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Jet Set Willy, the game all us C16 and Plus/4 owners have been waiting for, with excitement and anticipation. Will such a complex game like this fit into a much smaller machine? The answer is simply NO. Will, certainly not the way Tynesoft have attempted to do it!

You play the role of Manic Miner who has now become rich and famous. Joined the Dynasty set, so to speak, Champagne coming out of his ears, etc. And like all Jet Setter, throws a party in his clifftop mansion.

Before he can get to his room, his maid Maria makes him collect all the empty glasses placed in various rooms of the mansion. It sounds pretty easy and uncomplicated, but like all good mansions, there are endless rooms, each with their own little nasty.

During the conversion of this C64 classic, some drastic measures have been taken to squeeze the game into 16K of memory. For a start the sound is even worse than its prdecessor Manic Miner. There is only one sound throughout the entire game, and that is when you collect an item.

I do wish programmers would be a little more inventive in this direction. Even when you die, all you get is a quick flash of the border, a very poor attempt to catch your attention. An unworthy effort by Tynesoft given the C16 and Plus/4 sound capabilities.

Another major disappointment about this game is the actual playability. Movement is so bad I ended up playing the game on the keyboard. For some strange reason, Tynesoft have scrapped the idea of having 'fire' to jump and opted for 'up' to jump. Consequently, when you want to run and jump, you have to wrench the joystick into the top diagonals, making the game that much harder to play.

Also when Miner Willy moves there are occasional double images and characters overlapping, plus there are lots of bugs in the programming of the game. This resulted in my absolute confusion as to what is supposed to be happening. Sometimes when you lose one of your eight lives the game ends, and when you pass onto some screens it takes you right back to the beginning. This game is far too frustrating and expensive to make it worth playing.

A big disappointment to me. I was so looking forward to the release of Jet Set Willy on the C16, and I hoped it would be as exciting to play as Manic Miner. The sad thing is that, with a bit more time and effort spent, this game could have been as much a success as the original. The potential is all there. It has just been wasted.

My advice is steer clear of this one. It's a lot of money to pay for disappointment.