Computer Gamer
1st August 1985Go To Hell
Frankly, I'm inclined to think that all the publicity for this game - all that stuff about the devil, and the software house calling itself '666' - is intended to attract attention to a game that would otherwise just fall by the wayside, since it simply isn't very good.
Underneath all the waffle about demons and pitchforks, what we really have here is just another maze game in which you have to collect seven objects (crosses, in this instance). It seems that during an argument you told a friend to 'go to Hell', and now, in order to save him from damnation, you too must go to hell to collect the crosses needed to save him.
There is a rather good introductory screen in which an animated face (bearing more than a passing resemblance to Alice Cooper) grins dementedly at you, but from here on it's downhill all the way. Once the game starts, you find yourself in Chuckie Egg, i.e. not very large, and with minimal animation consisting just of wriggling legs.
The graphics are fairly gory in places, with skulls being crushed and sawn in half here and there, but on the whole they aren't particularly good. Various objects fly around the maze and can kill you if they come into contact with you, but you are armed with crosses that you can throw in order to destroy them and increase your own score.
One irritating aspect of the game is that, no matter how far you go, when you lose one of your three lives instead of starting with a new life in the same part of the maze you start again from the very beginning. And, after a few games, I got a bit fed up with retracing my steps every time I lost a life.
Wandering around the maze is mildly interesting for a while, but there is nothing very new or interesting in the game other than the gory graphics, which were really just there for 'decoration' and didn't add anything to the game itself.
Maybe I'm being unfair to the programmer, but I can't help wondering to what extent the gore and satanic elements in the game are just a cynical attempt to create a bit of controversy. After all, nothing can help the sales of an indifferent game/record/book more than a bit of bad publicity.