You may have
guessed by now that I'm a bit
of a sucker for these 3D
Ultimate-style arcade
adventures, so you can hardly
expect me to be anything other
than pathetically excited about
this latest entrant from FTL.
Hydrofool, of course, is the
sequel to
Sweevo's World, and
like its predecessor it's
seriously weird. Poor old
Sweevo - all that battling
around the abandoned world of
Knutz Folly, and just as he gets
back home and settles down
with a bacon sarnie and a
video of
Moonlighting, the
Robo-Master sends him off to
clean out the Deathbowl.
Doesn't exactly sound a barrel
of chortles, does it? But then
Sweevo's hardly Brain The
Size Of A Planet material - a
pebble would be more more
accurate - and it's that or the
dole on Monday morning.
Off he goes to this gigantic
planetary aquarium and sure
enough, Sweevo finds all
manner of aquatic nasties
swimming around. Deathbowl
is so polluted that the only way
to scrub it out is to empty the
whole place of water - which
means pulling out four very
large plugs. You can do this
(once you've found them in the
labyrinth) by dropping nearby
certain objects, which may just
be lying around (and usually
guarded) or could be part of
something alive - which
therefore needs killing! It's
tough down there on
Deathbowl - eat or be eaten.
Like Sweevo, there are loads
of different levels (six, to be
sure) and four choices of
starting screen. You can rise
levels by jumping on a passing
bubble, and descend by
glooping down a whirlpool. The
bubbles are especially well
animated with a process called
Hydromation - very Gerry
Anderson - which, well,
animates bubbles. Sweevo
picks up oilcans to stop him
rusting, and as in his first
adventure, falls over and looks
sorry for himself when hit
rather than dying.
All great fun. The graphics
and sprites are all wonderfully
clear and well thought out, and
as usual with Gargoyle/FTL,
the design's immaculate. If it's
not a megagame, it's only
because in gameplay terms it's
just a little too similar to
Sweevo. But I love it, and if you
went a bundle over the original,
I'm sure you will too.
| Ratings given by other magazines |
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| Info supplied by the SPOT*ON database |
