Originally released and developed in 1988 by Codemasters, Rockstar Ate My Hamster took inspiration from a headline in The Sun newspaper in 1986 that read "Freddie Star Ate My Hamster". The game featured a roster of fictitious artists based on the actual successful artists of the time. For example, Madonna becomes Maradonna and Kylie Minogue becomes Bimbo Baggings [Wait... What? - Ed] The caricatures of the game's tongue-in-cheek rockstars helped to make it a big hit at the time.

With that brief history lesson out of the way, I've hopefully set the stage for the recently released unofficial sequel - Rockstar Ate My Hamster Millennium Edition. What we have here is a mod of the original game that has fifty new artists added, again, all based on actual successful artists circa 2000-2020. Pleasingly, four out of the new artists were created by the game's original graphic artist Chris Graham, which adds a sense of legitimacy to what is essentially a hack of the original game with only visual changes.

Cecil and Clive have had enough of the theatre business and they're ready to tackle music management! Starting with a budget of fifty thousand pounds, your first task is to hire some talent and this is where you'll get to look through the fifty new artists with each costing a different fee; you can pick just one, or form a full band, but doing so will cost more.

After that you'll need to practise, which also costs money, then you'll need to book some gigs, which, if you play the numbers right, will allow you to make some money back. You can also try your luck at a publicity stunt and hope that you get a headline in the local rag, which will increase your popularity, and in turn, you can play larger venues, charge more for tickets, and gain the attention of a record company looking to sign-up new talent and get you into the charts. The only way is up!

Underneath the attractive exterior is a pure strategy game, dealing with the concept of finances and exponential growth, which is fine if that's what you like. The random element here seems to lie in the publicity stunts and the chart positions, as I could find no way to definitively influence the results.

The game's sense of humour is ageing now, over thirty years later, but the Retro charm is still in full effect. Unfortunately, this isn't enough to rescue what I found to be a very tedious experience, with too much time spent waiting for things to happen.

It's great to see a fresh take on this music management classic. There's some great music on the title screen but, sadly, the in-game sounds are lots of the traditional blips and bleeps. Graphically, it's very much like the original, save for the updated musicians.

The humour is still here though and that was always this game's biggest selling point. Some of the newspaper headlines you'll see are laugh-out-loud funny, which will keep your spirits up as your budding music career tanks due to the insane difficulty level (a hold over from the original, at least in my experience!).

Presentation 63%
A lovely new loading screen, and fifty all-new artists to look at, but the game is only available as a cassette image file at the time of release.

Graphics 70%
Welcome updates to a nice-looking game that's full of character, but you'll be looking at the same thing a lot.

Sound 65%
Sadly there are no updates to the sound or music. An opportunity was missed here.

Additive Qualities 65%
Building on your finances and your artists is fun once you get into it, but everything is punctuated by needless real-time waiting.

Lastability 64%
Careful management of your assets and perseverance is key, but can you stay awake long enough to get to the end?

Overall 66%