Previous Next

Well, here's a surprise! After Elite announced their withdrawal from the Acorn market at last year's PCW Show there have been rumours of both Paperboy and Bombjack lying around, coded and ready for release. I'm told 'officially' that this is the last Elite Acorn release, and that means, I suppose, that the only chance of seeing Bombjack is on the pirate circuit.

The game is a straight conversion from the Atari arcade original - ride along a suburban street, throwing papers onto porches for points and through windows for bonuses, whilst avoiding balls, dogs, Sinclair C5s and much more.

I didn't think much of this in the arcades and, despite a competent job of coding by Andy Williams, it doesn't inspire me much on my micro.

The whole game has the feel of a rushed and cheap product and, whilst I think that it largely the fault of the basic game design, it is a poor way for Elite to bow out of the BBC market. Of course, there may be many of you who will love this game but I would ask you to try and see the game being played before parting with hard-earned pennies (or pounds). The graphics are quite fun but, for me, there is no real incentive to ride up the street to find the BMX practice circuit at the end for bonuses - it has the worst of all game faults; it's boring!