UTTER TRIPE
(Jonathan Cauldwell, 2011)
This game is heavy on the humour… and the magick. The inlay contains a tall tale about a sorcerer inviting all ‘tripe underwizards’ to the fiendish ‘trial by cobblers’. In other words, a load of deliberately rubbish mini-games. But are they bad in a good way, or do they just make you want to cry? Your thoughts, gentlemen?
Dave: "There are absolutely HOARDS of mini-games packed into one... Ace! It has the vibes of Bishi Bashi Special on the Playstation (though a bit less bonkers). It’s got a good difficulty curve – I’m fairly quick on the old keyboard but things get frantic as the words get longer. It can be challenging to read certain text when things start moving very quickly, but I didn’t get frustrated at any time. Anyway, turns out I’m great at spooling… err… spelling… doh, I’m out of time! The best I’ve managed so far is 37,600 with an accuracy of 96%"
Al: "Well this is different. How's your speed typing? Mine's decent actually due to a mis-spent youth of typing LOAD "" over and over. I used to enjoy the typing tests they gave you when you went to a temping agency, I always aced them, even though in real life they didn't serve any purpose at all! Utter Tripe throws a huge number of mini games at you, where you have to quickly type certain words in at the right time, to fill a jar or chop off people's heads or similar silliness. It's very well done and keeps you amused for quite a while actually."
SCORING TIME!
Dave: "Nice work as I’d expect from Mr. Cauldwell and nice ditties as I’d expect from Yerzmyey. Mini-game-tastic!"
9.5/10
Al: "Wildly inventive, it’s a long way from being utter tripe."
7.5/10
"Just one more thing..."
Columbo: "So what Spectrum games can you guys honestly say are utter tripe?"
Al: "I'm trying to think beyond all the ones I've mentioned already on the site. I think some of the earlier attempts at sports games tended to be dire, like Royal Birkdale, despite its lush Thorpey load screen. Oh yeah, Terror Daktil didn't really work at all, despite great visuals. 4D my arse! I'm also going to unfairly nominate Keysoft's The Key for not predicting the advent of hyperloads, and thus forcing us to buy games, or more likely perfect our tape to tape technique!"
Dave: "Where do I start? Let’s get rid of the turkey, er… elephant in the room – Sqij! I think we all know about that one, so let’s move on quickly. When young Dave got his Speccy’s keyboard membrane fixed at Mancomp, he was eagerly awaiting his ‘2 free games with every repair’, so was ultra-disappointed to be given a rubbish educational title and The Great Space Race. Anyone paying £15 for that would probably have thrown themselves into the Manchester Ship Canal after playing it. The award for ‘biggest quality gap between inlay art and game’ must go to Richard Shepherd’s Devils Of The Deep. It’s a big pile of BASIC carp, despite the LOAD “” CODE required. But you know my choice for this one, right? Yep, it’s that flippin’ kangaroo again. How that pile of marsupial poop got a Crash Smash is beyond logic. AAAARRRRRGGGHHHH!!"
Al: "Hey, good idea Dave, I’ll load up KK right now for a go. Great game!"
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