Previous Next

Zut alors, he's back! Tin-Tin, the cute Froggie kid with the hilarious haircut and the little white doggie, is now the star of a computer game. So if you've seen all the cartoons a thousand times, your comics are a bit dog-eared and you still thrill to the adventures of Tintin, salty seadog Captain Haddock, the bowler-hatted Thompson Twins and the evil Colonel Jorgen, now's your chance.

A multi-part arcade adventure with some lovely graphic design, Tintin On The Moon smells like the start of a continuing series; certainly there's enough material in the hundreds of comics to provide ideas for computer games until the year 2500. Tintin On The Moon is one of the classics, and if the game isn't searingly original, it's a good guffaw and true to the spirit of the comic. Part one sees you steering your rocketship through a meteor storm, swerving to pick up yellow spheres (extra fuel) and red ones (bonuses which allow you to proceed to the next level when you have captured eight of them). Just when you're congratulating yourself on completing this level in about thirty seconds, you realise that you have to go through it between every level, and you get more meteors, and fewer spondules, each time!

The next section is a bit like Virgin's Dan Dare; set on the walkways and corridors of the space rocket. It sees Tin (as his friends call him) struggling to defeat saboteurs. Leap up ladders, leap down ladders, leap across ladders; collect fire extinguishers: squirt out fires; locate bombs and defuse them; find your captured friends and free them from the grip of the crazy Colonel Jorgen; and, most importantly, avoid being biffed by the ray-gun wielding thugs. If you achieve all these aims without running out of energy, it's back to the meteors before gaining access to the next area of the rocket - more fires, more bombs, more thugs.

In the last phase Tintin has to land on the moon, so it's not surprising that this section is a bit like those ancient Moonlander games.

Still and all, as I believe they don't say in la belle France, Tintin On The Moon is a nice-looking package; probably not challenging enough for gung-ho death-freaks, but a pleasant diversion for fans.

Jolly multi-level arcade effort with just a touch of garlic.