Foxx Fights Back

Your Sinclair

Graphics 7/10

Playability 8/10

Value For Money 7/10

Addictiveness 9/10

Overall 8/10

Ciaran Brennan 8/10

Image Works £8.99 cass/£12.99 disk Reviewer: Ciaran Brennan This is one fox who's had enough. He's had enough of chubby horsemen chasing him around the country on their worn out nags. He's had enough of flea-bitten bloodhounds disturbing his Sunday Lunch (fried chicken of course!) and he's had enough of killjoy farmers surrounding their stock with barbed wire. He's finally flipped and like some kind of rural Charles Bronson he's out for revenge. But what can a poor fox do against such odds? Surely he's going to be pretty helpless against hordes of dogs and horses? But maybe not! Maybe there is a way he can turn the tables - because the countryside's littered with weapons and ammunition and old Foxy has been in secret training with the SAS. So watch out you country dwellers, the hunter is about to become the hunted! I'm sure that by now the more liberal among you are standing up and shouting that revenge is wrong. If you are, stay calm because there's more to Foxy's 'search and destroy' mission than getting his own back. Our hero's Vixen is stuck in the den and starving to death so it's up to to him to get out there and collect all of the apples, milk and other scrummy goodies that he can lay his paws on. The rural play area is divided into two levels, above and below ground, and scrolls in both directions. Foxy runs, walks or crawls in either direction, collecting food and extra weapons along the way by running over them. It may be hard to believe, but Foxy is adept with pistol, shotgun and machine gun - but he'd better be because all of a sudden the whole countryside is like a battle zone. The bloodhounds have taken the hint and got themselves an arsenal of rifles - and even the hens are armed to the teeth (Hens don't have teeth. Ed) with exploding eggs. Other hazards crop up along the way, including vicious squirrels, bear traps and dogs on motorbikes. Foxy's health is represented by a small picture in the bottom left hand corner of the hero with his tongue hanging out. The longer the tongue, the tireder the fox - and when it reaches the bottom of the screen Foxy expires in a fit of exhaustion. The only way to increase the falling energy level is to dive down to the lower level and search a rabbit warren for a breakfast of bunnies. Foxx Fights Back is fast, furious, funny and... erm, Foxy! it scrolls well, is quite difficult and pumps the adrenaline just enough to bring you back for another go. It may not be a classic, but it is a good romp and should take a while to complete.

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

Crash

Presentation 83%

Graphics 83%

Playability 86%

Addictive Qualities 82%

Overall 85%

Mark Caswell 85%

Phil King 86%

Stuart Wynne 85%

Revenge of the vulpine vigilante. Producer: Imageworks Out of Pocket: £8.99 cass, £12.99 disk Author: Denton Designs Poor old Mr Foxx is a henpecked husband. His vixen (wife) has a tendency to whack him over the head with her favourite rolling pin it he doesn't bring home anything for dinner. But poor old Mr Foxx can't just pop down to the local Tesco's and fill up his trolley like everyone else. No, he must forage the countryside for titbits like every other wild animal. The trouble is that those hardworking farmers (like myself) aren't particularly fond of Foxx, and send their trusty hounds to hunt him down with guns. Well they only want to borrow his lovely fur coat, don't they?! But Mr Foxx isn't going to take all this aggro lying down, so what does he do? Yes, you guessed it - he goes and gets himself a pistol! And it's just as well he has some form of defence as even his country companions aren't much help; badgers lob rocks at him, while squirrels aren't averse to throwing a few nuts at the hero's bone! Even more dangerous are the dive-bombing chickens which chuck exploding eggs at the hero. Collision with any form of missile reduces Foxx's energy, which is displayed by the pantometer- Foxx's tongue hangs further down as he gets tired! When Mr Foxx returns to his den with something to eat, Mrs Foxx is elated. Unfortunately this frame of mind doesn't last long and she's soon reaching for the rolling pin again - well at least this vixen doesn't brandish a whip! It's great to see a game about the countryside for once, but what I want to know is where are the sheep?! Anyway, Foxx Fights Back is a humorous and instantly playable game which holds your interest with cute graphics and good tunelets. Go and hunt for it in the shops! PHIL 86% THE ESSENTIALS Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair Graphics: well-animated sprites run and jump through a smooth, horizontally-scrolling country landscape Sound: a bevy of neat tunes at the front end, plus plenty of atmospheric effects and tunes during play Options: definable keys

