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Title: Ronnie Goes to Hollywood
Publisher: Eighth Day Software, 18 Flaxhill, Moreton, Wirral, Merseyside L46 7UH
Price: £3.99
Reviewer: Mike Gerrard

As regular readers will know, I have a soft spot for Eighth Day adventures. It's my brain, I think. Ronnie Goes To Hollywood is no disappointment, keeping up the tasteful style begun with H.R.H. If your image of President Reagan is more that of the Spitting image puppet, playing with toy submarines in the bath and not knowing if it's Christmas or Yom Kippur, then this could be one for you.

Like Yes, Prime Minister, you get to run the country for a week and see what it does to your popularity rating. Type SCORE in this one and you'll get a popularity percentage, though don't pay too much attention as you can get it up to 100 percent soon after the start of the game - it won't last, you can be sure of that. The aim is to see what it's like at the end of the week, after you've visited not only Hollywood but Ireland, New York and even Geneva for talks with the head of a certain other powerful nation. Just so you know what's going on, the adventure comes complete with a free 8-page copy of Ronnie User.

The game begins with you in bed at the White House. Nice blankets, with real cute pictures of plains and aeroplanes on them. Now what's that ticking sound? My Mickey Mouse alarm clock? Heck no, it's a limpet mine. Hey, Nancy!? No use shouting for the First Lady, she went on a dress-buying spree hours ago. Better get up and look around. What's this hanging up? A truss? Yup, better wear that. After all, I need all the support I can get. And look at this neat little submarine in the bath... time for a quick splash?

If you can make it downstairs in one piece (or in Ronnie's case in several pieces, including truss, wig and deaf-aid) you might get to play with the White House computer, and a neat use of The Quill input routine means that you can make decisions about world events by pressing the appropriate number yes. The events that come up on the screen change as time passes, quite a clever addition to the usual adventure scenario methinks. It means you have to keep a timetable as well as a map, and remember (if Ronnie's braincells can cope with it) that you only have till Sunday evening before the game's over. Type TIME to find out how it's going.

And before the game is over, you should have had quite a few laughs at the expense of Mr President. Not the hardest of adventures, and it isn't quite in the same laughter league as Delta 4, I don't think, but it's not far behind.

Label: Eighth Day, 18 Flaxhill, Moreton, Wirral, Merseyside L46 7UH
Author: Michael White
Price: £3.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Gary Rook

If you like Spitting Image style humour, and don't rate Ronnie Reagan as a world-class thinker, then you're going to love this wonderfully tacky little adventure from Eighth Day.

Eighth Day is a small outfit working using Gilsoft's Quill add-on utilities to turn out no-frills adventures at a very decent price.

But that doesn't stop them producing adventures which look more like they've had the attention of a whole dormitory full of backroom boys. Eighth Day scores consistently highly on both plot and on screen presentation, and has done for two or three years now.

The latest package from their headquarters in deepest Merseyside is a subversive little number called Ronnie Goes to Hollywood, which is certain to get them top billing on the CIA's computer list of dangerous free radicals.

An irreverent treatment in words and pictures (text and graphics in other words) of the day-to-day tribulations of being the leader of the free world and having to run a country at the same time as getting your toupee to stay on. You have to juggle the problems of the world while keeping your popularity up and your truss straight.

If you don't perform properly (on television), then you run the very real danger of being impeached. That's an American word meaning you lose.

You begin the game safe and snug in your bed at the White House. Or not so safe, as there's a rather nasty looking limpet mine ticking away at the bottom of your bed. To action! Pausing only to find your wig, your truss and your clothes, you have to sally forth and deal with the White House Press Corps.

From the White House, your peregrinations will take you on a fascinating journey involving side trips to a message parlour, the headquarters of the CIA, the Russian Embassy, Ireland, Geneva and, of course, Hollywood. As the old sixties radicals used to say, make tracks not war.

Along the way, you are going to have to expose fiendish and utterly heinous plots by those infiltrating Commie chaps, and enlist the aid of those good ole boys, the all-American heroes Frank Sinatra and his Italian buddies, the Seventh Cavalry and the Ku Klux Klan.

With that sort of help, how can you fail to make democracy safe for the world again?

