Gargoyle Games
£7.95
Sweevo is a robot. Sweevo is to robotics what Castle Rathbone is to peace, calm and order. Sweevo is a walking disaster. Sweevo makes me laugh.
I don't know quite how they've done it but Gargoyle, better known for celtic bovver boy Cuchulainn and outer space saviour Commander John Marsh, have suddenly demonstrated that not only do they know what to do with an Ultimate-style 3D adventure - they can also do it with great good humour.
Certainly Sweevo himself helps. He's the runt of an E.T. litter, possessed of the wide eyed innocence that made Stan Laurel so hilarious. Then there's the nature of his world, littered as it is with cans, teddy bears and ton weights on fragile supports. And its inhabitants number goose stepping dictators, not to be confused with geese themselves or horrible little girls. But even if fools rush in where angels fear to tread, Sweevo has to hold back because the floors sprout strange Noddy characters and fingers which are likely to kill the idiot android in a most undignified fashion. And that's not to mention the fruit!
The gameplay adds to the charm though. The puzzles aren't always too difficult, though some are fiendish, but solving them calls for delightful applications of lateral thinking. And if this wasn't all good enough there's the attention to detail, those little touches that make even losing your final life and getting not the message 'Dead' but 'Deader', bearable. The game is ludicrously playable - over four interconnected levels that should take an age to map - and highly enjoyable. It also boasts the silliest scoring system going, with percentages, Brownie points, and bonuses.
Get Sweevo - it proves that even a Gargoyle can smile!
Spectrum & Amstrad
Gargoyle
Arcade Adventure
£7.95
It seems only yesterday that Ultimate suddenly sprang on an unsuspecting world Knightlore, and the term Isomarphic adventure was born.
Since then, there have been legions of Knightlore clones, including Ultimate's own Alien 8, which was probably the best of the bunch. It combined beautiful graphics, humour and fiendish problems.
Since then, the Ashby brigade have gone off the boil with their later efforts. So in step Gargoyle. Previously, known for their various Monty Mole games, Gargoyle has obviously decided to get into the isomorphic act. The result is Sweevo which brings humour back into the genre. The whole slant of this game is light hearted. The idea appears to be to have a good time rather than worry about any of life's pressing problems.
Theoretically, you are trying to rid a maze of all the various nasties which inhabit it; but, well, live and let live 1 always say. Anyway, you've got enough problems just getting around the maze. Oh yes, mind the fruit.
Often this sort of humour manages to fall flat on its face after the first few games, but this is a genuinely humorous game with a good sound track and nicely drawn graphics which put even Ultimate to shame.
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