Oooh! What a naughty boy! Phil South administers a well deserved spanking to the world's naughtiest boy, Jack the Nipper
Game: Jack The Nipper
Publisher: Gremlin Graphics
Price: £7.95
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Cursor
Keys: Z-Left, X-Right, O-Up, K-Down, 0-Fire, 0+Direction-Fire, H-Pause, ENTER-Enter Door, 1&2-Put In Pockets, O+0-Jump, Q-Quit
We know you. You're a nipper at heart, aren'tcha? You little weasel! What wouldn't you do, eh? Given half a chance you'd be nipping around town causing trouble. Nah, don't you look at us with those baby blue eyes, you don't fool us. You'd like to play a game called Jack the Nipper, the tale of the naughtiest boy in the whole town.
One evening, when his mum and dad thought he was fast asleep, Jack fell against the side of his cot and bingo, it was open. He was freeeeeeeee! Now all he had to do was get his trusty peashooter down from its shelf and he could sneak out and cause lots of lovely mischief. Heh heh heh.
Having procured his 'shooter and made it as far as the living-room the problems of getting around town become clear. Being such a notorious nipper, everyone recognises him and, if they catch him, they give him a good smack. Every time he gets a smack (and this is a natural reaction, and I should know. Never mind how!) he wets his nappy to bring on the old nappy rash. Once you reach a certain saturation (yuk!) of 'rash' you lose a 'life' - or to put it another way, change your nappy. You've only got five nappies so you have to box clever to avoid any close encounters of the... er... spanking kind.
Throughout the game there are over twenty naughty, nasty, evil, not to say devilish, pranks, japes, wheezes and plain dirty tricks. You can send the launderette into a spin. You can glue up the teeth in Gummo's Munching Molars. You can even put a sock in it at Hummo's Socks, or put a credit card in it at the Bank. And frankly, scaring the cats at the Police station (and the other places they can be found) is a hooting good way to pass the time.
So, what's this nipper got that other game lack, hmm? Well, for starters the game contains surprisingly bright and loud sound effects of genuine arcade quality. The graphics virtually leap off the screen at you. All the characters are nice big, well masked sprites, which avoid attribute foul-ups the sensible way, by having mostly one colour throughout any one scene. And the graphics have that comic book look, but not your American superhero type, more the Beano and Dandy style. The Bash Street Kids are back!
Jack The Nipper will be a confident hit I'm sure, bearing, as it does, all the hallmarks of a lasting favourite.
Heh heh heh.
BARGAIN BASEMENT
He's chirpy and chatty, he's the chap with the cheapies, he's Marcus Berkmann, and he's back with a meaty BARGAIN BASEMENT.
Kixx
£2.99
Reviewer: Marcus Berkmann
Gasp, this goes back a bit. It's a fair old time, in fact, since the sequel to this ripsnorter, so it must be ages since the original. When you bear in mind that there was a cartoon series running in YS based on Jack The Nipper before T'zer became Editor (in the long, dark days of the Cox regime), you begin to realise that this is one seriously old game. It's good stuff, though. Jack's tired of all the wimps in his town and their goody goody ways, so he sets out to cause mayhem. It's up to you to make sure he's as naughty as possible without being caught and given a damn good spanking (ouch). So you must jump on things, pick them up, use them, drop them, fire at things with your peashooter and toot the horn at the cat. Every time you do something relatively naughty (and it's up to you to work out what you should do to whom) your naughtyometer goes up. That's it really - there's great fun to be had as you run around creating havoc, although the game structure isn't perhaps as tight as in the sequel. Graphics are impressive, with a neat sense of perspective, and the whole is fast and furious. Overall, a bargain at three nicker, sow what are you doing sitting there? Go buy it.
Various
Gremlin
Arcade Adventure
£8.95
As all good boys know, laws are made to be broken. Working on that basis, the latest Gremlin release, Jack The Nipper, is an anarchist's delight. You play Jack. He is tired of all his pathetically weedy friends and decides to have some real fun. Unlike most nappy-clad children, Jack's idea of fun is not playing tag; he likes causing as much grief and despair as possible and he has a great talent.
Jack The Nipper is set in the area round his home. Each house or shop is depicted differently and each contains different objects, collectable or otherwise.
Once the game has begun, Jack must first find his trusty peashooter, which thankfully is nearby. By shooting various people, including the dog, cat, mum, dad, and everything else which moves, you soon discover the naughtyometer.
As with many of the earlier arcade/adventures, you are scored by percentage. Each activity you manage to disrupt has a different degree of naughtiness and they all total to a final percentage.
On the other hand, making contact with any of the other characters, and especially those whose lives you have disrupted in one way or another, gives you a serious case of nappy rash, which eventually becomes terminal. When you have lost five lives your overall percentage is given, together with an evaluation of the game, which ranges from Weedy Wimp upwards.
Both the animation and graphics are excellent. All the characters are well-defined and all the objects are easily distinguishable. To add to the game, there are two secret platform games hidden inside, one of which is fiendishly difficult.
Once you have appreciated the idea, everything about the game falls into place. No longer do you just smash things? No, nothing is too disruptive for Jack, as the police soon discover. This brings out the worst in every wonderful child - or adult.
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