A&B Computing


Yes Prime Minister
By Mosaic
BBC Model B

 
Published in A&B Computing 5.01

Yes Prime Minister

I don't usually review adventures - I'm useless at them and, anyway, we have an expert reviewer here at A&B. However, this computer version of the highly popular BBC TV and radio series (not forgetting the books) does slip into the area of adventures that appeal outside the usual tight-knit adventure world.

The game has all the humour and insight that made the characters of James Harker, Sir Humphrey Appleby and Bernard Woolley national favourites. You play the part of PM Hacker and you have one simple purpose - to keep your own standing high in the polls over five days of government.

To do this, you have a graphical office with semi-icons - you can move to designated places (Sir Humphrey's office, etc), answer the phone, check appointments, read the teletype, etc. How you respond to the randomly generated events determines your ratings.

It is a wordy game: there's no way of getting past that. Most conversations will eat up three or four screens of dialogue or analysis with your choice of actions limited to either choosing one of two or three options or whether to move around the various offices talking to different people. In that sense it won't really appeal to the real adventure fan - nothing too cerebral here.

However, the delight of the game is in the cynicism and accuracy of the conversations - converted to the BBC by Five Ways Software from a design by David Pringle, John Wood and Richard Yapp. There is a very real sense of the original characters created by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn and any fan of the series will feel instantly at home here.

Whether this will have a long life in your games playlist is something I've thought about for quite a while. In the end I think that the random nature of your five days of government and the ever-present humour will continue to delight you. A nice program; thanks, Mosaic!

Dave Reeder

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