2. RoboCop Although the Jet Set Willy enactment was jolly good fun last month, the final infinite death loop proved too much for Jon's mortal frame. In a desperate attempt to save his life, the doctors at Frenchay hospital tried something only ever seen in movies: drafting cybernetic parts onto what was left of Jon's body. Using only a roll of toilet paper, some blue-tack and lots of aluminium foil, they set about the pain-staking task of re-constructing the mortally-wounded journalist. Tense hours passed, but at six o'clock that evening Nathan and Jamie saw the fruits of the doctors' labour as it stomped out of the OR. Part man, part machine, all YS3 contributor and very shiny, the new improved RoboJon gave Nathan an idea for this month's Actual Reality… Level One: The Street (I) Starting in the road outside Nathan's house, Jon succeeded in fending off the waves of hoodlums and ninjas that Jamie had drafted in for the process, and soon bullet-ridden corpses lined the street outside his house. Nathan grabbed a chainsaw and tried to hack parts off the foil-coated officer's body, but was only met by a hail of gunfire and a number of critical wounds. As he crawled off to get first aid, Jon tucked into a nice jar of Sainsbury's Apple and Blackcurrant Baby Food to keep his energy up. Level Two: The Stand-off Grabbing the first lady to walk past (who turned out to be his sister), Nathan brandished a .44 and demanded that Jon let him go or "the dame gets it!" Aiming carefully, Jon decided to try something that had worked so very well in the film. With one shot and an accordingly pained expression on Nathan's face, it was onto the next level… Level Three: The Street (II) Deciding that enough was enough, Nathan cloned himself over a hundred times to provide a truly terrifying amount of hostiles, all shooting, kicking and chain-sawing their way towards Jon. Things looked to be going quite badly for our favourite cop as the foil developed a number of bullet-holes and scratches and many ninjas hobbled off clutching their feet and swearing in Mandarin. Then Jon discovered the three-way power-up and carnage commenced as before. With a triumphant "Robocop!" and enough life-sentences to put the occupants a small country in prison for life, he moved onto the photo-fit. Level Four: The Photo-fit Whilst Nathan was in casualty recovering from twenty-five separate bullet wounds in his left arm alone, Jon discovered the collection of noses, eyes, foreheads, necks and chins which he had carefully drawn and cut up beforehand. The process retained the ease of its electronic counterpart as Nathan had used different coloured paper for each face, and so there was only set of features which were the same colour as the original… Level Five: The Warehouse Having successfully recovered in the sixty seconds it had taken Jon to do the photo-fit, Nathan and a new generation of his clones moved into the docks at Bristol. Failing to find any warehouses that were open, they decided to use the SS Great Britain for the backdrop of yet another blood-bath. Nathan brought out the semi-automatics and chainsaws to no avail as Jon neatly disposed of each villain, carefully avoiding all the innocent civilians and 'accidentally' hitting all the journalists present. Job done, he holstered the gun and headed off for the IBM HQ as the SS Great Britain and her gory crew sank beneath the waves. Level Six: ED-209 Initially receiving a good kicking from the seven-foot robot which Jamie had meticulously constructed, the situation changed when it had a general protection fault and self-destructed in a beautiful display of sparks and exploding hardware. ED-209 OS'98 had not been a good purchase, then… Level Seven: The Office Block Much to the amazement of the still-present IBM employees and their managers, Nathan carefully hid himself behind every available pot plant and office door in an attempt to finish off the metallic copper. Needless to say, the blood trail in the carpet left no doubts as to where he was hiding or where he went after being soundly gunned in the chest. Only slightly dented, Jon twirled his pistol as he walked through the office block doors and headed off to the nearest construction site. Level Eight: The Construction Site Suspended a number of feet above the ground, Jon and Nathan proceeded to the penultimate stage of the game, Nathan sporting more plasters and bandages than a Boots first aid kit. He also got rather tired being shot off the scaffolding and having to climb back up again, a problem which persisted until Jon discovered the mega-gun. One shot left just enough of Nathan for Jamie to construct a new clone in time for the next level. In his absence, Jon made do with the assembled constructors, leaving smoking yellow helmets all over the place. As he was careful with the ammo, the ED-209 at the end of the level had just enough time to start forming an ancient Mandarin profanity before it was reduced to two legs which comically wobbled a bit before falling over. With a hearty "Robocop!" Jon cocked the mega-gun and wandered into the BBC building for the final showdown. Level Nine: The Final Showdown As he stepped out of the lift, being lovingly reminded to "mind the doors, please", Jon spotted his quarry heading into a nearby office. The door splintered as it bounced off the wall from a hearty kick to reveal the Nathan-clone holding hostage the first man he had come across (Michael Parkinson, as it happened). Fortunately ol' Michael had seen the movie and so was quite happy to fire Nathan on the spot before leaping to one side as Jon put a bullet through Nathan's shoulder. The Nathan-clone uttered a cry of pain… and looked up into the barrel of the mega-gun. Relishing every moment, Jon uttered the immortal words: "Thank you, sir." Spectators on the ground below heard the mighty blast of the weapon a few seconds before the Nathan-clone's body came flying out of a third storey window of Broadcast House, leaving a trail of smoke and glass as it plummeted groundwards. So, there we have the successful conclusion to another real-life enactment of a classic Speccy game. Jamie hurried about putting another Nathan-clone together for YS3 and cleaning up all the various corpses before the police could ask too many questions. As for Jon, the conclusion proceeded just as it had in the film as Mr. Parkinson quite incredibly asked: "What's your name, son?" Unfortunately, the foil wrapped around Jon's head had focused enough radiation and sun rays to erase part of his brain, and so he paused dramatically before declaring: "Fish McGubbins, ma'am."

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