REVIEWS COURTESY OF ZXSR

The Big Sleaze
by Fergus McNeill
Piranha
1987
Crash Issue 43, Aug 1987   page(s) 71,72

Producer: Piranha
Retail Price: £9.95
Author:Fergus McNeill

Now and again a piece of software looks a winner from the moment I open the package. Fergus McNeill - the comic genius behind Bored of The Rings, Robin of Sherlock and The Boggit, all spoofs of existing works, and more recently The Colour of Magic - has teamed up with a company that knows how to handle a commercial proposition. The result is a marvellous send-up of the New York private detective slouching his way around the Big Apple of the Thirties.

Everything about this project gels to provide a thoroughly entertaining trip through the sleazy low life of Manhattan and beyond. The programming is competent and the presentation pleasing, with a highly readable typeface, but the main attraction is the writing style, which is so good it's hard to believe the text wasn't taken from a real novel.

Here McNeill graduates from adapting existing works, such as Terry Pratchett's book The Colour of Magic, to using his own stories. McNeill's narrative style is refreshing, in the past tense rather than the present tense which jars in so many lesser games.

The Big Sleaze concerns the world of Sam Spillade, a dimwit private detective whose office, way up on 3024th Street, reveals to those passing just how thick Spillade is - he thought his window sign would look better if it could be read from the inside of his office. Puzzle at the lack of business his clever sign elicits, he competes with the motto 'No case too small... or too cheap.'

The first two cases to breeze into Spillade's unkempt offices are vastly different: a dame from out of town, and a patchwork dog. The dame has spent two weeks hanging out in Joe's diner waiting for her long-lost father to show; the dog has a note and a piece of a photograph its owner would rather not see put back together. Luckily for the owner, the parts of the photo are scattered about the city - but it's a taxing job for Spillade.

The screen consists of a simple picture with a permanent gun and PI badge in the top half, and the copious text pushing the picture off the screen from below. Anyone who's played The Boggit will be familiar with McNeill's verbose location descriptions and EXAMINE reports. Giving too many examples of these might ruin the game - but suffice to say that just about everything can be examined or poked about.

The ability to carry only five objects at a time is a restriction, not alleviated by the wallet which might have carried some of the smaller items. So it might be a good idea to smoke your last Lucky at the very start, with your feet up on the desk, giving rise to this short funny: 'I smoked my last Lucky and threw the stub away. I was going off these butts, slowly but surely. I guessed maybe I'd try putting the filter end in my mouth next time.'

Try another short one, this time concerning the silly sleuth's coat: 'A genuine, trendy detective-style raincoat. It cost me an arm and a leg from the NY equivalent of Burtons (not literally, of course, otherwise it wouldn't have fitted so well.)' And somewhere in the adventure you might explode some dynamite before it explodes on you: 'The dynamite had a fuse at on end and 'You die, PI!' written on it in large friendly letters'.

Time must be taken into account while playing The Big Sleaze - otherwise you might chance upon a bar in the dead of night when even Manhattan drinking dens close for a few hours of shuteye. On the same theme, lighting the fuse to the dynamite will allow a few moments to retire to a safe distance (there's a clue in that last line, folks!)

WAIT is a useful command to pass moments when Spillade has no choice but to sit it out. And the command EXAMINE can be shortened to X. I discovered this last one myself but the instructions do tell you of the SAY TO character command - and a HELP routine which may give the occasional clue, but too cryptically to be useful.

The effects of locking the door at the base of Spillade's office building puzzled me. This prevents some hoodlums entering the building and causing trouble, yet somehow the dame and the dog get in with no bother at all. Curious.

The Big Sleaze is a three-part adventure and comes complete with an electronic magazine, Sceptical 3. The game's chief asset, apart from dealing with a familiar and highly commercial theme, is its well-written prose. Fergus McNeill has excelled himself with this one while still providing the laughs (some rude) which have made his name.

DIFFICULTY: one or two tricky bits
GRAPHICS: simple
PRESENTATION: neat
INPUT FACILITY: little beyond verb/noun
RESPONSE: fast


REVIEW BY: Derek Brewster

Atmosphere95%
Vocabulary89%
Logic90%
Addictive Qualities95%
Overall93%
Summary: General Rating: A superb read.

Award: Crash Smash

Transcript by Chris Bourne

Your Sinclair Issue 20, Aug 1987   page(s) 82

FAX BOX
Title: The Big Sleaze
Publisher: Piranha
Price: £9.95

You're a dick. A private dick. The name on your office windows says you're SPILLADE INVESTIGATIONS. In most Private Eye's offices the writing on the window is backwards, done from the outside. You painted yours from the inside so you can read it okay. Strange, but business has dropped off since you did it.

