Personal Computer Games


Travel With Trashman

Author: Bob Wade
Publisher: New Generation
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Personal Computer Games #14

Travel With Trashman

British rubbish is no longer good enough for Trashman and he is now jetting round the world cleaning up after everybody else. He starts his wanderings in Britain with £250 and a choice of three affordable destinations. These are Paris, Madrid and Munich all of which are marked on a world map, your choice flashing vigorously.

Paris is the closest destination and costs only £100 to reach. Once there, you are placed in a street cafe packed with tables, people and four waitresses running around. Your job is to pick up the green frogs (looking remarkably like a single pixel) which are hopping about.

You score points and gain cash for each frog caught but lose cash if you leave too many lying around or bump into a waitress.

Travel With Trashman

Once you have got all the frogs, you need to get to another city. If you don't have the fare then you are stranded.

There are destinations all over the world and those further afield like Australia, the USA and Africa take a lot of cash to reach. Flying to a new city gives you another task, which will take the same general form as the first one, picking up a number of objects in a single screen.

Control is difficult, especially in the beer hall in Munich, and the fact that you travel slower than everything else is of constant annoyance.

Travel With Trashman

The real lasting interest of the game is the attempt to explore the whole world rather than the challenge of each individual screen. Some of the scenarios are quite imaginative, others a bit cliche'd.

In Madrid you face a deadly threat as you try to collect roses in a bullring. The bull is less than happy with your presence, and if he touches you with his horns you'll meet a grisly end.

The game isn't as rivetting as the original Trashman but there is still enough action to keep me garbage grabbing.

Steve Cooke

Travel With Trashman

For once a company has managed to bring out a game that is, in my opinion, inferior in every way (including graphics) to the one before. I reckon that takes some beating.

Half the problem of course is that this game has a lot to live up to. If you've never seen Trashman then you may not be too disappointed by seeing him on his travels. I quite enjoyed the game, but was irritated by the long delay every time you lost a round and the amount of time you had to spend on each screen doing the same thing.

Peter Connor

The graphics in particular were disappointing, with stick-like figures rushing around the screen. There's a tedious interlude between each journey, complete with annoying music.

Chris Anderson

Trashman was genuinely original; the follow-up is a disappointment. At first glance, it appears to offer more with so many different locations. But each is just a single screen in which you indulge in the hackneyed game idea of collecting objects while avoiding nasties. Yawn.

Bob Wade

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