IT'S ONLY ROCK 'N' ROLL
(K-Tel, 1983)
K-Tel were big noises in the music scene back in the olden days (remember your parents' groovy record collection?) and they gave the computing scene a whirl in '83. They had the moderately novel idea of putting two games on each tape to convey the impression of value for money. But at £7 a pop you'd expect two okay games for your buck. I.O.R.'N'R. is easily the most interesting proposition among their catalogue, so let's see if "I like it". That's a joke, it was a song by... er...
Interestingly it's written by Kevin Smith, not of Clerks fame but of The Wild Bunch fame, so hopes are high that it's not tat, and that those Pinkerton agents aren't out for your ass. First name your group and choose difficulty level 1-3 (hint: 1 is impossible helpfully). Then you get a colourful status report, including band popularity, energy, happiness (refreshingly) and status symbols owned! Next you write a song, which brilliantly you see on the screen, not that it ever changes a great deal and usually involves picking spots and throwing up - clearly a strong punk influence at play. You can hire a manager - I recommend Donny Damned as he only asks for 9% but is proportionately useless.
Then get a gig, which usually starts off as busking for a month, and mostly getting arrested. After a bit you get the option of pubs and clubs, and (again brilliantly) you see a little graphic sequence of your performance! It's totally pointless and hardly ever changes, but still, what an interesting feature. Like the Football Manager highlights, but without the agonising tension. Occasionally the police do a drug raid during your gig, but otherwise it pays the bills. Oddly you have to decide how much energy to put into your performance. Maybe you do better if you adopt a cool, complacent attitude and don't really bother, as I didn't do so well giving it my all.
If you earn at least £22k (I didn't) you can go on a money-spinning tour, worldwide if you're even more flush. And the all-important status symbols will cost you £56k for a Rolls-Royce to drive into a swimming pool, £153k for a French villa to wreck and £180k for a private jet for those mile-high drug orgies. My level was more mundane - losing popularity when you do a pub gig because it's the locals' darts night, and starting up a fan club just like folks did in the '80s, promising free T-shirts and maybe even a badge.
So things are in place for quite a promising experience in this game, but unless I've completely misunderstood, there seems to be a bug in the game which means you get declared bankrupt fairly randomly, even if you seem to be doing tolerably well financially at the time. This is a shame as I quite enjoy it, as far as it goes, but the threat of impending instadeath has put me off carrying on with it. Maybe the Pinkertons do catch up with you after all. See if you can beat my high score of 14, out of what I have no idea.
THE BIZ
(Virgin Games, 1984)
Like K-Tel, Virgin knew a thing or two about the music scene in days of yore. I used to love going round their Megastores back in the '80s and '90s, before the internet (or was it Metallica?) killed them off tragically. Most of Virgin's earlier Speccy games were not much better than K-Tel's efforts in fairness, so this title would probably be either average or middling at best surely?
Would you credit it, it was written by a certain Chris Sievey, who seems to have a musical connection of some sort, and on checking this, it was found that he was none other than... drum roll... Frank Sidebottom! The big-headed Northern keyboard playing comedian chap. Well I never. I also never was really much of a fan, but I'm impressed that a cult celeb like him could program on the Spectrum. It also raises hopes for an amusing experience ahead.
You get asked a lot of questions at the start. Band name, mates' names, music genre, home town, marital status, inside leg, cholesterol etc. Then you get given the usual paltry pocket money to start out with. The significant factors in this game include band tightness, stage presence, visual impact, song quality (does this really come into it?), fan following and ambition. So your options are to record a song, so long as the studio isn't all booked up by Sigue Sigue Sputnik, hiring a manager (a necessary evil), sending a tape off to a record company for a meagre tenner, promoting your stuff, pressing the appropriate number of singles and albums, making a cheesy video and then starting the week's rockin' once all the above are in place.
Then wait as the gig offers flood in, which they do, although some venues seem reluctant to offer you any dosh at all, in which case a day off spent rehearsing might be the wiser option. According to your manager, you permanently need to rehearse, which gets annoying even if it is the truth. What makes the game fun is the variety of 'Community Chest' type occurrences that happen along the way. Such as sacking a hopeless band member, buying a dry ice machine, insuring your van/getting your stuff nicked, appearing on TV rockumentaries (if you will), your dad winning the lottery but only giving you a tenner out of it, or perhaps my favourite - having a band outing to the hair salon! Ouch, expensive back in the '80s.
It takes a little while to get things moving but happily the game does grant you enough time to find your feet, so long as you don't go completely Keith Moon. I thought I was getting somewhere when my single "Sheeeeeet" suddenly appeared in the 'hit parade', but was then disappointed when it only reached number 125 despite me spending a pretty penny on a vid in an exotic location (Pinewood). I was informed "Your single has stiffed!" and was left with hundreds of unsold copies ready for the bonfire. Well that's Rawk 'n' Rawl, baby... you gotta love it.
TOP OF THE POPS?
IT'S ONLY ROCK 'N' ROLL 72%
THE BIZ 83%
