EastEnders

Sinclair User

Overall 1/5

Jim Douglas 1/5

Label: Macsen Author: In-house Price: £9.95 Memory: 48K/128K Reviewer: Jim Douglas Where do I begin? East-Enders is almost too awful for words. The best way I can express it is that very little you have ever read about, ever, is as bad. The program has been licenced by Macsen from the BBC and deserves to bomb dreadfully. I don't think there's a single redeeming feature in the whole package. Let's take a step-by-step look at what you get for your £9.95. Right. In the game, if you can call it that, you take the role of a mysterious character who inhabits Albert Square. You are apparently unemployed, owing to the decay of the country under the reign of Thatch, and spend your days helping out the lovable cockneys from Ver Skware. What we have here is a phenomenally ghastly mish-mash of completely dreadful mini-games. Each of the main locations in the TV show has been transmogrified into a sub-plot. All your favourites are there. You start the game in the middle of the square. Things start to look quite bad even at this early stage. Buildings are represented by large coloured squares and you are rather too big and shown side-on and in one colour. Once you've walked to a coloured square, you will be presented by a very terrible indoor scene. If you are unlucky enough to end up in the Queen Vic your little man changes into a hand. On the screen are a row of bottles, a row of glasses and a row of pumps and a bar. It's your job to help out Wicksy. Den apparently is busy upstairs trying to administer a stomach-pump to Angie. Anyway, a customer will arrive and will order a drink. You have to get the correct glass, bottle etc and stick in some ice and lemon where necessary. Next it's off to the Fowler's house where you must either feed or rock the baby depending on it's mood. The Launderette is a vital stopover. Collect those crazy baskets of washing before they mount up, and do something with them before going on to... The Allotment! Yup, Arthur has had a mental breakdown and can't attend to his Dhalias. Guide those garden shears all over the place, snipping the weeds before they reach the top of the screen. Ozcabs doesn't escape either. If you hear a ringing in the background, you must dash to the phone and see who wants a cab. Then you drive around the screen in a plan-view character graphic maze-style routine, pick up the little stick man and take him wherever he wants to go. Finally there is The Fruit Stall which is the worst of all. You must look after the stall in the market, stocking up on vegetables. The graphics are simply atrocious. They're littered with attribute problems and poorly defined. The sound is terrible and gameplay is slow and quite pathetic. Even if you're a big fan of EastEnders. don't be stupid enough to buy this. It's a complete dodo.