Producer: CRL
Price: £7.95
Author: St Brides

After a couple of months being ahead of the rest I find myself behind once again, reading others' reviews before penning my own. Oddly enough I don't like reading other reviews before writing mine as rather than just cliche you're tempted to look for a new angle, and sometimes there isn't one. This game's about Bugsy Maroon and he's gonna wase'd da whole south side wedda yu like it or not so let's get all the pussy and rabbit footing over with and leave all the cliches where they belong - in the adventure.

Being a St Brides game, that girlie Trixie Trinian (who used to be Jennings before he donned a pink shirt and green knickers) kicks this one off in the common room of the school, writing about her adventures in the Very Big Caves in the hope of selling them to a Sunday newspaper. Suddenly the peace and tranquillity of the boarding school ethos is broken by the door bursting open to reveal a real cutey rabbit, about three feet tall, and pale blue, although the depth of blue might well increase if its gunshot wound isn't attended to promptly. The common gregarious burrowing leporid mammal not only walks but talks: 'Da name's Bugsy, Bugsy Maroon. I wanted to take over da Chicago mobs but I blew it. It's all over now. I'm hurt bad. I'm gonna die'.

Now the next bit is a bit zany, but bear with me. The rabbit, despite a never-say-die pep talk from Trixie, still snuffs it, but instead of preparing Fried Rabbit with the girls, the program offers redemption in the way only adventures can and it's a case of 'Do you want to try again'? Now an annoying thing is that every time you get killed in the game (and, by the very nature of the adventure, this is very often) you must go through this common room death scene which becomes a real chore, I can tell you.

Playing the game and reading the descriptions is pretty good fun as there's some real humour lurking at each locality. I tended to prefer the real zany stuff and there is much play on the fact that you are guiding this long-eared bunny around the Chicago streets of the 20's. Take this passage from the jailhouse area of town: '"Hey, you with the ears!" snarls one of the guards, barring my way. "This is the jailhouse"'. Then below it you read "Hey, you wit' the keyboard! Whaddaya tryin' ta get me in the jailhouse for?" And again with "I am standing outside a theatrical costumier's (betcha didn't know I could say words that long). To the north the road goes northwards while to the south it stretches in a southerly direction" (I like the zany bit at the end - more of which in a moment). Entering the shop gives you: "I am inside da thatsoomers... I mean da fatricoomiers... Aw heck, you already know I can say the words, so shaddup". Pure zaniness is this passage taken from the poster at the railway station: "Come to Chicago where lights are bright, where men are men and women are women. Where horses are horses and dogs are dogs and everything else is pretty much the way you'd expect it to be".

Bugsy is without doubt an entertaining game with zany humour and a SCORE command which reflects money acquired in the first instance, but later shows your ranking amongst Public Enemies. You can spend a long time wandering around the adventure but you are only really getting somewhere when you get to scan the option screen with the following options on it: G GREET, F SWEETTALK, X INSULT, B BRIBE, H HIRE, Y BUY, T THREATEN and P PROTECT. Some pictures seem to take an awfully long time to appear on the screen but, everything considered, I think if you liked Big Cave and so on, you'll certainly warm to this one.

COMMENTS

Difficulty: not easy
Graphics: average
Presentation: good
Input facility: verb/noun
Response: slow appearance of graphics

FAX BOX
Game: Bugsy
Publisher: CRL
Price: £7.95

Well, what d'you know, the ladies from St Brides have conned CRL into... sorry, have come up with a spiffing new adventure that CRL is no doubt delighted to release. Hot on the heels of The Very Big Cave Adventure, Trixie Trinian and her chums have been busy with their Quills - but you'd be hard pushed to tell this was written using The Quill. Have the Irish colleens been taking lessons from Fergus McNeill and Delta 4?

Bugsy is obviously a send-up of Melbourne House's Mugsy, but we're not getting into the trading game stakes here, it's still mainly your predictably unpredictable adventure, set in and around Chicago in 1922. There are elements of trading and strategy in it, though, which shows how versatile The Quill can be. You take the role of the rabbit, Bugsy, who's as mouthy as his cartoon counterpart Mr Bunny. He'd better be quick on the hop, though, if he's going to go round calling Al Capone a wimp. Your aim in life is to become Public Enemy Number One by working your way up from the gutter, or wherever it is rabbits live in Chicago.

There's a lovely jokey opening to the game - you have to die before you begin, though it becomes a bit of a nuisance when you have to sit through several screenfuls of it every time you die, which you do with great regularity. You begin outside Deviney's Bar, where you're always assured of a warm welcome - provided you're not a rabbit, that is. You've nothing but a pocket full of small change, and can't even raise the cash for a rail ticket out of the place to head for downtown Chicago, where the action is. There's some nice hardware for sale inside the gunsmiths, and I don't mean a Spectrum+2, but you'll need $24 at least just to get your paws on a pistol. Costumes are for hire at S20, which might help protect you from the mob in Deviney's, but how to get $20? You can try leaning on the newsboys as a start to your career in crime, and then provide a few bucks for our bucktooth hero, but within four moves you'll be arrested when the newsboy picks you out because of your goofy looks. In fact the only character who'll seemingly give you something for nothing is the barber, but how many free haircuts can one rabbit take? And you get booted out of the shop before being allowed a single input, so no chance to ask him to disguise the old whiskers and floppy ears.

