Domark
£7.95
Take a block sliding puzzle and combine it with a popular satirical television show title. Now add an extra letter and you get Splitting Images, the first TV tile-in!
This ingenious avoidance of royalties hardly filled me with confidence. Nor did the blurb, burbling on about arranging the squares. Could Domark seriously be marketing a game as old-fashioned as this?
But begin to play the program and you realise its virtues. Dutch company Ernieware seems to have specialised in this sort of program and has added enough neat variations to create something new.
Put away all ideas of plastic puzzles and sliding squares around to create a picture. Instead imagine an arena with a store at the top left hand corner from where the picture sections emerge when you press fire. Three sides of the frame contain doors which are constantly opening and closing, and you can slide unwanted tiles through them to go to the bottom of the pile and re-emerge later.
There are also cracks in the wall, most of which flash on and off but one is constant. When a block collides with a crack it bounces back so you have to be careful with timing.
As you start to shoot sections of the picture from the store you'll find that corresponding squares are illuminated in a miniature completed picture to your right. You'll also find that non-picture squares emerge. Often objects associated with the person you're creating appear and if you bring me right ones together you score extra points. Arrange a collision between the finger on the button and the mushroom cloud and you'll bring about a cataclysmic bonus!
While you're trying to avoid crashing the wrong objects together you'll also have to watch out for bombs. These are neutralised by taps or can be kicked out of play through the doors, but whichever course you choose you've got to be quick because if the fuse burns down they'll explode and you'll lose a life. The same goes if you run out of time.
For some reason I found all this totally addictive, even though there's a tendency for bombs to appear in rather quick succession. Eventually you'll discover the technique to complete Ronnie Reagan within the time limit and you'll skim through Thatcher. But don't get too confident because more cracks appear in the wails and the doors open at a different rate. By the time you reach Alan Sugar you'll be panicking. Apparently Prince Charles lurks in there which makes me wonder whether we should really split heirs.
Not the most glam game of the year, but certainly one of the oddest and most unique. If tests of mental agility and strategy set against a tough time limit suit you then give these spitting images 'l'.
MACHINE: Spectrum 48K
SUPPLIER: Domark
PRICE: £7.95
In my opinion, Split Personalities is absolutely topping! It's fast, furious, and extremely enjoyable.
The basic idea, as Domark says, is very simple. Remember the strange little hand-held puzzles which preceeded Rubik's cube? Yes? You know, where you had to slide tiny plastics blocks left, right, up and down in order to make up a fragmented picture. Well, this is the basis for the game. You pull the pieces of pictures from the left hand corner of the screen, and shuffle them around.
Movement is a bit tricky, because everything moves so fast, it's tough to get to grips with the cursor.
Split Personalities is great.
Spectrum
Domark
Arcade Adventure
£7.95
This game belongs to that rare breed-of adventures which, at the outset, seem very simple to complete but in practice prove to be tricky. You have to form pictures of politicians, the Royals, pop stars and other famous personalities from the jumbled pieces of jigsaw appearing on the screen. A spinning cursor allows you to move off the screen to dip into a unseen store of pieces to place on the screen. Do not take too long, though, as the cursor will explode after a few minutes.
What makes the game really difficult are the items mixed with the jigsaw. They include diamonds, matches, pistols, bullets, dripping taps, flags and several other mystery items. You cannot finish the picture with those items on the screen, so to get rid of them you can either push them through holes which appear from time to time in the playing area or, better still, combine two to make a pair - e.g. pistols and bullets - and win bonus points.
Watch for the bombs which appear on the screen. Unless you get rid of them quickly they will explode and cause you to lose one of your lives. Once all the pieces are on the screen and all the unwanted items have been dealt with, all that remains is to move them into their correct positions to form the completed face before you run out o< time.
If you have seen the TV series, read the book and sung the song, you will probably enjoy the computer game as well.
Domark
£7.95
At last! A game from Domark that lives up to their publicity! Based loosely on the old picture puzzles where you slide blocks around, this program shows inventiveness and ingenuity, and by adding a time limit and other related factors they have created a fast, furious and fun game.
The basic task is to move pieces of a picture to their correct position on the main screen. This is done by positioning your cursor over it and 'pushing' it up, down, left or right until it is where you want it.
Other pieces of the puzzle which appear may have related pictures which, when paired correctly with another piece, will give you a bonus. For example a bullet goes with a gun.
There is an overall time limit so at first you tend to concentrate on getting the puzzle together correctly and ignore ignore the bonuses. As you improve these bonuses can boost your score greatly.
A further hazard is the bomb block which gives you five seconds to reject it or douse it with a dripping tap for more points. Pieces of the puzzle can be pushed off the board when sections of the side walls slide open.
The pictures are all of famous people, I got to see Reagan, Thatcher, Kinnock, Sir Clive, Alan Sugar and Price Charles before losing all three of my lives and after several attempts.
Considering this is not an animated arcade wonder, I found it very addictive, reactions have to be very fast and most importantly you have to think!
A marvellous combination of strategy, puzzle and reactions. The pictures are all recognisable and well drawn, control is sensitive and I found it easier using a joystick.
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