Business is about to pick up though. The obligatory female enters your office one rainy night and casts the obligatory stunningly beautiful silhouette on the door. You just knew there was something different about this woman. Maybe it was the way she kicked the door off its hinges instead of using the handle. She tells you her story. You listen. Well, it's easier that way. Seems she'd come to New York to meet her father. She hadn't seen him in years, but he'd made good in the Big Apple and arranged a reunion meal at Joe's Diner. That was two weeks ago. She's been waiting ever since and he still hasn't showed. Meanwhile she's suffering from coffee poisoning.

You take the case. You also take the cheque for a hundred bucks she gives you on account. Maybe you should put it in the office safe, the one that's large and pig-shaped. The tail makes for a good handle but they could have picked a better keyhole. Anyhow, the safe is locked, and your bunch of skeleton keys don't fit it. Some private eye.

As you head out of the door a dog arrives and dumps something on the carpet. He should take lessons in good manners from the pig. No, it's okay, it's another cheque, a bit of a photograph, and a note. The note is in code, though the word 'Bollards' is pretty conspicuous. No trouble decoding it. You're Sam Spillade, after all, even if it does say M. Hammer on your lighter.

Outside on the streets, New York's waiting for you. So is your car. So is someone else judging by what falls out of the door: a red stick with a fuse on the end. This is dynamite. Maybe you can stick the stick somewhere else later. The car is an easy-start model - just join the two pieces of wire together. Where to go? Maybe Joe's Diner. Maybe the address on your bank book. Maybe first you better lock the office before you leave. Security? No, anyone sees that pig you'll be laughed out of business. Where do you think you are, Central Pork?

What's happening at the bank? Nothing, dumbo, it's six a.m. What's happening at Joe's Diner? Even less. Time to visit the men's room.

You want some low-down? In The Big Sleaze you got three parts, you got Fergus McNeil, you got laughs, you got maybe not the hardest problems you ever had to solve, you got some fancy Quill stuff, you got some chick with the cute name of Anna Popkess, you got... you got no Judith Child... what's this, what kinda trick they trying to play, these Delta 4 guys? Better load up Sceptical 3 and check through the Teletext news pages... never mind the Irish jokes, never mind the Piranha compo, never mind your weird eating habits (I mean who can ever prefer a Wendy to a Whopper?)... we wanna know what's happening... Judith Child is...well, I guess that's bad news and good news. What is it? Buy the game, dumbo, buy the game.


REVIEW BY: Mike Gerrard

Graphics8/10
Text8/10
Value For Money7/10
Personal Rating9/10
Overall8/10
Transcript by Chris Bourne

Sinclair User Issue 65, Aug 1987   page(s) 48,49

Label: Piranha
Author: Delta 4
Price: £9.95
Memory: 48K (multiload)/128K
Reviewer: Tony Bridge

The Big Sleaze is the whacky Fergus McNeils' latest adventure.

It's got to be said, I wasn't too happy with his last one. Murder off Miami which, apart from an awful bug in the first batch of tapes which made it impossible for the player to get out of the first location, could have made a lot of the original Dennis Wheatley packaging which was only hinted at in the final release.

Anyway, on to the new one. As you'll know from the ads, this puts you into the soft shoes of one Mike Spillade in a hectic romp across the Big Apple, the Big Sleaze, New York New York.

And you're on a case, working for one Miss Jane Doe whose had some photos of hers stolen. The pieces are now scattered around the city and she wants you to get them back for her. Anyone who has managed to stay awake through one of those black-and-white private eye movies of the '40s that Channel 4 is always showing (usually with Kirk Douglas or Robert Michum) will recognise the kind of plot. That means automatic mode with lots of old cliches gleaned from dozens of Spillane/Chandler/Hammett pulp paperbacks.

The difference is that McNeill can't handle this sort of parody with anything like the success of his fantasy pastiches such as The Boggit and Bored of the Rings - Mickey Spillane himself was the supreme parodist of the private eye novel, and his premier position is completely safe from such as Delta 4. But what's the adventure like? Well, McNeill has always been better on atmosphere, scene-setting and humour than on the sheer intellectual content and brain-twisting of his puzzles (although these can be quite frustrating in their own way).

I'm afraid to say that here you won't find much atmosphere, while the humour is sub-three year old, relying in large part on rib-nudging 'jokes' concerning pink piggy safes with keyholes in very strange places and yawn-inducing routines about the deeper meaning of 'private dick'. I shouldn't think even Delta 4 managed to raise a smile at this lot!

Starting off in your office, you must find a way to break into your own safe (crazy as it seems), then hang about waiting for someone to come in and drop a note, and then wander out into the street and to your heap of a car. In this you can drive around the Big Apple to other locations (though Delta 4's New York doesn't coincide too closely with the real world - who would get to Queens, about a mile to the east of New York via Jersey City, some 10 to 15 miles to the south-west?)

