Amstrad Computer User
1st August 1985
Publisher: Datacom Communications
Machine: Amstrad CPC464
Published in Amstrad Computer User #9
Execution
Hello, what's this? A game with fast moving graphics requiring nerves of steel, not for the highly strung etc. Oh no, it's another Hangman. Yes folks, someone has taken the humble hangman and jazzed it up with the help of a marketing and graphics firm, and given it the old hard sell.
The only real difference is that you get vaporised at the end instead of being hung. If you get a letter wrong, a Star Wars type trooper marches on. When enough of them have gathered round, the star attraction (you) is shot at, gets an attack of the screaming abdabs and disappears in a cloud of XOR-ed graphics. They got everything else right though, the cassette has slow speed on one side and high speed on the other, there is a choice of colour or monochrome monitor and the options are clear and menu driven. The only fault I found was that you are allowed to delete non-printable characters (like the [CLR] key). This mucked up their screen formatting a bit. Apart from the minor difference in the method of dispatch, this is your usual hangman with one thousand words in it's vocabulary and not much else to offer except little men walking on to the screen.
Rather an over-enthusiastic cassette cover, I thought. There were lots of bits that have very little to do with a hangman. The authors of the game were so short on features that they stuck their necks out and mentioned large characters as one, and that is getting desperate! You can change the response times, word difficulty and (about the only novel feature) help levels for each player.
This bit allows you to have one letter given as a clue and an additional crossword-type clue for a 10 point penalty. Apart from this it is just a hangman, nicely executed, but just a hangman nevertheless with an enthusiastic cassette cover. If it is a hangman you are after, then this one is great, but if you are after gripping technicolour spritey stuff then I have no hang-ups about giving this game the chop.
Scores
Amstrad CPC464 VersionGraphics | 50% |
Playability | 30% |
Addictive Qualities | 10% |
Overall | 26% |
Scores
Amstrad CPC464 VersionGraphics | 50% |
Playability | 30% |
Addictive Qualities | 10% |
Overall | 26% |