Your Sinclair


Phileas Fogg's Balloon Battles

Author: Rich Pelley
Publisher: Zeppelin Games
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Your Sinclair #71

Phileas Fogg's Balloon Battles

Phileas Fogg is a somewhat mad and totally fictitious character who once, and for no apparent reason, decided to venture around the world in eight days. During his travels, he came across lots of yummy snacks and sent them all back to his Aunt Agatha. Zeppelin have completely ignored this and, using a decidedly hefty chunk of artistic licence, have got him stopping over mid-journey to help out some Allies who are at war at the time.

Actually, the game has got nothing to do with Phileas Fogg, but I suppose Zeppelin had to find some excuse to produce a game which has you flying a balloon around a sparse play area and dropping bombs on enemy installations. In fact, after much thought, I couldn't come up with a better one than the Phileas Fogg story either.

So why don't I like this game? Well, it's boring. There are no map making skills required, there's no map (the background graphics cease to exist), no technique is needed to bomb installations or baddies, it's all up to chance whether or not you're shot down, the graphics and sound are pretty shoddy and overall the game plays more like a sub-game than anything worth releasing. In other words, there is just far too little to it. Call me Mr Complete B... [I will not! - Ed], but I would have severe difficulty recommending this game to even the most narrow-minded of people. It's repetitive and utterly unaddictive and certainly not worth the bother.

Rich Pelley

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