REPLAY
What can you say about the galaxy's least crumpety re-release column? Apart from, 'It's just about to start', of course.
Codemasters
£3.99
0926 814132
Reviewer: Simon Cooke
Look out - it's a Codies plot! Lardy (but getting leaner by the minute) Seymour stars in his latest blockbuster movie - Robotcop. He's waddled here to protect the innocent, hit the not-so-innocent, and lock up the downright nasty. Just a pity he's wearing a bobblehat to do it in. (Nobody can tell me that thing's a police helmet.) An almost fatal accident nearly forced the world's most famous Dizzy lookalike into early retirement. But we have the technology to rebuild him! (As they say.) Thanks to the miracles of modern surgery, bionic engineering and advances in crocheted bobble-hattery he's back on the streets, leaving large cracked paving stones in his wake. It's sort of the Six Million Dollar Man-Made-Out-Of-Lard. Lee-Majors-as-a-blob, really.
Jonathan gave this little corker 90% when it popped up as part of the Super Seymour compilation, and I have to say I agree with him on the question of its spankiness, though, of course, in an entirely non-crawly fashion. The basic idea of the game is to smash the thuddishly squishy bad guys against the walls using your sproingy bionic arm. That is, if you can find where you are when you start the screen. This takes a fair few minutes because you cleverly hide yourself in the background before each level comes up. Sort of like hide-and-seek really, but more pointless. Anyway, after this heavy-handed (ho ho) treatment from the long arm (ho ho again) of the law, the miscreants disappear into the firmament and leave behind a power-up to collect - one of either the fruit or weapon variety. These bolt-on boxes include short-range laser guns, R-Type-ish blasters that you charge by holding down fire and the like, while the fruit, er, gives you points.
Other bonuses are a brand new flashy bobble-hat which allows you to survive one bust-up, a handy-dandy coin that gives invulnerability for a short time, and a rainbow icon which speeds up both Seymour and his telescopic appendage (oo-er). (Blimey, it's been a while since we had one of those. Ed) (Oo-er. Thousands of YS readers). There's also a telephone on which to call the SWAT team, but it didn't do anything whenever I picked it up. (That's because you have to wait until it rings, you clot. Ed) Sometimes, instead of goodies, letters are left behind. If all of these are picked up, a special bonus stage with goodies aplenty is for the taking - but I'll be darned if I can get all of the letters, no matter how hard I try. (Gnash.)
In fact, a big 'gnash' all round for Sergeant Seymour. Well, to start with, at least. Picture the happy Spec-chum, a-sitting down to play. Fifteen minutes of getting killed on Level One later and they're carving lard effigies of Seymour and meaningfully pounding them flat with hammers. 'It's oh-so-incredibly hard at first' is a phrase I'd use if I hadn't done so already. Three lives are not enough! (Especially with multiple-hit baddies, and gun-toting outlaws that pretend to be stunned when they're not, scampering around.)
Thank heavens the programmers of Sergeant have used the special added ingredient of new "Addicto" (the unique bluey-whiteness addiction factor). Once the initial screams have died down, you find yourself persevering to get that bit further each time. And that's what counts, isn't it, readers?
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