Bigfoot

Sinclair User

Graphics 57%

Sound 56%

Playability 58%

Lastability 57%

Overall 57%

Chris Jenkins 57%

Label: Codemasters Author: Talbot/Northcot/Day Price: £2.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Chris Jenkins When you're a seven-foot tall hairy anthropoid with a thick skull and protruding jaw, you don't get much choice when it comes to the girlies (you're right I don't - JD); so in this game our Bigfoot gets understandably mad when his beloved is kidnapped and locked in a cage. Cue lots of whacky hilarious zany spoffy madcap (that's enough adjectives - GT) adventures as the hairy hunk tries to find his shaggy sweetheart. As you'd expect from any Codemasters game, there's a fair amount of programming expertise and fairly complex gameplay of the find-oneobject-and-stick-it-in-another-object variety. The graphics, though, aren't too hot; despite a choice of display modes (full colour, half colour and mono), the backgrounds are just too bland to raise much excitement. Bigfoot himself is reasonably well drawn and animated, but tends to get lost among the backgrounds if you're in colour mode. For some reason, many of the clues you need to solve the puzzles are given away in the instructions. As you swing through caverns and villages, your aim is to blow open Mrs Bigfoot's cage using TNT. But to do this you need to repair a broken power cable, collect six pieces of fuse wire, cut a piece of wire from a neon sign, and so on... Along the way you have to jump over lakes of bubbling lava, throw rocks at swarms of bees, and keep picking up fairy cakes and spinach to pep up your energy. Yes, I know, it's all a bit jackanory isn't it. One slightly irritating aspect of the game is the object handling menu; it's activated by using DOWN/FIRE, and gives you the options of picking up, putting down, or selecting an object for use: For some reason I found it difficult to get out of the menu once I wanted to return to the game; the joystick movement you feel OUGHT to do the job, doesn't. Still, it works, though it's a bit fiddly. Sound is unremarkable; perhaps a more skilled soundtrack programmer could have given the game a bit more gloss, but it wouldn't have added to the overall playability. Bigfoot is a pretty minor game, and seems to be very easy to solve. But it's not hideously bad and has a few amusing moments, so check it out if you're starved for entertainment.

Your Sinclair

Overall 5/10

Marcus Berkmann 5/10

BARGAIN BASEMENT Another trip to Lowprice Lane with the king of the skinflints, Marcus Berkmann! BIGFOOT Code Masters £1.99 Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann What, another Code Masters game? What are they up to in Leamington Spa? This one, not surprisingly, is described on the back as 'BRILLIANT FUN' but in reality it's more of a near miss. Bigfoot (who's this huge hairy thing, a bit like Mike Gerrard) is trying to rescue his girlfriend, which involves running around the millions of screens picking things up... yes, it's an arcade adventure! (Like the 210 bus, they obviously come in six-packs.) The tottie has been locked up in a cage by a sadistic madman, and Bigfoot has to blow the lock on the cage by connecting high voltage wire to it, But there are two breaks in the cable.. Sounds like fun, and indeed the design of the game is sound enough. But the execution, I fear, has gone away somewhere along the line, and the result is substantially less gripping than it might have been. The graphics are detailed but a little tatty, and the whole thing looks very pre-Monty Mole. As for arcade action, this is mostly a case of damage limitation, as the various hazards are very hard to avoid and you have only a very limited amount of energy. In truth I'm quibbling - Bigfoot's not bad, but it's not a patch on Treasure Island Dizzy, for instance, or indeed Antiriad. All in all, not quite.

