C&VG


The Bobby Yazz Show

Author: Tony Dillon
Publisher: Crash
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Computer & Video Games #84

The Bobby Yazz Show

Everybody loves a game show, right? I mean, with such lovable hosts as Jim "get your hands off my bully" Bowen, Ted "I can only go up to 123 because I haven't got a brain" Rogers and Nicholas "I'm alive and well, where am I?" Parsons, it's difficult not to. Even more so with the prizes at stake nowadays. Remember the good old days, when you'd be happy with a hand-crafted Caribbean wooden mixing spoon. Nowadays, it's all hi-fis with built-in vacuum cleaners and combination plant pots/coat hangers. In the future, though, things will be a lot different. It won't just be the prizes you'll lose if you don't get 301 or more with 27 darts, it'll be your life. It's all in the name of good clean family entertainment, though, so no-one's complaining.

The most popular gameshow of the future, however, is "The Bobby Yazz Show", and Destiny has cleverly licensed it before its creator is born. That way they can sue for infringement on copyright when the show does come around. Clever, eh?

Bobby's show involves the contestants controlling a little remote ball kind of affair through four gruelling tasks, being careful not to hit any mines or other balls. Remember gang, if the ball goes, you go, as Bobby says.

The Bobby Yazz Show

The first task is relatively simple. A simple grid is displayed, and the contestants have a very short time to turn all the squares from blue to red, simply by rolling the ball over them. Opposition comes in the form of some nasties that, just like you, can change the square's colour, except they change all the red ones back to blue. Frustration city.

The second, affectionately termed blind level, has the contestants floating eerily above some distant planet on an invisible maze. They have a short time limit to find their way to the exit, normally on the other side of the screen.

Then it's on to the key level. On here, the contestants have to collect all the keys and get to the exit before the time runs out. As usual, there are all the regular nasties and things to hinder you.

Get through all that and you get to the bonus stage, which just entails you grabbing all you can in the unfairly short space of time you're allocated. Get through all that, and you get to go onto next week's show. Yeeaaah!

Between some of the levels, and these do come as welcome breathers, are the commercials. Short animated films, almost blipverts, they advertise such greats as "Soapo III - better than our last rubbish - it nearly works" and "Rocky XI, the musical". Unfortunately, there aren't enough of them to make them interesting for any great length of time.

I found that to be the main problem with this game. It's just too short and repetitive to be in any way addictive or lasting. It's not a bad little game, but I think it's the "little" that stops it from being a great one. A novel idea, and one I can see being copied quite a lot.

Tony Dillon

Other Spectrum 48K Game Reviews By Tony Dillon


  • Batman: The Caped Crusader Front Cover
    Batman: The Caped Crusader
  • Night Raider Front Cover
    Night Raider
  • Trantor: The Last Stormtrooper Front Cover
    Trantor: The Last Stormtrooper
  • All-Stars Front Cover
    All-Stars
  • The Muncher Front Cover
    The Muncher
  • President Front Cover
    President
  • Enduro Front Cover
    Enduro
  • Gemini Wing Front Cover
    Gemini Wing
  • Lightning Simulator Front Cover
    Lightning Simulator
  • Heist 2012 Front Cover
    Heist 2012