme tune, you're straight into the multi-choice game. A few more instructions wouldn't go amiss, as although the cassette inlay is choc-a-bloc with them, nowhere are you told that you can type in commands like HELP and SCORE if you can break out of the 1/2/3 multiple-choice options (I only discovered it by typing in a nonsense input.)

SCORE in this game, where you're a trainee scriptwriter, means increasing the audience figures by a substantial amount through the decisions you make as to how the storyline should go. First of the four characters you control is Jack Woolley, owner of the Grey Gables estate amongst other things - but if you're not familiar with the Ambridge characters, don't worry. The inlay gives you potted biographies, these being essential reading if you hope to succeed. You have to make them act in character to a reasonable degree, otherwise your die-hard listeners will complain about the lack of reality and start switching off their sets.

What you're given with each character is about six or eight overlapping stories, and you've got to get the most out of them. Like Jack Woolley's trouble with the poachers. Having heard from Detective inspector Barry that a gang of ferocious poachers is operating around Ambridge and has already raided Netherbourn Park, do you (1) Patrol the woods with your faithful dog, Captain? (2) Get your gamekeeper, Tom, to patrol? or (3) offer sympathy to Lord Netherbourn? And if you're patrolling the woods and hear a cry, do you assume it's a vixen, an owl or a ferocious poacher?

Other stories revolving around Jack include worrying about his own ill-health, or that of Captain, or what to do about the shop that's running at a loss. The stories, which run in a different order each time, are also interrupted by memos from the Controller of Radio 4, or CR4 to his chums. These tell you how your listening figures are doing, and also pass on complaints from the likes of Nigel Pargetter fans complaining about his lack of involvement in the programme. If you can increase the audience by a respectable amount by the time you've been through all the stories, you can load up the next program and carry on with the other characters: Elizabeth Archer, Eddie Grundy and Nelson Gabriel.

The graphics are disappointingly chunky, but the main problem of the game is that it's very, very repetitive. In fact sometimes, like The Archers itself, it has a built-in repeat. My response? Like listening to the radio show - once is fine, a repeat you can take for the bits you missed, but repeated repeats are for registered addicts only.

Label: Mosaic
Author: Level 9
Price: £9.95
Joystick: various
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Loilita Taylor

People get pretty serious about The Archers. If you've found your hackles rising at the way Pat has been misrepresented and misunderstood in that patricharchal hotbead of chauvinism, Ambridge, or if your blood boils at the ruthless way Brian led Caroline astray in the cool setting of the Mont Blanc restaurant, don't give up hope - here is a chance to put the record straight on their behalf.

Welcome to The Archers - the computer game.

The idea is that you assume the role of a trainee scriptwriter on the radio series, and make plot decisions for four of the main characters - Jack Woolley, Elizabeth Archer, Eddie Grundy and Nelson Gabriel.

It's been programmed by Level 9 and the gameplay works a little like that in its earlier Adrian Mole game. Where Mole fell down was with the tedious cycling through of multiple-choice question and answers.

The Archers works basically the same way, but the multiple questions are properly integrated into the plot and the whole thing - unlike Mole - really does hang together.

Your success or failure at the game is reflected by the audience ratings which appear on the screen from time to time, together with winging memos from the Controller of Radio 4 - a hard man to please.

Understandable perhaps, since it's he who gets the flack when the delicate sensibilities of The Archers listenership are in any way offended. These people mean business. An example: irate civil rights groups inundated the BBC with threatening letters when I unwittingly got Shane fired. When I chose plotline option 'Save on wages' (part of Nelson's economy drive) it was without realising that his most important and - apart from the window cleaner whom you can opt to have drenched with water by Elizabeth Archer - seemingly his only employee, would have to go. Bad move. Shane is Glad To Be Gay and as Bortchester tends not to lead on socio-sexual issues, the last thing CR4 wants is its sole representative of an oppressed minority written out.

The 'writing out' of a character is a subtle business and all too easy for the uninitiated to do unwittingly. I thought a nice long holiday in Guernsey would do Jack Woolley the world of good. Up came CR4's angry memo complaining that, as any listener knows, nobody goes on holiday to Guernsey unless they're being written out.

It may seem as though you set out playing God in Ambridge but, as the blurb says, the plot has its own momentum, and events can easily get out of hand. At one point I felt as though the plot was going round and round in circles and, no matter what option I chose, I kept coming back to the same decision point - as Eddie Grundy, my pay rise depended on how well things went with the turkeys. To get more money, either I had to a) tout for business around the village, b) raid Martha's post office or c) raid Joe Grundy's sock drawer. There were moments when it seemed as though I had in fact a very small part in the action and I was just pressing anything to get out of this cycle.

On other occasions the storyline wasn't coherent. Again as Eddie Grundy, I saved the Bank Manager from certain death by whisking him off to hospital, at which point an audience rating came up, followed by my telling Clarrie to look in the newspaper for ideas (a reference to a totally different sub-plot involving holidays) and then a quick switch back to the bank manager.

These mysterious interruptions - by bits of stray text, bugs perhaps? - and the odd textual error detracted a little from an otherwise highly entertaining and very witty game.

