Previous Next

Do you remember when practically all computer games featured comical little labourers with big caps and bigger noses, who swarmed up and down ladders brandishing spanners? They all had chucklesome names like Technician Ted and Miner Willy, and never seemed at all peturbed at finding their place of work swarming with peculiar mutant flying beings.

Well, if you don't, then never fear - Players Software has captured all the madcap mayhem of those halcyon days in Electrix, a tear-jerking trip down memory lane.

Electrix stars Murdock the Mechanic and, no, it's not set in Fortress Wapping, but in the Los Angeles Central Powerstation, which 'ruthless vandals' have sabotaged and 'all the electricity is slowly diminishing', as the inlay instructions so quaintly put it.

And - yes, you guessed it - Murdock, big nose and all, has to put things right again so 'Los Angeles can resume normality'. Visitors to LA might think that a rather tall order, but our flat-capped friend is not to be deterred, and off he waddles into the fray.

The LA power station is constructed from a number of uninteresting levels and ladders along which mutant electrical components buzz along happily. They've got amusing names like Sparx and Never Eddy and on contact with Murdock light him up like a firework. Whereupon he dies.

Electrix has one of the complexity and multi-levels which made those earlier games so popular, and the only variety offered by the game is that on higher levels the rampant electrical components come in twos and threes. The game is played out in shades of blue and grey, with a spark of colour whenever Murdock meets his maker. No great advantage is gained by playing this on a colour TV.

One of the redeeming features of the game is its speed. Murdock really hammers along those platforms. Unfortunately, even this aspect of the game is let down by unconvincing graphics.

Sure, it's reasonably difficult, but then so is picking your toes with your teeth. Otherwise it has no redeeming features whatsoever. It's about time that software companies realised that no-one's buying this bilge anymore, budget price or no budget price, and stopped cluttering up the store shelves with it.

Players is a new range of budget titles from the Interceptor stable. As such they are to be welcomed to the games scene.

The quality of budget titles has been climbing steadily all this year. In theory this competition should make the games even better as Mastertronic, Americana, Classics, Firebird, Creative Sparks and a host of other tiny companies compete for sales.

Players are going to have to pull up their socks quick though if they are to stay in the running.

To Players' credit, they have done something really neat that I don't see much on games these days - budget or full price - a game to play whilst the main program loads. Sure, it was nothing to write home about, but it kept me entertained far more than any title screen could however wonderful the graphics. Well done, Players.