Come on down for a life and death experience

Producer: Destiny
Out of Pocket: £7.95 cas
Author: Mike Smith and Christian F. Urquhart

Come on down and meet the host with the most, the man you've all been waiting for ... Heeeeeere's Bobby! Yes, gentle reader, you are been given the chance to participate in one of the most popular game shows around - The Bobby Yazz Show. Thrilled, ain'tchya?

Yeti and Teiadon (Issue 51, 61% and 49% respectively) gave Destiny a mixed bag, and game show conversions haven't always done so well. is this game a sensible move? Find out now, as we sit down to play The Bobby Yazz Show.

The rules are quite simple: you control a remote craft set in orbit around the planet. There are four distinct phases, each one taking place on a grid of squares. Each phase needs a different skill for its completion, and each must be completed within a time limit, or else...

So with joystick nervously held in hand the game begins. First the squares on the grid must be changed from one colour to another. Don't worry if you run over a previously coloured square because it won't be affected. To complete this phase, colour all of the squares before the timer stops. Sounds simple, but I forgot to tell you about the other remotes wandering around bleaching coloured squares. They're a right pain in the R-Type, but they can be stopped by running into them on a coloured square.

Phase 2 is the Blind Level. There are no visible squares to follow, just your remote, and an arrow. Try and find the way out of the maze by moving in every conceivable direction before the time runs out. This is the toughest level because the allotted time span is too short in my humble opinion. (Humble!? When? - Ed.)

The third phase is the key level. Here your goal is to collect 'keys' (red squares with a white centre), within - you guessed it - the time limit.

Apart from the enemy remotes roaming about, there are other objects throughout the game which help or hinder your quest. Frequently icons appear which give you speed, a gun, a bulb (used on Phase 2 to illuminate the hidden path) and a shield (only useful in Phase 3 to protect you from remotes).

The squares are also fraught with danger, because the occasional 'gate' materialises - also help or hindrance. These include glue-sticks your remote on the current square, a question mark -awards an extra remote (you start with four), and an arrow - whisks you onto the next phase.

Fourth and final phase is the bonus level. You collect 18 green squares, within the time limit, to grab a massive 5,000- point bonus. The only problem is that the green slabs revolve, but don't worry if you fail this level, you only lose your bonus. If you survive the game first time round, it's repeated, but this time it is tougher.

I found The Bobby Van Show most enjoyable to play. It certainly lives up to the old saying that the best ideas are very often the simplest. The going is certainly tough, especially on later levels, when the timer whizzes down with frightening speed. But it has enough humour to stop any feelings of frustration ruining your enjoyment.

The appearance is simple and effective, with each level nicely drawn. One annoyance: this may be TV, but after three or four times the commercial breaks become too much. Okay, so they can be skipped, no real problem, and they don't stop The Bobby Van Show being a must for all puzzle game fans.

MARK [87%]

THE ESSENTIALS
Joysticks: Kempston - and, by defining keys - Cursor and Sinclair
Graphics: nicely-animated sprites on colourful backgrounds
Sound: beepy title tune and functional spot effects
Options: definable keys

Wow, what a smug game show host, Bobby Yazz is (almost as bad as Leslie Crowther!). He always laughs when a remote is lost, and all his poor contestants wind up dead!

The game's four phases are all simple but surprisingly difficult, as the remote scampers round trying frantically to complete a screen. The first section is really the ancient Painter concept, and it's just as infuriatingly addictive as all those old games - it sets the scene for the rest. With all this mega-frustration, it would be easy to think of The Bobby Van Show as something of a failure, but somehow you've always got to have 'just one last go' - it's so addictive.
PHIL [83%]

The Bobby Van Show is a simple but totally addictive and excellently presented game that will bring you hours of fun. It's full of jokes, great graphics and animation.

In between the games are commercials for such things as Rocky XI The Musical(?) and Kill 'Em, the nuclear game for all ages (sounds like fun)! This may not be a game that will tax your brain to its limits, or have you shooting mindlessly at loads of aliens, but it's good clean fun and well worth a look.
NICK [86%]

Destiny
£8.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann

"Hi! And welcome to the Marcus Berkmann show (simper, slurp)! On my show tonight I'll be talking to my accountant, my dentist, my adoring wife Gloreen and our three delightful children Darren, Karen and Sharon! And I'll be talking to them about my very own favourite subject (twinkle) - myself!"