My biggest criticism would be the way the text would sometimes disappear off screen before there had been time to read it. Once or twice, ten lines or so of text would just vanish - hurtling off the screen at some absolutely crucial dramatic moment.

The game was great fun though, despite the irritating bugs in the program, and I found myself laughing out loud on a number of occasions - for how many games can that be said? just how entertaining it would be for non-Archers fans is harder to say.

It may not be demanding enough to hold the attention of a hardened adventurer indefinitely, but it's a must for anyone who only comes to life between 10.15 and 11.15 on a Sunday morning.

SUPPLIER: Mosaic Publishing/Level 9
MACHINE: Spectrum, Amstrad 464/664/6128, Atari XL/XE, BBC, MSX, 64/128
PRICE: £9.95 - £19.95

Hello, me old pals, me old beauties! This is the evergreen story of country folk transferred from steam wireless to computer chip. Yes, it's The Archers, the original radio soap which has been telling the everyday story of the farming community of Ambridge for around 30 years.

The game is in four parts, and the objective of each part is to increase the audience figures by one million.

This is achieved by selecting one of three choices in plot direction, offered at intervals throughout the narrative of the script, which contains a number of sub-plot themes. In each part you follow the events from the viewpoint of a different Archers character.

Starting off, you are Jack Woolley, self made man and the owner of Grey Gables country club. He is having trouble with Higgs, who breaks a window one night when drunk. Should you sack him, dock his wages for the repair, or speak severely to him? Your decision affects his subsequent behaviour, and your chances in the Crysanthemum Show - without Higgs the blooms may start to wilt! Is Higgs in love, going mental, or his behaviour a family trait?

The shop is losing money, the restaurant is losing custom, there's a poacher out in the woods at night, and high jinks around the swimming pool. If you're not careful, you could spark off a revolt in the village, and arouse the indignation of the moral minority!

The outcome of your script results in regular memos from the Controller of Radio 4, giving the audience research figures on interest, realism, and standards, as well as the total number of listeners.

It is not easy to increase the figure from two million to three, but even if you do, you are not home and dry - the Controller has pressure groups and the Governors to worry about!

Upsetting them puts him in an awkward position, and if you've got the Tories up in arms about left wing bias, even 3.5 million listeners won't save you from getting the sack - and having to start the section again!

Having achieved three million, you become Elizabeth Archer, 19-year-old femme fatale, who has problems with the boys. Nigel's a wimp but is after you, Tim ignores you, but you fancy him.

It's end of term at the Tech, and you have to earn your keep throughout the summer hols. Should you look after the sheep, tend the pigs, or feed the chickens? If on pig duty, shall you arrange for one to escape into the village, for Elizabeth to fall in the slurry, or get bitten on the ankle? You are writing the script - remember?

Scripted by real Archer's scriptwriters and produced by Level 9, this game features the now familiar Level 9 adventure format, except that input is by number, selecting from the list of choices offered.

If you're an Archers fan, you'll enjoy this game.

Mosaic
£9.95

All together now: "Dum dee dum dee dum dee dum, dum dee dum dee daa daa". Yes, Mosaic have joined with Level 9 to produce a gamed based on the Radio 4 soap opera which was topping the ratings long before EastEnders.

Rather than casting you as an Archers' character - which would have led to a fairly mundane puzzle-solving game with Ambridge as a setting - you take the role of scriptwriter. There are four separate games, and you control the life of a different person in each: wealthy estate-manager Jack Woolley, spoilt young woman Elizabeth Archer, would-be country singer Eddie Grundy and aging wine-bar owner Nelson Gabriel are the chosen four. For people unfamiliar with the show - like myself - there's a complete list of characters you may encounter, their personalities and relationships with each other.

This is not a "true" text input adventure instead you are presented with a situation, and most choose one of three different options as to what your character could do. The selection may lead to a whole complicated sub-plot developing, with more choices to be made; and you can indulge in outrageous story twists. Problem is, you are constantly being judged: on ratings performance, the opinion of Radio 4"s controller, and listener reaction to the serial's realism and moral standards, or lack of them.

I have never listened to The Archers (must do sometime) but found myself becoming engrossed in the lives of these people. I also found myself frequently laughing out loud, which is a very rare effect for the game to have on me. I simply loved having the power to create interesting and amusing situations. I expect Archers devotees will enjoy the game even more, being able to determine the lives of their favourite characters.

The game has two main flaws. The first is that the Spectrum isn't quite sophisticated enough to handle the number of continuous plots that it's required to. The game doesn't always realise when one action makes another impossible. So immediately after I had sent Higgs the gardener to the asylum, I was given the option of using him to help Jack. There are other illogicalities. Sometimes a major plot decision is taken - like Eddy Grundy's wife leaving him - and nothing else is heard on the matter, or she suddenly appears back with him. More memory to prevent such faults would have been available by leaving out the graphics, which are down to the usual, hilariously hopeless level 9 standard.

The other main problem is that this costs £10, yet each game can only last two or three hours, before you've seen everything it has to offer, and the result of every decision. I think, for most people, this life-span is just too short for the asking price. But if you can afford it, or you're a true Archers fan, this will provide a good deal of fun for a day or two - perhaps ideal for an older member of your family on December 25.