Bounder

Copyright : Gremlin Graphics | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Bounder is one of those games that will continue to be copied and emulated by developers everywere until the world explodes. The object of the game is to bounce your ball from one end of the level to the other while avoiding the falls and various nasties that litter the way through. Gremlin themselves called it "One of the most impulsive games you?ll ever play." well we?ll just see how right or wrong they are in our review.

Graphics

Also released for the 48K ZX Spectrum (that is the tiny one with rubber keys) the Amstrad CPC version certainly looked a whole lot better than the original, and so it should with more memory, better graphics and sound units plus a longer development time than that given to the Spectrum release.

There are plenty of colours on offer in the CPC version with a much more detailed playing area and a few more nasties to avoid, the game however still runs into problems as you spend 10 or more seconds waiting for the screen to scroll slowly up and reveal the traps in front of you. This of course results in a game that simply annoys the player and quite possibly results in the termination of the cassette it was recorded on.

Sound

Sound is at first pretty nice, a good bit of music to set the tone of the game. Sadly this is soon turned on its head as it rolls into the game itself and manages to quickly irritate the player. In-game sounds are basic and in most cases don?t exist, considering Gremlin are well known for good titles this is a little bit of a let down in our eyes.

Gameplay

As we mentioned in the introduction the idea of the game is very simple and it has been copied time and time again in many PD libraries, those with Amigas will know exactly what I am talking about here. Bounder was released at a stonking £7.99 which is way above budget level prices but the game itself didn?t offer anything the price promised and as for Gremlins Quote at the back of the box, well anyone that aggrees with that hasn?t been around for very long.

This is one worth avoiding at all costs.