Personal Computer News


Billy Bluebottle

Author: Bryan Skinner
Publisher: Power
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Personal Computer News #086

BILLY BLUEBOTTLE

Power Software is a new company, and if Billy Bluebottle is representative of the standard of the company's games, you'd do well to ask Santa for a sackful.

The game boots up with keyboard/joystick options, but not just a simple menu - the keyboard and stick are drawn, so there's no confusion. Above these icons are three flags, you can select English, French or German, each of which changes the prompts.

Into the game then, with you operating the flying hero, Billy. The scenario at the first screen is a cross-section through a house and in the basement is a fly, trapped by a rising tide of water. Your first task is to rescue the winged beastie from death by drowning. You start on the third floor, brick walls terminate the corridor, fly paper hangs between the green telephone and the yellow vase of flowers, and to cap it all there's a bloke strolling up and down spraying fly spray.

Billy Bluebottle

Being supernatural you can push the fixtures and fittings around and temporarily disable the pest control officer, which is just as well as his spray tends to hang around for ages.

On the top floor there's a blue desk, a green kettle and a pot of mouldy old food - just the job to keep a fly's strength up. The trouble is, landing on it skips it down to the third level, so it leads you a merry dance in search of sustenance.

The graphics are extremely well done - no attribute problems here - and the action's smooth, with the exception of the lift which is a bit jerky. Pity the sound's limited to beeps and chirrups. There are several neat touches - like Billy's colour cycling through the rainbow when he bites the dust, which in my case was every few minutes. It's a very tricky little number, frustrating and so well done that I think I'll just have one more go...

Bryan Skinner

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