Reviews

1984 Artic (UK)
by John Prince

An average and simple game, with influences from classic games such as Burger Time. Mr. Wong has to catch the dirty laundry scattered around his launderette and toss it into the cleaner.
Not an easy job though, because is working place is infested with possessed appliances that chase him around. His only defense is the use of starch, that will immobilize them for a few moments.

Nothing really new, but it takes quite a bit of practice to pass each level, so the challenging bit is present. I really liked the atmosphere, but only in the beginning. After awhile, being all levels similar in looks and the objective the same, although with a few more nasties thrown in, it tends to get monotonous.

What´s wong with Mr.Wrong´s laundry ? Well , I´ll tell you : repetitive game-play ...

2,5 / 5 .


Ps - misspelling is premeditated .

A proper museum piece. "Don't wing the wong number wing Artic now" implores the racial strereotyping full page advert, whilst Your Spectrum reviewers - 'Joystick Jury' suggest that the problem of the game being too easy with a joystick can be solved by struggling with the keyboard controls - not that these seem in any way terrible.
Mr W's LL is a platforms and ladders single screener, in a game strongly reminiscent of Burger Time, and which suffers from an over-reliance on luck.
You will also get caught turning onto a ladder if an enemy is near enough however artfully you run away.
FX, movement and use of colour are all either poor or flawed.
I did get a bit of fun out of this, mostly becuase the premise of Burger Time is fun even when you make a botched interpretation of its gameplay.

Notable only for the LOAD "" CODE loader - something to demonstrate my superior spectrum skills to my friend at the time.

I like the alliterative title and it gives me one of those warm reminiscent glows, but would I play it now?

No.

Basic one screen platform game set in an oriental laundry, your flickering sprite must pick up all the garments littered on the playing area, and drop them all, one by one, at the right top of the screen, so they'll be transported to the washing machines. All thise while chased by electric irons, soapy bubbles etc.
Of course each new screen presents an augmented difficulty, in the form of augmented number of chasers. You have a few shot of spray to immobilize them for a few seconds, when they're encircling or cornering you. There's really not much to do, and the game is far from spectacular, but sufficiently playable anyway.