Personal Computer News


Cat Walk

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

 
Published in Personal Computer News #086

CAT WALK

Spectrum games are getting better by leaps and bounds. This one makes the Spectrum look like a Commodore 64, its graphics are so good.

If I say that you start the game with nine lives you'd probably guess that there's a cat about and you'd be dead right.

Your task is to take Snooky out for his nightly prowl, gobbling mice and birds, looking out for tins of cat-food, and steering clear of dogs and humans. Control is configurable, left and right, up and down, and not jump but pounce of course.

Cat Walk

The first scene is the garden. Here two brutish black mastiffs patrol from left to right and mice scuttle about. Contact with the mice is what Snooky's after, but the dogs are best left alone. You also have to dodge a veritable hail of domestic debris that flies out of the windows of the red-brick houses at the back of the picture. Take out all the mice and it's on to the building site and a different diet.

Here we're into a lift and platform scenario. The construction work is shown as a system of girders, and some cleverly animated brown birds flap and strut about. Watch out for the workmen. They climb rapidly from one level to the next and take strolls about each level.

At the centre is the hoist, and Snooky has to leap onto this to get at the tasty morsels in the upper reaches of the building. Don't fall too far or it's curtains for you.

Cat Walk

The graphics are fairly simple, but incredibly well done - very clear, good choice of colours and very well animated indeed.

The only criticism I have is that when Snooky pops his clogs and floats to the great feline rest-home in the sky, much of him seems to get left behind - still I guess it's his spirit ascending, complete with catty halo.

Still, it's not a bad game for the money.

Bryan Skinner

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