Doing Battle With Who Dun Pong

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There often comes a point, when reading the description of a game, you know that the program itself is going to be disappointing.

Woks has a mercifully short description on the cassette inlay card, but a tortuously verbose introduction at the beginning of the game. Here you are told that the tyrant emperor Who Dun Pong (yes, I'm afraid so) has hidden a number of woks in strongrooms in the palace to stop his people getting fat.

As if you haven't already guessed, your job is to find the woks, avoiding the guards on the way. And it's a race against time, with bonus points for those who finish each screen quickly. This is all described for you in text that might amuse the very young, with its tedious swapping or Rs and Ls - but if I was Chinese I would find it insulting.

The game takes some time to load in, especially when you consider what you get at the end of it. The reason is probably all the dispensible text. Once you've read it you find there are still more files to be loaded.

When finally you do get to it you're faced with yet another platform-type game. The graphics are hardly world-shattering but pretty enough. The movement of the figures I found a little jerky, however. Also the character you control does not respond particularly well to the keys.

While on the subject of keys, I found the choice rather cumbersome. Why isn't the player allowed to choose the keys?

In the end, I decided the people are better off without their woks. The emperor was probably right - all those greasy noodles are undoubtedly bad for them. Oh, and by the way, the game doesn't work on the Master.

Steve Mansfield