Sinclair User


Grell And Falla
By Codemasters
Spectrum 48K/128K/+2/+3

 
Published in Sinclair User #123

Grell And Fella

Ah yes, the grass is growing, the sun is shining, the animals are frolicking in the fields. Life is happy and cheerful. Oy, watch it! Hmm. That looked suspiciously like a cloud with a frowning face passing overhead, pouring forth rain.

These and many other strange events happen in Codemasters' latest cutesy cartoon adventure, Grell and Fella. Codemasters have a reputation for coming up with the sort of characters and plots that would make George Lucas, Steven Spielberg or even Gath Sumpter wince (in fact they've made Garthy wince more than once) and Grell and Fella sees this tradition carried on in fine fettle.

It's totally amazing what sort of work you can stumble across at the old Job Centre these days. Take the example of Grell the lumbering brute and Fella the inaptly named, Tinkerbell-like fairy. Looking for odd jobs to earn some spare cash for picnics and continental holidays the unlikely pair have taken on the task of clearing up a sorcerer's garden. Although it seemed at first to be a routine gardening stint the enormity of the situation soon dawned on our fine friends... The whole garden is inhabited by cute but very nasty creatures and soiled with wicked, 'bad', earth which simply refuses to allow good plants like hydrangeas and begonias to grow.

Grell & Fella In The Enchanted Gardens

Well, as you might imagine, this just isn't good enough. Luckily enough Grell happens to be a passionate gardener with a handy supply of bulbs and seedlings while fairy Fella carries a plentiful supply of 'good' dust - the sort of stuff that turns bad ground into good ground. Hurrah!

Grell and Fella is a horizontally scrolling single player platform/combat game. The player takes control of each sprite individually, first using Fella to spread her good dust by flying over the landscape at supersonic speed, making the ground pure, then using Grell to plant his bulbs and seedlings. Trying to prevent them from carrying out their mission are a variety of naughty but fluffy animals, bad-guy rain clouds and other obstacles.

To help out along the way, our friends have access to shops where Grell can stock up on his gardening equipment and friendly rainclouds which annoy their nasty cousins by helping Fella out by raining good rain (presumably from privatised water supplies) on bad land, transforming it once again into fertile soil.