The Official Father Christmas Game - Alternative - 1989

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	And now in our Christmas games we come to the officially sanctioned product. It's not the place of this magazine to ask just how The Official Father Christmas Game is actually, well, official, so we, er… won't. OK then. So I don't know if Father Christmas himself oversaw the development of this software by the boys and girls at Alternative, but it is by far the best of the bunch. OK, that's not much of a compliment given Santa's Search and Santa's Christmas Capers, but it's a leap in the right direction. So what's the game about? Well, the action's split into three levels, the last of which has a number of sub-levels as you distribute the presents… but I'm getting ahead of myself.
	It all starts out innocently enough with Santa needing to collect the parts of his sleigh on level one. This involves running around his multi-roomed house looking for said pieces, which appear one at a time. Having found it, it needs taking to the slight site out the front of the house whilst avoiding the little elves that randomly run through the rooms. If they touch poor old Father C, the sleigh piece is transported to a random room and must be re-found. With the sleigh constructed, the player has chance to put their six-item Christmas list together for Santa, who must then catch the relevant presents as they fall from the top of the screen in level two. The final level, number three, is spent dropping presents into chimneys in different continents (hence the sub-levels). Get six presents past the speeding clouds, birds and planes into the relevant chimney in each continent, and Santa can go home for a well-deserved cup of coca as Christmas continues as it should be. The whole game is played under a time-limit before dawn comes, but it's so generous as to be immaterial.
If you're thinking it all sounds rather simplistic, it is, and in terms of difficulty it's no Jet Set Willy. But let's say it's a game for the younger members of the Spectrum community and it stands quite proud in its achievements. Santa is eminently controllable and the game possess a fair bit of variety over its three levels and each type of gameplay is pleasant enough. And, dash it all, it's fun. You really hate those pesky elves as they take parts of the sleigh, feel satisfaction as the vehicle slowly forms before your eyes. It's great to compose your Christmas list and grab the presents, and dropping the parcels into their chimneys is tricky yet compelling as you miss that cloud by an inch to have it knocked out of the way by a bird. But you WILL deliver those presents… you must! So many children over the world rely on you to do so.
And this is where the game truly succeeds, in making you feel an integral part of Santa's journey from getting up on Christmas Eve to delivering the presents to their rightful owners before dawn on Christmas Day. It feels like a hard day's work, but with the satisfaction of a job well done upon its successful completion. Of course, there are bad things about the game, too, such as its sheer shortness and little-kiddies gameplay, inside of which level three seems a bit too tricky. But that made me feel like a little boy at Christmas again, excited about the coming presents in the morning, and if it's actually fun, who's counting?

Graphics: 79% Large, fairly colourful sprites and backdrops. A bit empty and the animation's funny, but it's all clear. Sound: 44% Intelligible title tune of "Jingle Bells" but the sound FX are rather sparse. Gameplay: 87% The game's strength: it's actually fun to play, especially at Christmas. Gamelife: 39% It's very short (you'll probably finish it on your first go), but it's fun-ness warrants some replay. Summary: It's really good fun, but incredibly short. Sigh. But it plays well, so give it a shot this season. Jon Hyde

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