A HANDFUL OF HAMSTERS A ZENOBI SOFTWARE ADVENTURE (Emulated Spectrum Compilation - Available in all formats) Reviewed by James Jillians, played on the ST Cost œ2-99. Write to : Zenobi Software, 26 Spotland Tops, Cutgate, Rochdale Lancashire, OL12 7NX 16-Bit adventurers be warned - in this review we shall be venturing into a dark and mysterious ancient world, a place of such notoriously fiendish puzzles and madcap plot lines that many a PC, Amiga or ST owner fears to enter - the land of the Spectrum text adventure... A Handful of Hamsters is a pot-pourri of seven of Zenobi's best (and worst) spectrum games presented to ST, PC and Amiga owners with the help of their respective Spectrum emulators. The games all come from the dark and twisted mind of one of the most talented "Crusty Old Balrogs" writing for this format, Scott Denyer, with the help of his alter-egos, The Spud and Delbert The Hamster. The games range from the quite zany to the utterly ridiculous - do not expect to be able to rely on common-sense and clear-thinking alone for success. The games were all written using PAWS, a Spectrum adventure writing kit, and so have roughly the same style and presentation. There are no pretty pictures - you have to rely on your imagination alone to make some sense of the weird scenarios conjured up by the text. In each game, commands are entered in the usual VERB-NOUN way - you will never need to use instructions of more than four words long. The first thing many fast-typing 16-Bit owners will notice is how slow the input can be - it is very annoying to have to re-type commands commands because only 50% of the letters had been entered. The games contain puzzles in a range of difficulty levels - from the completed-in-fifteen-minutes game to the couldn't-even-solve- the-first-puzzle game. Mostly they require you to find objects and then decide what to do with them - there are no riddle puzzles or mazes and few which require interaction with other characters. Overall, this compilation would be better suited to the more experienced or naturally talented adventurer - I found it very tough indeed to complete most of the games and there were even a couple which I gave up on entirely. As a general point, I often found interaction with the game difficult. There are few (if any) messages for actions which are not necessary to complete the games, and the same goes for object descriptions. In the main, if you get a response you must be on the right track! This may be a problem caused by the lack of memory space in the Spectrum computer rather than a fault in the games' design. However, the games usually accept a variety of synonyms for each command, so if you are trying to convey the correct solution to a puzzle, you should have no problems with syntax. The following is a brief summary of each game, in order of enjoyability: DESMOND AND GERTRUDE: In probably the best game of the septet, your mission is to unite Desmond and Gertrude, two lovers who can never legitimately be together because Gertrude is a rich princess and Desmond is a lowly peasant. You alternately play the parts of Desmond and Gertrude by typing "SWAP" (that took me a while to work out because it is not in the instructions), with the ultimate aim of getting them both to a secret cave from where they can elope together. After Gertrude escapes from her room in which she is imprisoned by her father, both characters must plod around their separate bits of countryside, using the usual handy adventurer's items to overcome the many obstacles nature has put in their way. Although D&G is in effect two separate games, objects can be shared between the two lovers by throwing them over the big green wall dividing the two realms. Although quite short, Desmond and Gertrude was one of my favourites - the puzzles were challenging without being too hard, and I enjoyed the humour of the cleverly written text. Watch out for the ocean of red herrings though! BRIAN AND THE DISHONEST POLITICIAN : In this two-part adventure you play the part of Brian Ramsbottom, an inhabitant of the very small town of Lower Ruddleston. It is almost time for the local elections but there is something a bit fishy about this year's candidate. You decide something must be done, so you put yourself forward to run for office. But who would vote for a nobody like you? In Part One your objective is to convince ten Lower Ruddleston inhabitants to vote for you, by fair means or foul. Most of the inhabitants, including the postman, the cafe proprietor, the publican, the fishmonger..., have some problem or other so you can win their vote by solving it. Others don't have a problem yet, so it is up to you to make one! The game takes place around a big town - BATDP has the largest number of locations of all the games. Character interaction is limited to "talk to" and "give **** to" commands, but this still makes the game livelier than some of the others. The puzzles are original, fun and challenging but not too illogical. I wouldn't want to spoil the excitement of Part Two by telling you anything about it. (All right - I didn't get that far because I could only get nine votes in Part One!) This is one of the better games of the compilation, with the potential for many hours of fun. LARRY THE LEMMING'S URGE FOR EXTINCTION: Yes, you guessed it, in this game it is your job to help poor Larry the Lemming to bump himself off. The only problem is the huge inflatable rubber ring and parachute Larry seems to have firmly strapped to him, foiling his best efforts so far. Although this is a game of only a dozen locations and about as many puzzles, it is good way to to fill in half an hour or so. The puzzles are quite hard, but because as is only a small number of things to interact with, you get there in the end. STAR FLAWS : A spoof of Star Wars, the main joke being that the names of the film's characters have been changed to "humorous" parodies like Nuke Skyporker, Tobacco the Cookie and Daft Radar. The mission, of course, is to rescue the beautiful princess from the clutches of the evil galactic emperor who is tucked away deep inside his massive "Deaf Star" space station. Although the comedy is slightly questionable, the game is a fairly enjoyable romp. It is the only one of the games to incorporate timed response - ie, if you don't start typing quick you get zapped by stormtroopers. The puzzles are among the silliest and I did have one or two problems finding the right words. AUNT VELMA : In this game, your aunty is coming to tea, but you have locked the present you bought her safely away and forgotten where. This game is a frantic life or death struggle to find the lost gift before Aunt Velma arrives and subjects you to the full force of her wrath. This is a pointless space filler of a game, which should be completed by anyone with two brain cells to rub together less than fifteen minutes. Not very well written or presented, it detracts from the overall quality of the compilation and is not really worth playing at all. SNOW JOKE : This one location game has you stuck inside your car in the middle of a snow storm, with the doors frozen shut and the temperature rapidly falling. Your mission? To escape. Snow Joke might be quite interesting if you could actually use any of the items you find hidden in your car. The problem of not being able to do anything except what is strictly necessary to solve the game is especially aggravating when there is only one location. Surely it is not unreasonable when you discover a box of matches to expect to be able to STRIKE A MATCH, LIGHT A MATCH, USE A MATCH, OPEN THE BOX, REMOVE A MATCH or SET FIRE to something? RAYMOND PRINGLE'S QUEST FOR THE FABLED JAR OF PICKLED CABBAGE : I challenge any reader to solve even the first puzzle of this game. I tried for an hour or so to think of how to get rid of an annoying hamster armed only with an inedible meat pie, but had no luck whatsoever. ROUND-UP A Handful of Hamsters is definitely worth the œ2-99 asking price. You certainly get a great deal of quality adventuring with the first four games, and Raymond might even be quite good if you can solve the meat pie conundrum. The compilation offers plenty of challenging puzzles, good story lines and more than its fair share of oddball humour. If you can get used to the memory limitations and sluggish pace of an emulated Spectrum game, you will not be disappointed. - o -