Asterix and the Magic Couldron

Copyright : Melbourne House | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Asterix was and to some people may still be an amusing comic book hero who lives in the times when Romans conquered the place and just about everything you did could land you in jail, rotting with the rats. This isn?t the first computer game conversion of the comic book as it was also featured on the Sega Master System and a couple more times on our beloved CPC.

Graphics

This incarnation of Asterix is no doubt a good looking version with some nice colours and pretty well drawn characters on offer but it?s not without it?s flaws and in this case it?s got quite a few to talk about. First of all the animation of each character is limited to what looks like 4-5 frames, baring in mind that to even come close to proper walking animation you are looking at 10-15 frames at least, It?s not very accurate at all. You?ll also notice that when you walk in front of any solid object (other characters in the game) that Asterix isn?t a transparent character, meaning that he leaves a solid block of colour around him when walking about the level - not good and something that no doubt could have been fixed. Then last but not least you?ll also notice the game is painfully slow and suffers from a refresh problem every now and again, the only way to explain this to you is if you take a look at the game for yourselves but it?s not impressive at all.

Sound

Sound is something of a bonus though as we?ve been told the Asterix series is pretty lacking when it comes to audio, it?s nothing to get excited about with just a few thuds and squeaks here and there but if what we hear is correct - Asterix fans should be glad they have something to listen to at last. We still say that you could turn the sound off and not miss anything though.

Gameplay

Because of the bugs the game contains which make it ugly and slow it?s not going to keep you playing for very long. The game isn?t actually written in English, well at least the version we were playing wasn?t so without a background story your going to walk around the village for sometime wondering what the hell you are supposed to be doing.
The controls are less than responsive, keep your joystick pushed in one direction too long and Asterix will simply stop moving until you let go of the joystick and push again - this is also true for those that use the keyboard to emulate the joystick. There?s not a lot of action going on in the game either and nothing to really entertain you or keep you playing past 5 or 10 minutes let alone the many hours it?s supposed to take to complete the game, we would say avoid this title even if it does like fun - it isn?t.