Back to Deviney's Bar - no, still greeted with a hail of lead. Out to the real rough area - and a knife in the back. Try stealing a costume from the costumier, though you'll get arrested thanks to the sophisticated alarm system, just one of the many anachronisms in this game. I tried to find myself some breathing space by loading up the second part of Bugsy, which goes by the intriguing file name of Bugshity, but unfortunately it wouldn't load. Apart from that annoyance, the whole thing was the usual mix of baffle and hoot from St Brides. Try revisiting the barber, that's a good laugh, as is the description of the rough part of town where the kids are so tough that when they can't find any wood they whittle their fingers. But any advice on how to buy the ticket to board the train (nice sound effects) to downtown Chicago or New Jersey?

Label: CRL
Author: St Brides
Price: £7.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Reviewer: Gary Rook

OK, kid, so what's da matta, huh? Youse guys can believe in tings flyin' tru space, an' magic swords, and mytical football teams an da loike - but youse have problems wid a tree foot tali bunny rabbit who's fur is a kind of neat blue, huh?

Waddaya, racist? Or is it da tommy gun dat freaks you out, huh? O'll show ya - Happy Valentine's day... DAKADAKADAKA...

Mugsy is weird with a capital W. I've done a lot of things in adventure games over the years, but never before have I had to control the destiny of a blue rabbit - named Bugsy Maroon - climbing the ladder of success in the Chicago underworld of the 1920's.

The game is written by what has to be one of the craziest adventure houses around - The ladies of St Brides School live on the west coast of Ireland. Their stated aim is to recreate the atmosphere of those old books about high jinks/kinks in girls' boarding schools - you know. Trixie Tries it On, Hurrah for the Upper Sixth, Mona, You're a Brick and so on.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there.

Remember Melbourne House's Mugsy? That strip cartoon adventure game where you had to help the eponymous hero make it as a crimelord. Well, Bugsy is what you might call a pastiche of Mugsy - and very good it is for all that.

Our story - or rather, one story, because there are two stories running simultaneously and... I think I'll stop trying to explain, and just tell you what happens. Freud maybe could make you understand, but I ain't him. It begins in the common room of St Brides School. A bloodstained, blue three foot tall rabbit staggers in and prepares to expire on the carpet. But wait, says plucky Trixie! All you need to aid you in your quest is some twit on the other side of a computer screen - which means you, buster.

And so, after this rather strange introduction, you find yourself in the even stranger world of Bugsy Maroon. Chicago in the 1920s, and everything is apparently coloured sepia, though not according to my TV screen.

The game is set out in classic style: graphics window above, text below. Graphics are very detailed and garishly coloured, if a little angular. The neon sign outside the bar even flashes) Text is good, also garishly coloured, and the flashing cursor is a rabbit's head. Location descriptions are long and in many cases very funny.

So when you reach one of the rough neighbourhoods, you get told: 'The kids here are so tough that when they can't find wood they whittle their fingers." At first it drove me mad: I just couldn't get anywhere. Or rather, I could get places, but I'd done everything I could in every place I could get to and I just wasn't making any further progress. Or so I thought.

Then, finally, I lost my temper in the bar, and typed in something I was sure would get me killed - and bingo, I'd solved that little problem and was able to get into the game proper. I don't want to give away too much (let 'em suffer too, says I), but remember that you don't need any weapons to deliver a rabbit punch.

Once I'd overcome my initial shyness around strangers, I was able to make two new friends, Louie and Muscles. Muscles has something you need very badly, and he seems quite happy to sell it to you for nothing. (Oh, by the way, you discover that Bugsy is from Coney island - geddit?)

You can now saunter out of the bar and, properly attired, assault all the local news vendors you can find.

With the money you've earned from an honest day's labour, you can purchase a gat. Now, you might think the obvious next step is to rob the bank - but you really should hire some back-up for that. And you'll have to find some more money from somewhere to hire some hoods...

There are actually two different games on the tape - one on each side. You have to solve Game 1 before you can get the password which allows you entry to Part 2. As I haven't come anywhere near solving Part 1. I can't tell you a thing about it, except that your efforts so far seem to have made Bugsy number 10 in the most wanted hit parade - and he won't be satisfied until he reaches number one.

I could rabbit on forever, but you'd probably start tearing your hare out. Suffice it to say that mugsy is an excellent game, with a great line in wry humour - I was lapin' it up all along. And I haven't spotted any Bugs yet... Nyeah, what's up, Doc?

SUPPLIER: CRL/St. Bride's
MACHINE: Spectrum 48/128, Amstrad, CBM 64/128
PRICE: 7.95

You wanna control a cute little blue rabbit with a machine gun? Good. If you don't, then you're gonna miss out on a lotta fun.

