The Blues Brothers
(Titus, 1992)

Jake and Elwood are playing a concert tonight, but the town sheriff remembers their previous concert, and has stolen their equipment. Now the Blues Brothers must find their way through five levels of platform action, collecting one item at the end of each level. You'll find crates which can be used to get rid of any enemies you encounter, and you can collect records as well; if you collect 100 of them, you'll get an extra life, but collecting a broken record means you'll lose 50 records. This is a really enjoyable game; the graphics are brilliant, even if the screen is rather small and everything is, well, blue. And of course, there's plenty of groovy music from the film of the same name to listen to.

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See how good you are at BMX stunts with this test of your skills. Among the six events are wheelie trials, ramp jumps, half and quarter pipes, a 'slow race', and finally, a tricks track where four judges rate your stunts. You've only got one shot at each event, and if you don't qualify, you'll have to start again. Most of the events can be mastered if you persevere at the game, and as a hint - you'll need to get a good build-up of speed to succeed at the wheelie trials. Apart from that, the graphics are standard and there's a really cool tune which suits the whole BMX thing rather well.

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This game also tests how good you are at performing tricks on your BMX. You're up against three other riders and have to complete each course before your time runs out. After the second course, you'll also have to perform a set amount of stunts to qualify for the next course. You'll need to collect spokes and cans of Coke along the way if you're to make it to the finish. The graphics are colourful and neat, and while there's no music, the sound effects do the job. However, the game seems to be too difficult - completing the first course is tricky enough, and the second one is almost impossible.

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It's a fight between you and the BMX gangs as you perform bunny hops, wheelies and backflips to shake off the enemy gang members on their BMXs, skateboarders and scooters. A meter at the bottom of the screen shows how far you've got to go to reach the next level. It goes back to zero if you're knocked off your bike by the enemy, which is an all too frequent occurrence - the skateboarders are extremely tough to beat. The graphics are awful and there are hardly any sound effects; it's a sorry excuse for a game.

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Take to the BMX track and complete three laps of each track within the time limit to be allowed to tackle the next course. You're also up against the computer, who is awful on the first course, but very good on the rest of them! A friend can also try and beat the clock with you. Even though I can't complete the third course (and there are seven of them in total), I still like this game a lot. The action replay feature is a neat touch, the graphics are good, and the music on the menu is stunning.

See also: BMX Simulator 2, Pro BMX Simulator.

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It's more of the same here, except that you're up against three other bikers rather than two, and either one or two players can join in. The courses consist of the usual obstacles, but sadly, this game is nowhere near as good as its predecessor. Your bike is far too hard to control and more often than not, you'll be flown off the track and into the rubble. In actual fact, the game is little more than a cut-down version of Pro BMX Simulator with only one set of courses, and it's even more difficult than that game.

See also: BMX Simulator, Pro BMX Simulator.

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Bobby Bearing
(The Edge, 1986)

Bobby is a spherical droid, and his five chums - Osborne, Boogle, Bungo, Bert, and Barnaby - are lost in a large maze. It's his job to find them and return them to where he started by pushing them along. However, the maze is huge and is filled with all manner of nasty traps such as switches, crushers, and black balls which will attempt to knock you out. The maze is viewed in isometric 3D and it looks quite good, although there are very few sound effects and no music. Nevertheless, this is a lot of fun to play, and exploring the maze is almost as much fun as finding the other droids.

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Bobo's in a prison and is trying to make his escape, but he'll have to complete some tasks first. Bobo's plans seem a bit awry to me - the five tasks, in order, are: serving soup to the other prisoners, peeling potatoes, helping the other prisoners to flee by using a trampoline, jumping to and fro on high-voltage wires, and keeping the guards asleep. The graphics and animation are marvellous, done like only the French can do them, and the tunes accompanying each task are nice, too. However, the tasks, though fun at first, become cumbersome after a while and you may lose interest. The game only comes into its own when you play with a friend and see who can get the highest score.

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Ah, Bob Monkhouse! This is a computerised version of the 80s TV show which was presented by him. It's a quiz game which also has an element of bingo in it; in each of the three rounds, you have to fill in certain squares on your bingo card, and the first player (out of four) to do this wins a prize. In the final round, the first player to fill in all the squares goes on to the end game, to win a holiday. Unfortunately, you don't really get to win all the prizes in real life. The graphics aren't bad and the game is simple enough to play, but the questions repeat themselves much too often.

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This game wasn't released in the UK until 1988. I can't understand why it wasn't released earlier, because the quality of the graphics is beyond description - how people must have gasped in awe of them back then! Erm, oh yes, the game... Bob Winner is on a quest to find a lost civilisation, and has to collect three keys which are being held by three opponents that he meets on his journey - two boxers and a gun-wielding cowboy. To fight them, Bob has to find the right object. There are only about twenty screens, but they all feature stupendous digitised backgrounds. The graphics and animation are without a doubt the best I've ever seen on a CPC, although the game ultimately lacks depth and isn't that big.

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