The text is pretty straightforward, with clean, snappy location descriptions and no superfluous persiflage (leave it out with the fancy stuff - Ed) or unnecessary words. The graphics, of which there are around fifteen, are excellent, each cleverly presented to look like frames from a movie.

Everything moves along at a fast pace, and there seem to be few problems communicating with the program.

Unfortunately, simply solving the adventure as such isn't enough with this program. At all times, you have to be constantly keeping an eye on your greatest enemy - the great American public. Yes, if your popularity ever falls below that of the latest game show host or cult guru, you could be in trouble. Become too unpopular, and you'll get ousted as president.

You can keep an eye on your popularity by typing in Score, which will tell you how many people love you and, every so often, you'll get the opportunity to make really important decisions about the day to day problems of running the world's greatest democracy. Various options will be presented on the White House computer screen, and it will be up to you to choose the right one.

It's all fairly zippy and amusing, as well as being subversive in the extreme. There is plenty to laugh at. as well as a fair amount to wince at.

An excellent spoof, in fact.

SUPPLIER: 8th Day Software
MACHINES: All Spectrums
AVAILABLE FROM: 8th Day Software, 18 Flaxhill, Moreton, Wirral, Merseyside, L46 7UH

"You are lying in bed under thick covers in the master bedroom of The White House. The blankets are crocheted with tiny motifs showing tanks and aeroplanes..."

Getting up, Ronnie notices that there is a limpet mine attached to his bed better get out of here in a hurry! But where are his trousers?

Dressing has its hazards, since the trousers turn out to be down the corridor in Nancy's powder room - a naked security guard in a wardrobe hands them over. Stopping briefly to bath (must get rid of the rotten eggs thrown when he ventured onto the balcony!) Ronnie retrieves his toy submarine, puts on your surgical truss (enables him to carry more objects!) and heads downstairs for the press conference in the foyer.

Unperturbed by the explosion upstairs that blows the top floor of the White House away, he reads his speech, and leaves to get on with the job of running the USA. What's your next move, Ron?

Ronnie Goes To Hollywood is an adventure in which you, as Ronnie, act very much along the lines of your Spitting Image. The opening sequence is a little confusing to play, since only when Ronnie is fully dressed will Nancy present you with the speech. This involves having a bath after you have been out onto the balcony with your trousers.

This is a graphics adventure, although there are only relatively few pictures. In addition to the pictures, a novel presentation system is used to operate the White House computer terminal.

Overall, here is a highly amusing adventure, well worth the £3.99 mail order asking price.

Price: £3.99
Machine: Spectrum
Publisher: Eighth Day Software

Ronnie Goes to Hollywood is one of those games which appear simple at first sight and only later the real complications appear. The objective is to become the President of the United States for a week, during which time you, in the person of Ronald Reagan, are in control of all decisions affecting your country.

Most of us have ideas how to go about such a task but it is not so easy as it looks. The newspapers are always lurking in the hopes of catching Ronnie doing something stupid and woe betide him if they do. His personal popularity is what stands between him and impeachment, so he has to be pleasant to the press at all times. Most important of all, he must keep his wig on.

As if all that is not sufficient, he has to look for those nasty little Communist plotters who are round every corner as Ronnie travels round the globe. He will visit Ireland to find his ancestors and Hollywood to re-live his past triumphs. A trip to Geneva for a chat with Russian leaders may prove useful.

Knowing the aim of the game is one thing, accomplishing it is another. Strange things keep happening to poor unsuspecting Ronnie. Why does Caspar Weinberger want him to sign that note? Why did his car stop at a massage parlour? Where are his trousers?

While all this is happening, Ronnie must keep an eye on the computer screen. That will keep him up-to-date on events at home and overseas and allow him to make decisions. A big no-no and he will be booted out of the White House in no time.

If Ronnie should become bored, why not have him saunter into the War Room and look at the Operations Board? If he feels belligerent, he could always nuke a few of the bad guys although that is scarcely likely to improve his chances of signing a treaty, is it?

Still, with a little manoeuvering and plenty of help from his friends, Ronnie will be able to back all his enemies into a corner. Not only that but he will have the reporters where he wants them, too.

Ronnie Goes To Hollywood is published by one of the smaller software houses but in no way suffers from it. The game is the follow-up to H.R.H. and benefits from the same Spitting Image style of humour. The graphic screens complement the text well and for £11.99 the game is good value.