Egg Farm

Crash

Producer: Lasersound 16K £5.50 'I'm a real mean chicken,' says the cover in this game where the dots are eggs and two enraged hens are after you for eating them. The hens's advantage is that they can move diagonally when you can't, so if you delay one nanosecond after the start you've had it. However, once you get the hang of it the hens are so easy to outwit that the game becomes boring and silly.

Crash

Producer: Lasersound 16K £5.50 'I'm a real mean chicken,' says the cover in this game where the dots are eggs and two enraged hens are after you for eating them. The hens's advantage is that they can move diagonally when you can't, so if you delay one nanosecond after the start you've had it. However, once you get the hang of it the hens are so easy to outwit that the game becomes boring and silly.

Personal Computer News

Lasting Appeal 1/5

Playability 1/5

Use Of Machine 1/5

Overall Value 1/5

Mike Gerrard 1/5

NAME: Egg Farm SYSTEM: 16/48K Spectrum PRICE: £5.50 PUBLISHER: Lasersound FORMAT: Cassette LANGUAGE: Basic OTHER VERSIONS: None OUTLETS: Mail order, Sinclair dealers. WHAT'S ALL THIS HEN? Egg Farm is simply Pacman taking a holiday in the country, though at least the diet of eggs makes a change from fruit and power pills. OBJECTIVES There's no joystick option, but keyboard control moves a little munching ball round a farmyard maze, eating ordinary eggs as it goes, but with four giant eggs tucked away in the corners. All the while you're being pursued by two pecking chickens. The aim is not to make the biggest omelette in the world, but simply to survive and notch up the highest score you can. FIRST IMPRESSIONS The cassette cover shows a Busby-like bird in a green tee-shirt which bears the message, 'I'm a real mean chicken,' while inside there are detailed loading instructions and some helpful advice on tape loading problems, but I didn't experience any with this advance review copy. IN PLAY The instructions for the game are contained in the program, and one small complaint is that once you've passed these you can't get back to them for another look. A more serious complaint is that the game starts without any warning, not even giving you chance to switch off your cassette, so you lose one of your three lives before you know it. You are offered a choice of fast or slow versions, with slow being exactly that. The chickens hop in your direction at the same speed as you, but they also have the ability to hop diagonally, which gives them a slight advantage. If you eat one of the giant eggs these chickens are moved further away from you, so you soon learn that the technique is to escape through one of the four exits, come back on the opposite side of the screen, eat one of the corner eggs and escape again. The second round is the same as the first, with no increase of speed or nastiness in the chickens that I could detect, and I did plough through to round 12 before falling asleep from the boredom of plodding along scoring ten more points for every egg. Your reward is a briefly flashing message of congratulation. VERDICT The game is ridiculously easy to master especially as when the chickens are moved further away from you they're always moved to the same place. The graphics are adequate for what the game is, while the sound consists of 'plink-plink' as you move along. A waste of tape.