My Name is Uncle Groucho ... You Win a Fat Cigar

Crash

Overall 67%

Producer: Automata, 48K £10.00 (1) Author: Piman The full title of this ditty is, 'My Name Is Uncle Groucho You Win A Fat Cigar.'' but that's much to long to ever repeat again! Like their famous Pimania, the object is to wade through a drug-induced landscape of weirdness and insanity, which is supposed to represent America, in the company of Groucho Marx and his companion the Piman, discover the secret identity of a famous Hollywood star which is hidden in the game, and then win the fabulous prize of a trip to Hollywood to meet the star in question, flying out on Concorde and coming back on the QE2. A rags to riches story for someone. Entries before 1 June. Naturally, you've got to be solid bonkers to get it right, and a pimaniac to boot. Good fun despite the slow response times. Excellent graphics and sound. Overall CRASH rating 67%. BASIC.

Read it at Crash - The Online Edition

Crash

Overall 67%

Producer: Automata, 48K £10.00 (1) Author: Piman The full title of this ditty is, 'My Name Is Uncle Groucho You Win A Fat Cigar.'' but that's much to long to ever repeat again! Like their famous Pimania, the object is to wade through a drug-induced landscape of weirdness and insanity, which is supposed to represent America, in the company of Groucho Marx and his companion the Piman, discover the secret identity of a famous Hollywood star which is hidden in the game, and then win the fabulous prize of a trip to Hollywood to meet the star in question, flying out on Concorde and coming back on the QE2. A rags to riches story for someone. Entries before 1 June. Naturally, you've got to be solid bonkers to get it right, and a pimaniac to boot. Good fun despite the slow response times. Excellent graphics and sound. Overall CRASH rating 67%. BASIC.

Crash

Use of Computer 70%

Graphics 75%

Playability 65%

Getting Started 65%

Addictive Qualities 59%

Value For Money 65%

Overall 66.5%

Unknown

Unknown

Unknown

Producer: Automata Memory Required: 48K Recommended Retail Price: £10.00 Language: basic as hell but fun Author: The PiMan and others The game you are about to play is our salute to Hollywood, that dream factory where everything was possible and where Groucho worked to make the world laugh,' says the blurb on the excellent cassette inlay. To make your dreams come true the certified lunatics at Automata have produced another mystery adventure game with a worthy prize for the winner. Judging by the difficulty in giving away the prize for uncovering the secret of Pimania, the secret in Groucho must be easier to find since you have to complete a slogan in not more than ten words that is dafter than 'We put some ting in computing!' This implies they expect more correct answers by the 1 June when the competition closes. Somewhere in the depths of My name is Uncle Groucho you win a fat cigar, the name of a Hollywood star is hidden. Should you be lucky enough to guess it correctly and be dafter than anyone at Automata then your prize will be a trip for two to meet the Hollywood star in person, flying Concorde to JFK, and then on to Los Angeles staying at the famous Waldorf Astoria aboard the QE II, and £500 spending money. TO WIN This is all you do. Risk your sanity in Groucho and the PiMan's America, where the currency is fat cigars, travel is by space shuttle and covered wagon and conversation is by way of Groucho Marxist jokes made worse by interruptions from the PiMan. Needless to say, in the time allowed none of our reviewers got very far. Fortunately none of them was silly enough to fall for the opening question, Pimaniancs one and all ... GENERAL The program is slow to respond to input commands but Automata seem to have become a law unto themselves in this respect, and no doubt addicts will suffer very little from this drawback. As usual the program offers little in the way of help to get into the game and no hints on playing - Groucho, after all, was not noted for his kindness towards idiots. COMMENTS Keyboard play: slowish Use of colour: very good Graphics: very good Sound: generally good, though a bit repetitious

Light your fat cigar and stalk the streets of America with Uncle Groucho.

C&VG (Computer & Video Games)

Logic/Difficulty 5/5

Vocabulary 2/5

Plot/Theme 5/5

Keith Campbell

Fat cigars are Groucho's currency in Automata's sequel to Pimania. You can gamble them, buy clues with them, and get robbed of them! That fast talking member of the Marx brothers has been transferred to the Spectrum. Groucho is big. He takes five minutes to load - but why worry when you can sit and watch his cigar and eyebrows twitching? After he has loaded he treats you to an obligatory three minutes of graphics. The format of Groucho is different from that of Pimania, and comes across as a series of zany puzzles and joky insults, interspersed with tunes and set against a background of clever and colourful animated pictures. Groucho invites you to guess the identity of a Hollywood star. If you can do so by June 1st, you stand a chance of winning yourself a trip for two by Concorde and QE2, to meet the star. To do this you must collect clues to the star's identity. These are gained by guessing the names of other stars, from clues purchased at an ever increasing price of fat cigars. Cigars can be come by in the Casino and other places, if you're lucky! On the other hand, the Piman might come along and 'bum' a few off you. Groucho sometimes annoys me. He uses some witty phrases like 'Of all the words in the game, you had to choose them!' And them. And them. Wears a bit thin after a while. I guessed one of the stars to be CHARLES CHAPLIN. Not so. 'THAT'S NOT A NAME - IT'S AN INSULT! I WAS THINKING OF CHARLIE CHAPLIN' didn't go down very well! And I can't travel. My attempts are at best ignored, at worst, for some reason, clear the program from memory - lie some other commands - and that means another eight minute wait. Together with the slow response time, playing is a laborious business. Having said that, Groucho is entertaining and addictive enough to be played again and again. And like Pimania, be comes complete with a pop song - 'Groucho' - on the flip side, this time performed by Lady Clair Sinclive and the Pimen. Will the Piman soon be seen live on Top of the Pops? Will Clive Sinclair get to number one? Wait and see! Groucho From Automata for 48k Spectrum at £10

