Previous Next

I'd "Sing the signature theme" but it'd probably shatter all the glass in Crash Towers [and I'm not up for GBH of the ear 'oles - Ed] and most people remember the Jetsons cartoons anyway. They were always on around teatime when I came home from school... ahh, happy memories. Or was that Ivor The Engine?

Anyway, this seemingly harmless cartoon has mutated! A full length feature film did a spot of block-busting a while back, and now there's this triffic computer game!

George Jetson has a problem. His horrible boss Mr. Spacely has forbidden him to go home before 1400 hours but he wants the whole afternoon off to take his family to Las Venus for the weekend. [Personally I reckon he's a complete whinger; he only works three hours a day, three days a week as it is! We should be so lucky - unless we work 26 hours a day, our slave-driver Ed docks our wages!]

Anyway, being a bit of a rebel and well cheesed off with this Spacely geezer, he decides to go anyway, but he needs help to get out of the Spacely Sprocket factory [Trying the front door would be much too easy, I suppose - Ed].

Runaway chairs, sinister sprockets and faulty chutes are on the rampage to stop George, so lots of joystick wiggling is needed to dodge them. The basic layout is similar to other Hi-Tec games like Top Cat and Yogi. Characters move up and down the screen to avoid objects in a semi-3D environment.

George isn't the only character to crop up in the game (otherwise it'd be called Jetson, wouldn't it, readers?). If you're familiar with the words of the theme song, you'll know he has a wife, Jane, children Elroy and Judy, and Astro the dog, not to mention the scatterbrained robot maid, Rosey, and robot dog Electronimo.

The eight action-packed levels each feature a different character to control and are split into two styles. Arcade adventure levels are set in places like the factory, the family home and in outer space.

Between these, George rides in his 'car', flying through the futuristic buildings collecting bonus points. Speed is of the essence. The jetcar can double its speed by holding down the turbo button.

But the space police don't take kindly to crazed motorists and if George breaks the speed limit, he's pulled up and given a right good telling off!

As if worrying about the police wasn't enough to slow you down, there are black holes that warp you back if you collide with them.

The strange thing is that the main storyline is based around George Jetson, but you play a different member of the family in each level. The second has Jane Jetson running around her house avoiding a horrible cat burglar who's sneaked in - if he gets hold of her, she loses one of George's lives! That's equality for you! Judy has to collect hearts in her level to win a kiss from her favourite pop star, Jet Screamer, and Elroy has to find his way out of school after being kept behind.

The Jetsons works really well and recreates the cartoon to a tee. What annoyed me at first was the layout of level one. There are holes scattered about the most important screens so by making one wrong move I landed in a screen miles away from where I fell! With me almost tearing my hair out, Al Green came along, pressed a few switches and walked straight through the tricky bit with no hassle at all! Flippin' know-all!

Jetsons, The Computer Game is one of the first releases on the new Hi-Tec Premier range, which means it's more involved than a budget fame but not priced out of the range of many gamesplayers. There's enough lastability to justify a full-price release so you definitely get value for money - let's hope other software companies follow suit and bring down the price of their games to make it more accessible.

All fans of the cartoon series will be well chuffed with the computer game. It has all the favourite characters, a nice tune to sing along to and lots of playability! Pop down to your local interstellar software shop and download yourself a copy!

I truly sympathise with the Jetsons. Living in their luxury hi-tech world (pun intended) life should be sooooo easy. All they want is a nice weekend away, but they've got too much to do first; each member of the family has really got their work cut out.

The Jetsons is a real cutey. The graphics depict the cartoon characters very accurately and could have you in stitches at times. At the Premier range price tag this has just as much fun and depth as many of those games that leave you penniless for weeks on end (sad and desperate times, eh?). Not quite a Crash Smash, but fans of cartoony capers should be onto a winner.

Overall 85%
The crazy antics of the futuristic cartoon family come to life on your Spectrum.