Amstrad Action


Bangers And Mash

Author: Rod Lawton
Publisher: Alternative
Machine: Amstrad CPC464

 
Published in Amstrad Action #81

Bangers And Mash

Bangers and Mash. Lovely, eh? Great, steaming plates of the stuff... just a bit of mustard and salt and pepper and... wait a minute, how can you make a game out of a plate of nosh?

Well you can't, really. Not unless you first of all invent a cartoon TV series about a couple of chimps who just happen to be called Bangers and Mash. Then you make a game out of it, see?

Bangers and Mash are mischievous little monkeys. They play their old mum up a bit and are always getting into trouble. Until one day, mum gets a bit fed up and sends them both out to collect fruit for a giant fruit pie.

Bangers & Mash

Wait a minute. If there are two chimps, how come you only control one of them in the game? Bangers is the one who does all the fruit-stalking, while Mash is nowhere to be seen! According to our notes here, Mash is way up in the trees making giant mud pies to flatten the various nasties inhabiting the forest. Bit naff, we say.

Bangers can fling a few mud pies himself, mind - at the rate of around 120 a minute, in fact. These mud pies much have a few rocks accidentally mixed in, because they do a good job of wiping out the cuddly (but lethal) hedgehogs and cute ladybirds that prowl around the vegetation.

Even worse are the ghosts that occasionally put in an appearance. You can't kill them, but you can make them go away by throwing enough pies. Look out too for Mrs Snitchnose, who flies around on her broomstick generally making a nuisance of herself.

Bangers & Mash

Your aim is to climb right to the top of the forest, collecting every single fruit along the way. If you don't collect all the fruit you can't move on to the next level! Which is a bit of a pain in the neck, really, considering that you have to enter a graveyard at one point to collect more fruit - and jump down a hollow tree trunk later on.

If you do eventually make it to the top with all the fruit though, a balloon comes down and transports you to the next level. How exciting!

Or is it? The next (and final) level is in the jungle again. There are no sub-levels (like graveyards or hollow tree trunks) this time, but the baddies are tougher and the jumps harder to make.

Bangers & Mash

Bangers And Mash is jolly enough in a kiddies kind of way, but it's a bit flawed. It's very tough, for a start. And there really isn't a lot of variety. And the graphics, while colourful, and blocky and not very well animated. There's a fairly big game task, though, despite the fact there are only two levels.

Second Opinion

It looks really blocky and doesn't move that well. But it's a decent enough platform game once you get into it. A bit more variety would have been nice.

First Day Target Score

Collect all the fruit up to the tree trunk.

Verdict

Graphics 54%
Distinctly cheap and cheerful. The Bangers sprite could be just about anything. The animation is iffy too.

Sonics 40%
A few minimal fx just to let you know what's going on. There's no music.

Grab Factor 85%
Platform games always hook you straight away - so does Bangers And Mash.

Staying Power 72%
Only two levels, but they're quite big and tough. It's playable enough to keep you coming back for more.

Overall 71%

Rod Lawton

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