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| Welcome
to Game of the Week! Each week there will be a
new featured game on this page. The game may be good,
average or diabolically bad, it really doesn't matter!
Just look at the pics, read the text and enjoy the nostalgia!
:-) Game of the Week! is open to contributions so if you
would like to contribute
a game article for this page you're more than welcome
to! Every article we receive will be considered! |
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Nutcraka
1984 Software
Projects
Programmed
by ?
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text of the present article comes from the review published
in the fourth issue of the British C64 magazine ZZAP!64
(August 1985). |
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NUTCRAKA
Software
Projects, £5.95 cass, joystick or keys
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You
are put in control of a squirrel (called Cyril) and
you're just about to go into hibernation. You'll be
very hungry throughout your deep sleep, so you've got
to go round collecting nuts within the allotted time
limit to aid you through the long, cold winter.
Cyril
the Squirrel slides in unanimated splendour
through an equally unanimated scrolling landscape
in search of some nuts.
The
nuts are dispersed over a scrolling landscape of two
to three screens. There are eight different landscapes,
which count as levels, and they increase in difficulty
and slightly in size. The landscapes include trees,
mushrooms, and brick constructions with shelves which
allow Cyril to jump on them. The nuts usually reside
at the top of the tallest trees, so you have to leap
from plant to plant to get at them.
Just to make life difficult, several types of insects
trundle around the screen and are fatal to the touch.
Some are easy to dodge, like the ants and beetles which
crawl along the ground, but the bees and butterflies
fly about erratically and become a real pain to avoid,
especially when you're leaping through the trees.
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When I first saw this game (after a large number of
unsuccessful loadings and ploughing through the needless
and infamous Software Projects 'code sheet' (which is
huge), I thought that it was a version of the arcade
game Pacland.
In a way it is, but it's
an exceptionally poor one at that. Why Software Projects
have to have these great big code sheets beats me, especially
when the game behind is pathetic. The graphics are nicely
drawn but quite unanimated and the landscape is literally
tiny, it makes gameplay very limited and eventually
exceptionally boring, although the time limits are quite
tight. The graphics are quite nice but the animation
and sound is a real let down. Even the reasonably cheap
price doesn't justify such low quality.
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Presentation 36%
Lacking
in most modern amenities.
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What
an odd game! Everything scrolls along smoothly
enough and the graphics are big, crisp, and colourful,
but what a let down -- animation is virtually
non-existent on all characters including Cyril.
The quality of the sound is on a par with the
animation -- bad! A horrible screechy tune plays
throughout the game and is combined with little
in the way of sound effects. Gameplay is severely
limited, there's no variation on levels, and collecting
nuts is the only order of the day. There is a
reasonable amount of challenge if you can stomach
doing the same thing screen after screen.
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Graphics
60%
Nice looking and colourful but
where's the necessary animation?
Sound
19%
No sound effects to speak of, awful,
screechy tune which cannot be turned off.
Hookability
33%
Cyril's nuts are tough to grab
. . .
Lastability
21%
. . . but they ain't all they're
cracked up to be.
Value
For Money 35%
Cheap-ish for the 64 but still
hardly worth it.
Overall
22%
Might appeal to the very
young.
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Htmlized by Dimitris
Kiminas (7 April 2002)
Other
"Games of the Week!"
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