The adventure puzzles are pretty abysmal, particularly by Delta 4's usual high standard, most of them consisting of such routines as "Go North/The door is locked/Unlock door/OK/Open door/OK/Exit/OK" and so on.

Surely we deserve more than this after all these years?

The illustrations are OK, and the layout is easy on the eye. though like Miami, the layout shouts Quill. Colour of Magic saw Delta 4 pioneering a more imaginative approach, which it seems to have lost in all departments.

Ram Save and Load are available as well as all the usual facilities we expect from a top-flight Quill'd/PAWd adventure (probably the first incidentally), and this is only to be expected with Gilsoft adding its weight to that of Delta 4.

Help is dynamic, in that the response to the command changes as circumstances dictate. The adventure doesn't, however, recognise such a wide range of commands as usual, and certainly doesn't exhibit the usual special brand of weirdness that we've come to know and love from previous Delta 4 stories.

Even though its big - there are three parts to this story in true Delta 4 fashion - and even though there is the third Sceptical (the first program designed as a Worker's Party T-shirt) as a bonus, £9.95 is just too much for this latest McNeill offering.

I fully expect to see Delta 4 recover from it's recent loss and come back to deliver something more like their usual brilliance. Fergus is a pretty resilient chap and capable of great things. Big Sleaze, however, isn't one of them.


REVIEW BY: Tony Bridge

Blurb: HINTS AND TIPS To start the car, just make the right connection! To open the safe, make the piggy very happy. To read the note, just 'decode' it. Examine everything (but you should know that!)

Overall6/10
Summary: Fergus McNeil meets Chandler and gets badly mauled. Lacks his main trademark - it's not very funny.

Transcript by Chris Bourne

ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment) Issue 12, Sep 1988   page(s) 80

We have to thank Fergus McNeill (as always) for a completely different kettle of fish - his satirical private eye game The Big Sleaze. This text and graphics adventure, produced using the Quill, makes life very difficult for the player in a world where just about everything goes bang. Avoid the bangs, crack the case, and have a jolly good time without expecting anything too serious.


Transcript by Chris Bourne

C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 69, Jul 1987   page(s) 72

SUPPLIER: Piranha Software/Delta 4
MACHINE: Spectrum, Commodore 64/128, Amstrad CPC
PRICE: £9.95

Hot on the heels of CRL's Murder Off Miami, comes another American detective adventure from Fergus McNeill, this time published by Piranha. And the two games could hardly be more different. Fergus stresses that this one is a Delta 4 product, whereas Miami wasn't, although what that means in practice is probably only of interest to the taxman!

Regardless of that, it can safely be said that Fergus is back on form. with this parody of the great American Private Eye, or Private Dick, as he is referred to (of course!) in the adventure. Slummy office full of dog ends, containing trendy Private Dick's mac hanging on coatstand, and a rather strange safe.

As you are contemplating your new surroundings. SHE arrives at the office, casts a shapely silhouette on the frosted glass panel of the office door, and kicks it in. Her father has made good to the tune of a million, but has failed to turn up to a celebratory reunion at Joe's Diner.

She'd waited a fortnight. but no sign of Dad. Is there foul play behind it? Of course You'll take the case.

With no more ado you set off in your old heap of a car. Babies cry, interest rates fluctuate, Clive Sinclair launches a non-standard Maltese Falcon, and you get blown to bits. That'll teach you to examine everything carefully!

Never mind, you DID make a ram save, didn't you? The obvious place to head is Joe's Diner, to pick up the trail. After a little difficulty with a wire mesh, you get your first real lead, amidst the grease and grime of this dubious establishment.

Now it's off again in the car, and behind a pink door you meet Ben, and find another clue. But what about the rendezvous you were supposed to keep? And so on...

The Big Sleaze is a Quilled adventure, and in true Fergus style, there is plenty of humorous text.

I found that the jokes stand Lip better than in anything he has done before, and the narrative suits the subject well. It rather put me in mind of a fictional 'eye' I used to read - Glenn Bowman was his name, Hartley Howard his author.

There are a few graphics, fast and not too boring, and you get the choice of saving to tape, disk, or ram. The game comes in three parts, on cassette.

Detective stories are a natural for the adventure format, and adventure players should be well suited to solving them. Every adventurer has (or should have) a keen eye for spotting clues and making deductions - it's all part of the game.

Here is a game that is not too difficult, the vocabulary is less fussy than any other Delta 4 adventure, and I rate it as Fergus' best to date. If you enjoy a bit of sleuthing American style, then do it with a smile on your face, with The Big Sleaze.


REVIEW BY: Keith Campbell

Vocabulary8/10
Atmosphere8/10
Personal8/10
Value8/10
Transcript by Chris Bourne

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