Infogrames/Brian Beuken
£9.99 cass, £14.99 disk
For 17 years BoBo has been in a prison called Inzeeslammer. He keeps trying to escape but is always recaptured. Up to five people can play Stir Crazy, and the first decision is whether to play each of the five levels separately or all together. Then enter the name of the players and prepare to go Stir Crazy. Level one is a slice of prison life with BoBo in the canteen feeding fellow inmates as they appear. Equipped with a ladle and saucepan full of soup, he must make sure no plate is empty if he wants to avoid extreme nastiness!
Next it's into the kitchen to peel potatoes. BoBo is seated on a stool in front of an ever growing pile of spuds. As he picks one up a representation of it appears bottom right of the screen to check it is peeled properly, if not it is thrown back. The level ends when BoBo either peels all the spuds in the pile, or he is burled by them. Level three coincides with warders' break time, and the inmates of Inzeeslammer take the opportunity to go over the wall - with BoBo's help of course. As each inmate leaps from a window our hero pushes a trampoline under them in an attempt to propel them over the wall until all including BoBo escape. Level four has BoBo running along three electrical wires avoiding sparks and electrocution!
Unfortunately the final level sees BoBo recaptured and back in his cosy prison cell with five bunk mates. They snore loud enough to wake the dead, and BoBo creeps around the cell gently trying to poke each offender into silence. He must watch the chamberpot, if It's kicked over too often the noise wakes the sleepers.
Stir Crazy with its cartoon style graphics is fun to play for a while, but sadly there is really very little to do, so tedium soon sets in. My favourite section is the spud peeling, the look on BoBo's face as an unpeeled potato is hurled back at him is a classic. Each section contains some fun, but the action is limited, ultimately leading to boredom. Snore.
MARK [62%]
Games from across the water (France to the rest of you) have often not been too hot, and Stir Crazy featuring Bobo falls into this category. Apparently Bobo is a big cartoon star in the land of garlic, snails and frogs' legs: all I can say is I hope they never show it over here. Various cartoon scenes have Bobo performing comic capers to get a high score. These wizard japes include riveting things as peeling potatoes and poking prisoners. Not exactly hysterical. The strange thing about this game is that even if you don't do well and complete a stage, you go on to the next anyway. This takes away any surprises the game might have had in store. Downright daft! Stir Crazy featuring Bobo is graphically very good but has hardly any playability. Disappointing.
NICK [63%]
All information in this page is provided by ZXSR instead of ZXDB