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Wongo is a variant of the classic arcade game Hunchback. I was never really a fan of the original game but I have to admit that walking Quasimodo left and right along the walls of Notre Dame sure beat bouncing the pogo-sticked Comrade Wongo left and right along the Great Wall of China. Wongo has aged so terribly that, when I revisited it to write this review, I actually found myself feeling sorry for anyone who ever played it. And then I remembered... no-one actually did. This was one of the games that, as a youngster, I had in my collection... but I recall I never really "felt like" playing it then.

The basic premise of the game is extremely simple. You have to get from the left of the screen to the right of it before the "Bonus" (which is also a timer) falls to zero. Between you and the goal are numerous obstacles, mostly in the forms of 'gaps' in the wall which you must jump. In Wongo, however, the easy art of direction key plus return is complicated by a jump that's not so much an arc as a 45 degree ascent and descent. This odd angle means that, in order to safely sail over any cannonballs heading your way, you need to jump a long time before you would otherwise expect to.

The first screen features a stretch of wall and, with a bit of trial and error, jumping the moving items can be mastered. Unfortunately, we then get to screen two which requires you to execute jumps with such ruthless pixel-perfect accuracy that you'll likely decide after a few goes that it's just not worth the effort to master. At least, that was my experience in my youth and that is my experience now. It's just too bloody difficult to make any sort of progress!

What Wongo wants you to do is master the art of constantly jumping, whilst also managing to mentally calculate many other factors. Sadly, the constant bouncing and wabba-wabba noise of Wongo's pogo-stick is a constant distraction from this. Indeed, I think it's an impossibility for most players, which means an inevitable blip as something strikes the pogo-ing hero, and one more Wongo down.

This game needs concentration and patience by the bucketload. To sum up play in one sentence: You need to wait (and wait) for that *exact quarter of a second time slot* when you need to jump right to reach a moving platform, and then you need the same presence of mind to bound off it and land safely on the wall.

To be fair, the graphics are ok (despite Wongo flickering a lot), the responsiveness of Wongo is good and at least the author did have a go at an opening riff. It's just a shame that these don't really compensate for a game that is silly, unambitious and a total bastard to play. If you haven't been dissuaded by now, note that it has twelve screens in all and the last one is one of the hardest things I've ever had the misfortune to encounter in my whole life. I did complete it eventually though (with the use of emulator save states!).

Originally released by Icon, Wongo came in a black, bubble clamshell box but this version has become harder to find over recent years. Later, slightly different versions appeared on the Audiognic Power Pack and the Summit Triple Games Pack 2 compilations. Expect to pay around £5 for the standalone version or £2-£4 for the compilations.