Your Sinclair


Sharkeys Moll

Author: Linda Barker
Publisher: Zeppelin Games
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Your Sinclair #69

Sharkey's Moll

Hey ho! Another day, another Op- Wolf clone. Yep, this one takes me back - all the way back to last month and LA Police Department actually.

Aargh! I want something different. I want to load a game up that makes me gurgle with delight! I want to be knocked backwards by a game's sheer cleverness and originality! What I don't want is another aim-the-cursor shoot-'em-up. But beggars can't be choosers, so here I am with Sharkey's Moll. Hey ho (I know I've said it before but, heck, that's how I feel!).

As you've probably gathered, Sharkey's Moll is a monochrome, horizontally-scrolling, blast-'em-to-smithreens kind of a game. There are six levels which take you through downtown Chicago, the home of bathtub gin, speakeasies and gatling guns. Unsurprisingly, the city's running alive with gangsters and illegal booze - even the most innocent looking building could hide a private dub complete with leggy dancers, jazz bands and quite a few chaps with violin cases. Obviously it needs a good spring clean and, as sure as eggs is eggs, you're the man with the feather duster (so to speak).

Sharkey's Moll

You're Lt Sharkey, the government's main man in Chicago, and you're just in time for a little rendezvous with the city's underworld boss, the enigmatically named Rubbers Malone. To get to his warehouse hideaway you've got to race through six (extremely similar) levels, shooting gangsters and avoiding informers, innocents and molotov cocktails. There are the usual pick-ups littered about the place, including machine guns which give you very odd spurts of fire - one moment you're blasting away quite happily and the next your cursor's all over the place leaving behind a trail of bullet holes and carnage. It's quite good actually.

What's there in Sharkey's Moll is quite playable. It's just that there's not much to it, and it's certainly nothing new or exciting. It's also one of those really annoying games in which you suddenly die for no apparent reason. You didn't run out of ammo or molotovs and it certainly looked like there was a bit of blood left pumping round the old arteries. Hey ho!

Uninspired and uninspiring Op Wolf-style shoot-'em-up.

Linda Barker

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