CLICK!

Instead of that bilge, try loading the Bobby Yazz Show instead. Destiny's latest game is writen by Cybadyne (ideas and design by Mik Smith, code by Christian Urquhart) and they've really pulled the stops out. On the surface, as you may have sussed out, the game's supposed to be a withering satire on De Box, but actually it's just a really boff puzzle game in the tradition of things like Tetris. I loved it.

You area contestant on the network's top game show, The Bobby Yazz Show. Yazz (who has little or nothing to do with the Plastic Population, as far as I can make out) is a man with the charm of a piranha, and, come to think of it, the teeth of one too. A man whose ego blots out the sun, and whose suits blind at a hundred paces.

The game, on the other hand, is a more brainy affair. There are four sorts of rounds, Colour Levels, Blind Levels, Key Levels and Bonus Levels. All involve whifffing a little remote thingy around a grid of squares within a time limit, but each is quite different in terms of object and ground rules.

On the Colour Level, you simply have to change over the colour of each square by landing on it - a bit like Bounty Bob and countless other games I can't remember! Other remotes fly about changing the colour back, but by crashing into them you can destroy them.

On the Blind Level, you have a path across the grid to traverse, but you can't actually see it. Squares will appear as you step on them, but before that it's trial and error. As you can imagine, this is the sort of round that's hellishly difficult until you've worked it out - and then it becomes dead easy.

On the Key Level, you have a grid as on the Colour Level, but here there are only a few highlighted squares which you have to land on. Trouble is, the nasties here don't affect the squares, but they do affect you when you land on them - by killing you! When you've touch all the squares you have to, an arrow will appear which you have to land on to complete the round.

Then it's on to the Bonus Round. Here you first have to land on certain green bonus squares (which have an irritating habit of disappearing just as you're approaching them) within a time limit - very tricky indeed.

Colour Levels (after the first one) and Key Levels are complicated 'gates' suddenly appearing in the grid. Most stay there for a few seconds before reverting to their original colour and the different types do different things if you land on them - some kill you, some glue you to that square for a while, some re-set the matrix without re-setting the clock (evil!) while other more friendly gates give you extra lives, extra points or even zoom you straight to the next round.

Icons also float randomly about these levels hiding even more goodies. Speed, for instance, gives you a little boost for a period; the gun gives you 15 bullets: and so on. And when you've finished the first four levels, the later levels are not just dreary re-treads of the originals, but are each challenging, interesting and increasingly tricky in their own way.

And let's not forget Bobby Yazz. Every time you die, his face at the bottom of the screen will break out into a chuckle and throughout the game he hosts the show with his own inimitable brand of malicious bonhomie. There are even commercial breaks (with a couple of very droll jokes) to put you off in between rounds.

I must say, my heart sank when I first saw this. Yet another wacky idea attempting to attract the attention away from a terminally crap game, I thought, but I was wrong. It's enormous fun. I'm sure I've seen about 45,000,000 games like this before at one time or another, but what the 'eck? This one delivers, and it's a giggle to boot.

Label: Destiny
Author: In-house
Price: £7.95
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon

Bobby Yazz is quite a good game, there's no denying that. It's just too short to deserve any great merit. Set way into the future, somewhere in the mysterious and murky undercover world of, wait for it, the game show! (Oo-ee-oo). Way in the future, everyone is amazingly rich (What, like me? JD) and so all the usual prizes of fondue sets and cuddly toys have fallen into the 'old hat' file. In the days of future, the ultimate stake, and therefore the only one people are willing to chance on prime time national TV, is your life.

The most popular show around at the time is the Bobby Yazz show hosted by the genial host, Bobby Yazz. and his attractive sidekick. Present throughout the entire game, their heads are displayed in various positions on screen offering thoughtful tips like, "Come on," and, "Ha ha ha." With Bob ever smiling, and his bimbo winking like crazy, you have to guide a small ball-like object around 4 levels of mayhem, with the aim being to stay on the show for as long as possible.

