BACKLASH

BACKLASH

What the world needs is more Willies and Wallies... so here's Max Phillips!

Max Phillips

Backlash believe-it-or-not; some kind inmate of Weston-Super-Mare has just opened a pub called "Jet Set Willy's". Weird or what?
    So okay, you might not have a clue where the game got its name but it doesn't half sound like fun. It's better than sitting in the Jet Set Willy night after night and still not knowing where in tarnation it got its name from.
    And even if you know it's one of the all-time Speccy greats, you still don't know quite where Miner Willy got his name from in the first place.
    After all, he isn't much of a hero. Sylvester Stallone has never donned a top hat and played him in a film. Willy's never hosted a chat-show, sung on the Band-Aid record, ridden an ultra-fast nuclear powered motorbike or strolled into EastEnders.
    But in the Speccy world, he's not only a hero, he's an idol. Star of two of the biggest games ever. A name everyone knows. A cult that most programmers would give their hex loader to have created themselves. For a while, Willy's programmer was a star too.
    We've had our Wallies and Sabre-men since but there's not been anything quite like him.
    How do you take a backstreet boy like Willy and make him into the ultimate working class hero? An almost completely brand-new type of game? Or superb programming, great graphics and sound? Maybe just a silly sense of humour. None of them are things that really ought to be that difficult to do again. And again and again.
    Yet no-one's trying. Instead, your average software house is into buying ready-made heroes. They're expensive but you get guaranteed success and stardom instantly. Just add a programmer and stir...
    We've got film tie-ins, TV tie-ins, pop tie-ins, comic tie-ins, cartoon tie-ins, book tie-ins, arcade tie-ins, tie tie-ins... you name it, and a software house is looking to buy the rights, parcel it up, hype it up and cream it off.
    Not that tie-in games are all that bad. Most of them hove got the latest in superb graphics and sound. Most of 'em are pretty and will take you some time to finish. Most of 'em have a few tricks that make it worth playing them. Most - but not all.
    And even the better ones are pushing their luck. Change the name and photo on the box, alter the sprites, move a few things around and it could just as well be a different game about a different hero.
    So while it might be pretty neat to see yourself as one of The Young Ones, as Dirty Den, Cobra, Rambo, Scooby or any of a hundred others, it's not really enough to cover up for the real problem with tie-in games.
    They cost money... lots of it. Around £7.95 a hit. And because you're paying for the name not just the game, that's a lot of pennies just for a pretty title screen and some words about someone who might be as famous as Sigue Sigue Sputnik in two weeks time.
    What matters more is gameplay. New games and better games. More playable versions of really boring oldies - even Master Mind and Battleships. Or cruddy first attempts at a whole new style of game.
    No-one could say that Elite was the most original of games - two golden oldies bolted together into one superb fantasy that's as famous and successful on other machines as it is on the Speccy. And while Automata's Deus Ex Machina may have been the most simple of games or New Wave's ID the most uninteresting, both tried new things and both were worth a go.
    Me, I got hooked on a cheapie from Americana by the name of Thingy And The Doodahs. What kind of a name is that? Who'd even want to admit they'd heard of it? Let alone wear a T-shirt with 'I'm a Doodah' on it. People don't even believe that it's called that - they think you've just forgotten what it's called.
    But I spent a decent sunny weekend going blind hobbling my way through it. Not at all original, not very funny. Graphics just about okay? But absolutely brilliant fun to play and utterly addictive.
    What we need is less of the imported heroes and some more of our own. If TV, films, pop, books, comics and everyone else in the world can produce their own stars, why can't Speccy games?
    After all, it's about time more than just the innocent by-standers in Weston-Super-Mare got to hear about the Speccy.
    Anyone pay good money to go see Jet Set Willy at the flicks?

Backlash pages on this site

1986 8 10 11 12

1987 14

Published in the December 1986 issue of Your Sinclair

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