Life On The Road

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Curiously, The Arcade missed this game, despite it being reviewed by our 'competition' a couple of months back. Perhaps Alternative thought I'd dislike it. Far from it - this is the most amusing new budget release I can recall for some time.

Coded by three people (S. S. Guest, J. B. Hamblett and J. Gardiner) which is usually a sign of real trouble, the game allows you to pretend that you're the roadie for a rock band. Split into three parts, you have to master three different types of game before being rewarded by a neat demo of the band playing.

The game is full of nice touches - I especially liked the scrolling instructions on the title page which move around the title, suddenly reversing when they hit a corner. Just as you're used to that along comes a message that can only be read as it reverses - all just to tell you that it can only be read that way and to apologise for the crick in the neck. My kind of guys, these.

The first part of the trilogy is a rather long road race, seen from above, as you drive the group 200 miles to the next gig. Graphically nice, it is a little long and the dual constraints of avoiding accidents and staying within the time limit mean that you'll be sacked by the group quite often.

Assuming you get through this test, you next have to unload the equipment without exhausting yourself or dropping it before setting up the mixing desks to the right levels. All good clean fun.

An excellent budget game - do track this one down.

Dave Reeder