The show consists of 4 'events', each one positioned above some alien world, which then explodes upon completion of the levels. By the way, they are:

1. Colour Level
Quite simple, this one. Just change all the blocks from blue to red by rolling your ball over them. Unfortunately, little alien things are also roaming about on the grid, and they are also blessed with colour changing capabilities. The only difference being, they change them back.

2. Blind Level
On this level, you have beat up as many blind persons as you can in a short time limit. No, joking. Actually, you are in a maze, and have to find your way to the exit. Unfortunately, the maze is invisible. This does tend to make things a little harder, not to mention the incredibly short time limit.

3. Key Level
Collect all the small keys dotted around the grid to open the exit whilst avoiding all the nasties who just happen to kill on contact and doing all this in the sort time limit. Things are getting harder.

4. Bonus Level
A bit of a break, as you have almost no worries on this level. Simply run over as many bonus symbols as possible. The requisite amount, and it's a whopping great 5000 bonus points for you.

Between some of the levels are, as with almost every game show, the commercials. Short, almost blipverts of the latest things are advertised just to whet your appetite. Other show like 'TAG WAR', where teams travel to other countries, meet other teams, and then annihilate them, and the latest movies, 'Rocky XI - The Musical'. These are very well done, and very amusing to start with, but as there are only about 5 of them, they do tend to grate after the second viewing.

Graphics are fairly basic, though Bobby and Slappa are very nicely done. It's actually very amusing to see Bobby shaking his head in mock sadness as you die, and then burst into fits of laughter. Sound is nothing to be whistled about just very few SFX, and the title 'tune' (I use the word lightly) grates on the ears after a very small amount of time

Like I said, not a terrible game, but far too low on the content side.

MACHINES: Spec, C64, Ams
SUPPLIER: Destiny
PRICE: £8.95
VERSION TESTED: Spectrum

Everybody loves a game show, right? I mean, with such lovable hosts as Jim "get your hands off my bully" Bowen, Ted "I can only go up to 123 because I havn't got a brain" Rogers and Nicholas "I'm alivew and well, where am I" Parsons, it's difficult not to. Even more so with the prizes at stake nowadays. Remember the good old days, when you'd be happy with a hand crafted Caribbean wooden mixing spoon. Nowadays it's all hi-fis with built in vacuum cleaners and combination plany pots/coat hangers. In the future, though, things will be a lot different. it won't just be the prizes you'll lose if you don't get 301 or more with 27 darts, it'll be your life. It's all in the name of good, clean family entertainment, though, so no-one's complaining.

The most popular gameshow of the future, however, is the Bobby Yazz Show, and Destiny has cleverly licenced it before its creator is born. That way they can sue for infringement on copyright when the show does come around. Clever, eh?

Bobby's show involves the contestants controlling a lithe remote ball kind of affair through four gruelling tasks, being careful not to hit any mines or other balls. Remember gang, if the ball goes, you go, as Bobby says.

The first task is relatively simple. A simple grid is displayed, and the contestants have a very short time to turn all the squares from blue to red, simply by rolling the ball over them. Opposition comes in the form of some nasties that, just like you, can change the squares colour, except they change all the red ones back to blue. Frustration city.

The second, affectionately termed blind level, has the contestants floating eerily above some distant planet on an invisible maze. They have a short time limit to find their way to the exit, normally on the other side of the screen.

Then it's on to the key level. On here, the contestants have to collect all the keys and get to the exit before the time runs out. As usual, there are all the regular nasties and things to hinder you.

Get through all that and you get to the bonus stage, which just entails you grabbing all you can in the unfairly short space of time you're alloted. Get through all that, and you get to go onto next week's show. Yeeaaah!

Between some of the levels, and these do come as welcome breathers, are the commercials. Short animated films, almost blipverts, they advertise such greats as "Soapo III - better than our last rubbish - it nearly works" and "Rocky XI, the musical." Unfortunately. there aren't enough of them to make them interesting for any great length of time. I found that to be the main problem with this game. It's just too short and repetitive to be in any way addictive or lasting.

Its not a bad little game but I think it's the 'little' that stops it from being a great game. A novel idea, and one I can see being copied quite a lot.