Mind Games
£7.95
The idea of being able to enter your own head and literally collect your thoughts appeals to someone like me who spends his entire life drifting from one day-dream to another!
Our hero, Professor Storm, can't afford to day-dream - his big day is at hand. He's facing his important television debut, a lecture on geometric solids for the Open Polytechnic. The studio is hushed, the credits begin to roll and... panic!! His mind is a total blank. Only one thing for it - he has to get inside his own head and sort those stray thoughts out.
This isn't as easy as you might think. The Prof's brain is full of distractions: thoughts about ice cream, molecules, and other thingies get in the way, often reducing his IQ (life) level. While he collects the scattered formulae (in the correct order) all these distractions have to be avoided by skillful movement around the cogs and gears of his complicated brain.
Well that's the scenario. The game itself is another 'collect and dodge' multi-level arcade adventure, just substitute the platforms and ladders for wheels and cogs. The program is enjoyable and addictive. I often felt myself wanting just another go - the sign of a great bit of software.
The presentation is original I don't think I've seen the idea of spinning 'cogs' before, and the way the screen is drawn and characters animated (all beautifully done) all lend it a fair bit of style.
All in all, I found this game to be simple to play but hard to put down, the best Mind Games offering for quite a while. If you fancy tidying your brain, get Pie R Squared and you're on your way. One niggle though, it's a mite overpriced at £7.95. £4.99 would have been nearer the mark chaps!
BARGAIN BASEMENT
They're certainly cheap, but are they cheerful? Marcus Berkmann rootles around in the YS Lucky Dip...
Bug-Byte
£1.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann
An odd game, this, which never really found its niche on initial release - too strange for the general market, probably. Your task it to search through the inner workings of the mind - represented here by a series of touching wheels - to extract certain mathematical formulae - like πr2, for instance. If this sounds hopelessly dull or cerebral (good word, eh?), well it ain't. Symbols are to be found in the centre of the wheels, and you travel around the edges trying to pick up the ones you want in the order that you want them (you grab 'em by doing complete circuits of the wheels in question). There are hazards, including old little nasties that whiffle swiftly around some wheels' perimeters, and the whole is somehow quite addictive, in an odd, offbeat sort of way. But then the game's really only another collect-and-dodge multi-level arcade adventure in sheep's clothing - just substitute wheels and cogs for platforms and ladders. At eight quid, though, it did seem overpriced - but at two, perhaps it has found its niche at last? A neat little brainteaser.
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