Grand Slam
£8.95
Reviewer: David McCandless

Traffic wardens are not renowned for their sympathetic , affectionate view of life, nor gfor their compassionate attitude towards hairy lorry drivers with tatoos on their arms; so this is probably why Grand Slam decided to name the traffic warden in it's latest release Chubby Gristle. (Obviously a reference to the typecast view of blubbery wardens with the personality of an onion and physical attributes of a cardboard box! But despite the inventiveness of the title, the game falls short by several light years in originality, brilliance and general appeal.

Skimming over the surface of this game, you'll discover that what you have is nothing more than another platform game. A wandering succession of gruesomely-coloured screens populated by such things as scissors and amorphous anteaters - the usual platform cliches. Of course, you also have your little flashing objects which you must collect by manoeuvring your plump form between two colliding saucepans. Hazards include water, lava and something hot and aqueous, which drops onto yellow concrete, as well as one-way moving ladders - all very rudimentary.

Your character is a small, rotund person who moves quite smoothly and responsively. The action is placid. Sounds are restricted to beepy leaping trills and doleful beepy death noises, all pretty antiquated and very... well, beepy.

The game is essentially Auf Wiedersehen Monty with the setting, purpose and attractiveness of the Gremlin game replaced by blunt screen design, reiterated plot and languid gameplay.

Grandslam's parking trouble.

Fat car park attendants make unlikely heroes, but in this platform puzzler you take control of just such a character. Your ultimate ambition is simply to get fatter and fatter until you weigh a ton (!), scoffing all the food you can without getting flattened, squashed, bitten or otherwise done in.

Twenty or so different screens contain food, useful objects and various hazards. You move from screen to screen via ladders and walkways - there's no scrolling. Neither is there any time limit, so you can tackle those hazards more carefully.

The puzzling element consists largely of observing the movement patterns of the nasty creatures out to get you, choosing the safest and most reliable routes and deciding which useful item - such as supermarket trolley, wellington boots or spanner - you'll need to tackle the next problem.

Chubby Gristle is amusing and original, but the game style itself is old, and the game hard enough right from the start to put a lot of people off. And twenty or so screens isn't an awful lot for these who stick with it.

Reviewer: Rod Lawton

RELEASE BOX
Amiga, £19.95dk, Out Now
Spec, £8.95cs, Out Now
Ams, £8.95cs, £14.95dk, Out Now
Atari ST, £19.95dk, Imminent
C64/128, £9.95cs, £14.95dk, Imminent

Predicted Interest Curve

1 min: 50/100
1 hour: 55/100
1 day: 35/100
1 week: 25/100
1 month: 5/100
1 year: 0/100

MACHINES: Amiga/Atari ST/CBM 64/Spectrum
SUPPLIER: Grandslam
PRICES:
VERSION TESTED: Spectrum

When the Amiga version of Chubby Gristle arrived, the whole office stopped in amazement. Not at the game mind you, but at the increasingly realistic speech: "Ye can't park 'ere", it says in a distinctly northern voice, "'ave a word wi commissioner". However, without the speech the game is really dull, especially the Spectrum version...

The aim is simple: blubberman Chubby makes his way across 13 levels of platforms, ladders, lava pits and streams in order to get home to Mrs G. and make little Gristlets.

Each screen has Monty-esque decor, comprised of the usual pot-pourri of brickwork, platforms, pillars and posts, interspersed with patterned areas for a bit of variety. however, they're neatly drawn and a lot less garish than many games of this type.

Chubby meets a selection of beings along the route, most of which are to be avoided since their touch is fatal to each of Chubby's four lives. Similarly, falling large distances results in thinner Gristle and removal of a life.

There are various objects scattered throughout the landscape which are collected for various effects: flashing food boosts Chubby's weight and score; objects such as money bags; coins and tools are collected for extra points; and a number of items are necessary for the completion of certain screens. For instance, the flowing stream can only be negotiated once a pair of wellington boots have been retrieved...

Released across all formats, Chubby Gristle has the added advantage of some excellent digitized speech on the larger machines. The Spectrum version is not afforded this luxury, and has to rely on gameplay to provide its entertainment value - an unfortunate occurrence since it doesn't really have that much to offer.

In fact, Chubby Gristle has some very annoying faults: both the character and sprite collision detection is a bit lacking, allowing Chubby to fall through the edge of a platform and get bumped off by the nasties, even when they aren't touching.

Also, death sends Chubby back to the exit of the last screen rather than placing him near to where his demise occurred. Once, it even went further, sending him back to the screen before that. I was not impressed.

With a price tag of nearly nine quid, I'd expect a little more for my money than the archaic and unoriginal platform action on offer here.