Groucho

Personal Computer News

Lasting Appeal 3/5

Playability 4/5

Use Of The Machine 4/5

Overall Value 4/5

Mike Gerrard 4/5

NAME: Groucho SYSTEM: 48K Spectrum PRICE: £10 PUBLISHER: Automata UK Ltd, [redacted] FORMAT: Cassette LANGUAGE: Basic OTHER VERSIONS: None OUTLETS: Mail order A DAY AT THE RACES Question: How do you follow Pimania, Automata's adventure that's been out about a year but which no one has yet solved? Answer: You come up with another game, but make it slightly easier. FIRST IMPRESSIONS Who could resist a loading screen that offers a picture of Groucho wriggling his eyebrows and waggling his cigar? IN PLAY After dealing with the possibly familiar riddle, 'A key turns the lock,' you'll find yourself in Metroville with 200 cigars to your credit and your quest for clues begins. There are several towns to visit, such as Tinsel Town and Wrinkle City, and a section of each is drawn on your screen, usually a street front of bars, banks, cafes, hotels and so on. Most of these have a movie connection, such as Ricky's Bar or Marion's Hotel, and your movie knowledge will be tested as Groucho insists on impersonating famous stars from time to time, whose identity you must guess from the clues provided, each one costing you two cigars more than the one before. With up to ten clues and no escape, you can get rid of a lot of cigars, though most of the names you should know and a correct guess wins you one of the 22 clues to the name you're really after. Nothing is predictable, of course, and Groucho and the Pi-Man pop up all over the place, exchanging insults and knock-knock jokes, offering clues, stealing cigars, and there's even a guest appearance from Pac-Man, who's strayed into the wrong program. They must have used up at least 47.5K of memory storing bad jokes. Even when you've entered all the bars in all the towns in Groucho you can still keep going as you don't get the same result each time and clues can turn up anywhere. The responses seem rather slow, it takes much too long for the game to get started once loaded, and the music leaves a lotto be desired. But apart from that, the game is great fun, the graphics simple but amusing, and you never quite know what response you're going to get. VERDICT Scott Adams it isn't, but Groucho is unique and will be an essential buy for anyone who enjoyed the nonsense of Pimania. After unearthing ten of the clues I have an idea who that mystery star might be... so on second thoughts, don't anyone else buy the game. I rather fancy that trip to Hollywood.

Micro Adventurer

Graham Taylor

ON YOUR MARKS, GET SET, GO MICRO: Spectrum 48K PRICE: £10.00 FORMAT: Cassette SUPPLIER: Automata, [redacted] The follow up to Pimania has been released. My name is Uncle Groucho you win a Fat Cigar maintains Automata's reputation as leaders of the Monty Python school of programming. The idea behind Grouch() is that you travel across America using whatever transport is available looking for the famous Marx brother who is performing at various unlikely locations. if you should find Groucho and you can guess his mystery identity (a good knowledge of arcane and canine film stars may help here) then he will give you a clue to the mystery personality and you could be on your way to America to meet a star. Throughout, the game is punctuated with jokes, quizzes, exercises in lateral thinking, guest appearances by the Piman, and other lunacy. As with Pimania it's all in Basic but for the most part it doesn't matter at all, the response times for some of your typed inputs are a bit long though. An excellent game Pimaniacs and those yet to be converted will love. The free hit single on the reverse of the cassette is wonderful.

Your Computer

Overall 3/5

48K Spectrum £10 Automata U.K. Ours is a world where people do not know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it. Such was the lot of Pimaniacs, as the helpless purchasers of the last big piece of competition software from Automata became known. The new mindbender from Portsmouth confirms T R Marshall's opinion that what this country needs is a good five-cent cigar. In fact, there was even one attached to the cassette box. This, and the "smash-hit disco track" on the flip-side, which is a curious fusion of Mark Knopfler vocals and Depeche Mode backing, with a Bonzo Dog Band play-out indicate the company's belief that Pimania and Groucho are not so much adventure games, more ways of life. The prize you have to keep your eye on in this case is a trip for two to Hollywood to meet the star whose mystery personality is hidden within the program. The lucky duo will fly Concorde to New York then sub sonic to Hollywood. They come back on the QE2, subject to availability. An excellent loading graphic shows the immortal Groucho Marx with twitching eyebrows and his famous cigar. On following the first clue the program correctly deduced that I had never played Pimania and then conversationally asked me to wait a minute. Loading completed, I was plunged in the scenario of Metroville, Burger Valley, Tinsel Town and Indian Creek. Having lost quite a lot of my money in the local casino, I went into a bar where I met a Swedish actress whose name I had to guess from a number of clues. But of course, I really cannot give too much away, that is the catch when reviewing this sort of game with a prize. Suffice to say the game is humorous and the graphics are excellent.