Previous Next

Great idea for a title, a cancer-causing weedkiller dropped in Vietnam. Could have been a bit more subtle, but most other weedkiller names are trademarks of someone or other. Why weedkiller? Does this game have something against the Ed ? Nah, it's a semistrategy game for space-faring farmers:

Ahrr well, see, thur almost be a strategy to it. You have this gurt big Mother Ship, an' a whole flock of weeny Daughter Ships that goes flittin' roun' the univerze ('bout eight planets) planting yur zeed and harvestin' yur crop in. The Mother Ship stays put an' yur Daughter Ships goes round loik little tractors.

They enemy wants most to put a cozmic twelve bore behind yur rear, an' only thing to do be to shoot back at they with yur own. Don't seem to run out of cartridges fur the shooter, neither.

Them furriners be growin' a ztrange sort of crop too.

Funny stuffs, b'aint even fit fur zilage-makin'. Plenty o' weedkiller, that's the answer. All yer got to do is grow eight planets full o' zeed, Meanwhile, if yur flies yur ship low, an' fires yur shooter, that ouht to keep the weeds down a bit.

Harvestin' in these tractors is easy as steppin' in a cow pat. All yur do is file over the ripe crops, an' it's all hoovered up inzide. Mustn't overdo it, 'cos if yur do, yur tractor falls out of the sky, bein zumwhat overloaded.

When thur's enough crop to sell, ye can trade with zity types on yur home planet fur better ships an' bigger twelve bores.

Anyways, after eight of they planets, yer end up with a real good fast ship, an' get the chance to rip off some o' that new-fangled weedkiller bike what the other gaffers use. Thal! make ye very poplar with the rest o' the univerze, and yur EEC subzidy moight even go up.

Whenever I get a game for review I try to think whether I'd buy it, This is a game I'd never have taken off the shelf. Why? Because A n' F haven't produced a good game since Chuckie Egg and the packaging is dull.

If this had been the case I would have missed out on a great game. Challenging, absorbing and fun. If Argus, who own A n' F can do some work on packaging and razzamataz then this will sell and sell.

The programmers seem to have hedged their bets with this one, a bit of scrolly shoot-'em-up, a bit of trading and some strategy. That's what made Elite a success and should do the same for this.

Now I'm not saying that this is the next Elite but it does allow you to get into the part. The Mode 1 graphics are pretty good, and the ship control fast enough. Overall a surprisingly good game.

Just what I can do with; a shoot-'em-up game, with a bit of strategy. Nothing too straining on the grey matter, but enough to get me to load it up more than once.

The graphics were a bit plain, but clear. Much in the same way as Highway Encounter was. The amazing thing about this game is that it uses the Game of Life, previously thought only to be of interests to philosophical hacks, but used here as a way of growing the crops.