Commodore User


Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
By Buena Vista
Amiga 500

 
Published in Commodore User #66

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Would you spend twenty-five quid on a piece of software if it offered you three short games in return for hours of disk swapping? Well, to quote the eponymous hero of Touchstone's film "Only if it was funnnyyyy!!!"

Of course, it isn't. It's very annoying. Expectations were riding high after I'd seen the film, which (getting a bit pseudy for a moment) is a watershed in animation. These were tempered though, by the knowledge, born of years of disappointment, that software is rarely funny.

Buena Vista's game is now on release in the UK (as opposed to half a dozen imports immediately snapped up by greedy journos) but before you rush out in a toon-inspired frenzy, check this. Roger Rabbit is a major disappointment. Whilst it delivers everything it claims in terms of "outrageous graphics and animation", someone has, as usual, forgotten to put in the gameplay.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

It takes six lengthy, painful disk swaps before you're ready to play the first of the three games. It's a car chase and involves Rog and Benny the Cab making their way across Hollywood to the Ink and Paint Club. You have to avoid oncoming cars and the puddles of deadly dip (fatal to Toons) which block your way. This soon becomes fiddly and repetitive.

Should you die in this section there's more disk swapping that simply reveals a picture of brokenhearted Roger. From here it's a matter of reloading the game virtually from scratch. Is this a Toontown joke?

Things improve little in the Ink and Paint Club, where you'll fight a losing battle against the penguin waiters. They come and lay the table at an extraordinary rate as you rush about collecting the napkins in the hope of finding Marvin's will. Two nice touches here are the way the gorilla will bounce you out the club if you come within arm's length of him, and the result of snatching one of the glasses of booze left by the waiters. Rog can't hold his drink.

It's another short drive in Benny the Cab (with the possibility of losing another precious life) before you reach the final section where the game redeems itself slightly. The weasels are lying in wait at the gag factory and the only way of killing them is by using the right gags on them. Yeah, so it's a platform game, but it's an improvement on what went before.

Roger Rabbit is a severe disappointment that relies for its appeal on some very pretty cartoon graphics. The sound though is weak, and although there are some sampled Roger sounds, they're weak and few and far between. Sorry, I can't recommend this - not even for a night with Jessica Rabbit!

Mike Pattentoon