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When they really try, the French can come up with the most dismally unfunny game ncepts; Stir Crazy is une example excellente. Nothing to do with the Gene Wilder/Richard Prior fillum, the game's based on a comic featuring a jailbird named Bobo, which means nothing to us since the comic doesn't appear in the English language, so it's hard to donner une toss gigantique.

Anyway, the whole concept's fairly tasteless; Bobo is in the slammer for life, presumably for not paying the French equivalent of the poll tax or something, and between his feeble efforts to escape he has various prison-type tasks to perform. You can choose to play any one of the five sections, but on the cassette version you have to reload the game each time; or you can play all five in order, although why you would want to is another question.

Game One; Serving the Porridge. Bobo runs up and down the refectory between two rows of prisoners, ladling out porridge and returning to the serving hatch to refill his tureen. Game Two; Peeling the Potatoes. Bobo sits in front of a giant mound of spuds, picking them up, peeling them with a wiggle of the joystick and flinging them over his shoulder, before the mound grows big enough to overwhelm him. By now your patience will be waning.

Game Three; The Trampoline. Bobo pushes the trampoline back and fore below the prison windows, attempting to bounce the escaping prisoners over the wall, as in those pocket games that go blip-blip-blip so annoyingly. Game Four; the Electrical Wires. On the run along three electrical cables, Bobo jumps from one wire to another, trying to avoid being electrocuted by stray sparks, tedium a go-go! Game Five; The Dormitory. Bobo runs up and down ladders, nudging snoring prisoners to make them shut up so he can get back to his own bed and stack up some zees. By this time you'll wish you were asleep too.

Although there isn't an original or interesting idea in the whole lot, all this might be mildly entertaining if the graphics were great, or the music outstanding, but, sadly, they aren't and it isn't.

It's not so bad that the guillotine is in order, but everyone connected with this one should get a handful of porridge in le grande slammer.

Label: Infogrames Author: Bala/Hennebois Price: £8.95 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

About as much fun as a long stretch in the pokey with Lord Longford visiting you.