FOXING FOXX'S FOES To replenish your energy either take some grub back to the missus or find a rabbit warren to eat the bunnies. If you're in a tight spot, keep jumping to avoid most of the bullets. To get rid of the chickens run away from them - they'll scamper back at you along the ground and can easily be shot. Jump up when you reach a barn to collect a more powerful weapon.

Sinclair User

Graphics 75%

Sound 70%

Playability 80%

Lastability 80%

Overall 75%

Jim Douglas 75%

Label: Mirrorsoft Author: Denton Designs Price: £8.95 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Jim Douglas There comes a time in everyone's life when you have to decide to make a stand. You can only be oppressed, walked on and abused so much, before, one day, it all comes to the boil and you reach for the Browning in the sideboard. For Foxx, that day has come. Fed up to the back teeth with having to move house every time the local gentry decide to dress up in the red jerkins, Foxx decides that enough is enough and with the help of a revolver it's time to redress the balance. Despite the obvious superficial similarities to Vixen - particularly in the running of the central character - Foxx is a much more playable and really quite different game. You start off down in your den, with the Mrs complaining about the general state of affairs. From there you take a swift leap upwards into the hostile world. For the most part the game centres around running left and right across a parallax scrolling landscape, trying to snatch apples from treetops and taking them back home to appease Mrs Foxx. Tedious? Well, it would be apart from the fact they you're fighting for your life all the lime with maniac beagles, badgers, squirrels and birds, all hell-bent on bringing about your demise. The beagles come in two forms, pedestrian ones out to blow you to bits with machine guns, and those on motorbikes, who will simply run you down. The squirrels and badgers throw grenades at you and the birds drop, er, bombs. Yes, I know it all sounds a bit like a Beatrix Potter story gone mad, but believe me, it's great fun. You belt around, collecting apples, shooting beagles in the head and catching the birds between your teeth as they fly over. Along the way, you'll encounter numerous hazards like truly gruesome mantraps which will literally make mincemeat out of you. There are nasty rivers and lakes to negotiate too, and you'll have to get your jumping pretty well off pat if you are going to get anywhere at all. The more tired you get, the longer the tongue of your Pant-o-meter becomes, until eventually you peg out. Obviously, your constitution isn't boosted by being run over by a rabid beagle on a motorcross bike or falling into the clutches of a grenade launching squirrel. To help you out along the way, a couple of more advanced weapons have been left at strategic points. There's a Thompson sub-machine gun and even a bazooka, both of which will help to despatch the bad guys at a swifter pace. You can progress to later levels by collecting enough apples. All the time, life becomes tougher and tougher There is a bizarre bonus level which involves jumping down a rabbit warren and eating all these fluffy white rabbits. Graphically, Foxx is pretty good, although the characters aren't actually very large on the screen, the animation is very nicely done and the beagles on the bikes really have to be seen to be believed. There's a strange sense of humour throughout, but thankfully it doesn't detract from the grand level of violence. It's a corker.

HINTS AND TIPS Always keep jumping. There's no point running along in a straight line when you can avoid a whole lot of trouble and make just as much progress by jumping along. The bad guys can be vaulted over too. You'll need to practise the jump routine a lot before you can perform the tricky jumping-the-stream feat - you have to nudge yourself further forward than you would believe in order to make it across. Go for the big weapons as soon as you see them! Get that bazooka and get killing! Whenever you see a chicken flying past, jump up and pull it out of the sky with your teeth. Major points. If you reaches a dangerous level, dive down a rabbit warren and savage a few defenceless bunnies. This will make you feel a lot better. Watch those nasty beagles on motorbikes. Once they've gone off the left hand side of the screen, they'll come back without their bike but tooled up with a gun. Don't get shot in the back.