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Bob Winner |
Copyright/Publisher: Loriciels, Author: B.Auré,
Music By: M W, Graphics By:
B.Masson, Release Year: 1984,
Genre: Fighting Sports, Number Of Players: 1 or 2
Android Zero, alias Bob Winner is off on a walking tour of the world, taking in
Paris, London, New York and the desert wastelands and swamps in between. His
destination is a secret temple. So secret is this temple that even Bob himself
doesn't know where it is or what he hopes to achieve by reaching it.
Still, every android likes a challenge, and Bob is certainly up against indefinable
odds. His arch enemy, 'The Other One', has sent out an army of French boxers with
'arrogant moustaches' who set about our hero in the streets of Paris.
On the other side of the channel, Bob comes across more boxing robots in the
grounds of Buckingham Palace and on the banks of the Thames. After crossing the
Atlantic, Bob meets his nemesis, for there stands 'The Other One', a pistol-packing
person who has an unreasonable desire to disconnect the plucky automaton.
Bob's defence throughout his global adventure, apart from his prodigious
agility, is his ability to change his appearance and fighting skills to match those
of any opponent. To do this he requires particular items which are often left
lying about the place and which, when picked up, allow Bob to kick, box and shoot
away at any foes until his energy, or that of his opponent runs out.
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Gordon Houghton |
Why anyone would want to pay a tenner for this uninspiring mixture of beat'em up
and arcade adventure is beyond me. The instructions are laughable: a combination
of poor translation and insufficient explanations only supported by the
decently drawn cartoon strip.
The digitised backdrops vary from being atmospherically hazy to horribly
obscrue: all are limp, ineffective and wishy-wishy. The main character is slow
and poorly animated and his opponents vary from ridiculous killer bees and
big, slow bullets to frustrating quicksand; the sound is simply inappropriate and
annoying. Everything about the game is weak, and I can't recommend it.
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Julian Rignall |
I can't think of many beat'em ups that are worse than this. Fighting is almost
instantly tedious since there are only a couple of moves, and the response to the
joystick is very sluggish. The difficulty level goes from one extreme to another.
Opponents are despatched with ease by pointing the joystick in one direction
and pressing fire at regular intervals. Then, just to make up for the lack of difficulty,
crossing swamps is made almost impossible by unbelievably tight collisions detection -
if you're a pixel out, Bob sinks slowly into the mud and loses a life.
The gameplay isn't the only thing that's bad: so are the graphics and sound. Loud
digitised backdrops and lanky sprites are accompanied by grating sound effects. The
poor presentation and awful title tune are the final nails in the coffin. If
Loriciels are going to make any impact on the Commodore market, they've got to
do better than this.
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P.G. |
Can this game have been as ill-conceived as the accompanying instructions suggest?
From blatant fibs about Bob Winner being 'a brilliant new game', they continue in
a most vacuous vein through to a cartoon strip, which takes a step up from
uninformative to confusing.
Nowhere (except in a publicity poster) is the player told that the objective is
to reach a secret temple. A secret temple? In New York? What is going on? Why does
waling between Paris and London take the player through a desert of quicksand and
giant wasps?
Why are all the digitised backdrops rendered in a three-colour wash? Why does
Bob look more like a tourist out for a stroll than an Indiana Jones type hero?
Why bother posing such questions when poor fighting gameplay and an overall silliness
will have your computer switched off before you can answer any of them?
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