Crash

Overall 47%

BUDGET BUREAU £1.99 New on Mastertronic's 'flippy flippy' label this month is Nonamed (56%), a tale of kings, wicked wizards and courageous knights. You have to battle your way (ninja style) through the Castle With No Name which has been filled full of terrible ogres. All the graphics in the game are excellent and would do any full-price game proud, it's just a pity the gameplay isn't so good - it takes ages to get used to the continual attack by various nasty creatures. After a bit of practice you can get some enjoyment from just walking around and admiring all the locations. Another Mastertronic 'flippy flippy' game, with the Spectrum and Amstrad versions on the same tape, is Reveal (24%). The object of the game is to memorise an onscreen isometric pattern. Then, when the screen is plunged into darkness, you have to manoeuvre your object, lighting up the blocks again (sounds like fun, doesn't it?) Once they are all fully lit you can move onto the next screen and repeat the process. This soon gets extremely tedious, especially when aliens decide to darken the blocks on the opposite side of the screen again (fume!). I doubt whether anyone would find Reveal worth even £1.99. If, on the other hand, you'd rather suffer with blocky sprites and plenty of colour clash then Gamebusters have for the very thing. Zone Trooper (30%) is another arcade adventure but this time you're the lucky crew member chosen to collect plasma pods scattered across a spaceship. This involves bouncing around the ship - and surrounding landscapes - while popping the odd alien and collecting anything in sight. Some particularly nice sequences are the airlocks and the ship's computer but it's hardly worth buying just for those. Zone Trooper could provide an hours exploring for the hardened arcade adventure player, but it won't last long. If you liked the last two Atlantis titles - Gunfighter and Cerius - then the author's latest should prove welcomed. Called Tank Command (71%) it asks you to fight your way across an island in a tank, blasting away the enemy with a choice of either grenade or bombs. This may sound easy but you soon find out that if you don't bomb the enemies in the correct order you will end up in lots of little bits all over the screen. Simple sounding, but incredibly addictive. Tank Command is a pleasing mixture of arcade and strategy wih simple, but effective graphics. Well done, Atlantis. The new offering from Silverbird this month is a simplistic race game, International Speedway (24%). you have to test your streetwise racing skills in the world of league racing. All it involves is racing around track after track of simplistic graphics, the most exciting part is when you crash into another racer - not my idea of fun. If I had £1.99 knocking about this would be one of the last games I would buy, definitely not recommended. £2.99 Code Masters dominate the £2.99 slot this month with three games, the first of which is yet another of their famous cartoon adventures. This time it's called Bigfoot (47%) and stars a furry monster who goes by the name of Footsy! The graphics in the game are just mindblowing, not because they are any good, but because you just can't tell what's going on. There are three colour options to try but they are all pretty bad and cause clash unless you them totally monochrome. There just isn't enough in this game to keep me occupied for long and I don't recommend it unless you are a hardened Code Masters fan. What, another Code Masters BMX game?! Yes, I'm afraid so. The programmer that brought you 4 Soccer Simulators has now come up with BMX Freestyle (76%). It's a great improvement on the original BMX game that had an overhead view and tiny bikes but BMX Freestyle is just too hard. All the graphics are excellent (what I've seen of them); well-defined bikes and backgrounds on most sections with the usual jolly Code Masters tunes and effects. The only problem is that it's almost impossible to get past the first section (wheelies), I did it once, only to foul up and squash my mates on the ramp section that comes after (splurt!). If you think you are skilled enough to do well, give this one a whirl. Flushed with the success of winning the Embassy World Darts Championship Jocky Wilson has gone and got himself a darts game, Jocky Wilson's Darts Challenge (54%) courtesy of Zeppelin Games. It's one of theose games where all you do is aim the wobbling dart somewhere near the place you want it to go and hope for the best. You would have thought a beer drinking tournament would have been included but alas all you get is the screen where you throw the dart and an aerial view of some beer belly throwing a dart at the board. It's a fair simulation and I'm sure fans of the sport will rush out to buy it. Another Zeppelin Games offering is Rally Simulator (27%), a dire car racing game that just has no appeal at all. The car skids and slides about the monochrome play area seemingly out of control and it can even run over the houses causing hardly any damage. There are no decent sound effects to speak of and to complete even the first level is an impossibility. Rally Simulator would simply be a waste of money if you bought it, stay away! (No way! This is a great game - well, not bad. Phil and I had great fun struggling to complete the first, incredibly hard level. Level Two is extremely hard - Stu.) The final £2.99 priced game this month is from the Hewson budget label, Rack-It. Called into Africa (69%) it is, unsurprisingly, set in the jungles of Africa. If your Spectrum days go back a few years you may remember the classic strategy/adventure Lords Of Midnight, well into Africa is very similar in look and feel to that. The control method is the first thing that hits you, for some strange reason it has only three keys to select a whole host of options making it slightly difficult. The game itself should provide hours of play for adventure fans with forty controllable characters, eight radio operators and a massive landscape to explore.