Previous Next

It is AD 2300. Earth has appropriately been renamed Crazee and the Conservatives have privatised the Royal Mail. The service is as slow as it was three centuries ago, and you control the main reason for this - a little fat person called Thing with a floppy nose and a waddling walk. He is defended by a small bouncy thing called Ball.

The object of the game is to deliver Ball to the melodiously named Dingalinger Overlord. Thing has to move around the 26 levels, find various capsules, remove the objects inside and combine certain pairs of them to complete ten tasks before the overlord reveals himself.

Thing either walks left or right, or moves between levels by means of a telephone book and a teleportation station cunningly disguised as a BT phone booth.

The overlord is a recluse and a spoilsport: He doesn't want to see our heroes and has mobilised his troops to protect each capsule. Ball does its stuff by shooting Dingalingers whenever they come close, after which the object can be extracted, examined and possibly taken - Thing can only carry five at one time.

There is a vast range of objects, two or three per level, ranging from useful ones such as extra ammunition for Ball, to jars of mustard, bottle openers and other oddities. Thing dies whenever too many Dingalingers hit him. They are difficult to avoid, as Ball's motion cannot be controlled and an accurate shot is mainly due to sheer luck.

The best thing about this game is the presentation. Good instructions, keyboard or joystick control, plenty of pull-down menus, bright colours which are OK in green, and a legible character set. The graphics are reasonable, but would have been far better if they hadn't been lifted straight from the Spectrum version.

Thing bears a remarkable resemblance to an old Mastertronic classic, Spellbound. In that game you also have to move about rooms dodging nasties and examining, picking up and combining objects to complete tasks.

Good to look at, but a pity about the gameplay, which you've seen far too many times before.