The rabbit in question is Bugsy - what an original name for a rabbit. He's blue, he's three feet tall, and he lives in Chicago in 1922. Bugsy's aim in life (apart from breeding and that) is to become Public Enemy No 1.

Your job is to advise Bugsy in his struggle against the mobsters, and ultimately make him the Top Dog, sorry, Rabbit! in Chicago - in place of that "fat wimp" Capone. To do this you're going to have to be ruthless, and in some cases, downright evil.

It all begins outside a bar. If you step inside, you are, or rather Bugsy is, thrown into a fight with some hoods. If you succeed in beating them, you get to meet Louis and Muscles, who are later to become the backbone of Bugsy's very own mob.

To enable you to identify with 1922 Chicago, the game features a menu-driven conversation system. If you type TALK TO (Character name) the computer offers nine options ranging from GREET to THREATEN, and your choice often has humorous repercussions.

For example, if you threaten the paper boy, the computer shows the conversation in the form of: I say 'Hey kid. I don't like da looka ya face' and the newsboy says: 'And ya like da looka yer own? Wit taste like dat you just handed me a compliment!'

By setting up protection rackets, you soon set enough cash to hire Louis and Muscles, and then you've got to make a business for yourself. Here ends Part One of the game, and it will not trouble experienced adventurers.

Part Two, The Crimelord, on the reverse of the tape, is a bit more difficult. Here you need to obtain $15,000 for a bullet-proof Cadillac. and the characters you meet can be extremely awkward, especially Police Chief Inspector Moron.

The game was written with The Quill, so has limitations with vocabulary. However, by experimenting with words you'll soon get to know what it accepts, and in any case, the most important input is by use of the conversation menu.

Bugsy's 70 or so locations, each have a sepia-toned graphic to go with them. These are drawn very quickly, although they do tend to be rather repetitious.

In Part One your score is measured by how much cash you've got, but in the second part, it is your position in the Top Ten Public Enemy chart that counts.

The only help you are going to get is from the inlay card. as no HELP feature is provided, and EXAMINE is only rarely helpful. If you try to examine a room, you are told: "See one, ya seen 'em all."

As the inlay says: "Ya wanna stay healthy, ya buy it!"

Spectrum/CBM64/Amstrad CPC
CRL Group
Graphic Adventure
£7.95

One thing about being an adventure games player is that we tend to adopt some strange roles in our never-ending quests. Whether it is a Conan-type warrior or an apprentice magician there is always a new role for us to adopt but playing the part of a three-foot blue rabbit is not exactly my idea of adventuring. Perhaps St. Brides, which is noted for taking a gentle poke at people, thinks that anybody who plays adventures is a blue rabbit.

To release this game so soon after Very Big Cave is, in my opinion, an unwise move or, because of the tremendous success of VBC, a good piece of marketing on the part of CRL. Whichever way you look at it, the game is not up to the standard which St. Brides has set itself. Bugsy is a three-foot blue rabbit who wants to become the big Crimelord. Your part is to guide Bugsy in his attempts to achieve his ambition.

St. Brides has attempted to create an original adventure. Unfortunately we have seen it all before. The only new feature is what can only be classed as a talk-back mode. On meeting another character we can input "Talk to Boy", a sub-menu is then displayed with such commands as Greet, Insult, Sweet-Talk. A letter defines which option to use, so if we want to insult the boy we press the appropriate letter and are rewarded with such sparkling wit as "Know somet'in' kid? Yer as stoopid as ya look, an' dat's sayin somet'in'". The boy replies "Well, I ain't as stoopid as you look".

I have a faint suspicion the game is aimed at the under-10 adventurers or is that being unkind to the under-10s? I do not like to criticise adventures but I also dislike seeing well-known companies putting out games purely for commercial reasons. St. Brides has written some really original games so it is a pity it could not continue in the same vein instead of writing what I can only define as a Mugsy rip-off. I think this rabbit should have remained in his burrow.

CRL/Saint Brides
£7.95

Da broads from Saint Brides are back, wit' a tale about a ganshter who wants to woik his way up from penniless to Public Enemy Number 1. "Ain't nuffin new about dat" ya say? Well this ganshter is a three foot tall pale blue rabbit wit' a cute little power puff tail. Da name is Bugsy. Bugsy Maroon. Da place is Chicago. 1922.

An' dat's... I mean, and that's as much as I'm prepared to write in that accent. The whole of this new spoof is written in that style - Bugsy himself being somewhat short of intelligence - which provides some of the laughs. But they come from many sources; they're more frequent than in the Delta 4 adventures, and the sort of humour is more varied (from corny to er, very corny). I won't spoil any of the jokes; suffice to say, Bugsy is always amusing and at times funny.

The game is expertly Quilled and in two parts. There are split screen graphics at every location, and these are pleasant enough, if slow. An innovative and commendable feature is a menu-driven talk feature which makes conversation with the many rough types you'll encounter easy: you can choose to Greet. Insult, Threaten, Protect, and so on.

At first this game had me totally stumped, but once I had been set in the right direction I found it logical and very enjoyable. Bugsy is no classic, but it is a polished piece of software which will provide plenty of entertainment for a reasonable price.