The Rocky Interactive Horror Show

RRP Lowest New Price £12.00

On Line Publishing Manfacturer maximum age: 216 Manfacturer minimum age: 180 months

Rocky Goes Interactive!
Review date: 2000-12-25 Rating: 10 out of 10

I absolutely love this game! Don't get me wrong, I don't normally waste hours on computer games (preferring the more, um, serious pursuits of surfing the 'net, going to Rocky, etc..) but when I bought this I must have spent around 12 hours on it in the first day, and who knows how many hours overall? It's easy to get drawn in and to have played it for two or three hours without realising :)

Plusses of the game: I liked the way the layout of the castle had been 'translated' into computer game format, and I liked the way small details were attended to, such as Riff Raff's pantry and Frank's bedroom - this game could easily have been bland and empty, and it wasn't, so that was lucky :) I also like the music, which is in "midi" format and is mainly based on the Original Roxy Cast soundtrack. There are some very humorous and satirical touches to it, and as the other reviewer said, Richard O'Brien on the jukebox is definitely a plus, as are the three new versions of Rocky songs you get with the game.

Gripes? Well, I can only think of a couple, and they're in execution rather than conception. Sometimes the graphics capability is a little dubious, for example you have to have the character in *exactly* the right place to enable it to e.g. get through a doorway, or pick something up. And sometimes the 'layering' of the 3D graphics leaves something to be desired, as you get unnatural looking layers where it looks very 2D indeed. But these don't really detract from the game at all, they're just me being pedantic. If I have one real complaint about it, it's that character movement isn't very fast compared to a lot of games I've played.

In general it's a great game, and you can choose to play as Brad or Janet, solving puzzles along the way as you aim to "rescue" your fiance(e) from the castle (you do this in a special sub-game, which you can only get to once the other puzzles are completed). The puzzles are ingenious, and I shan't go into any details here, but I was stumped by them for a good long time, they're not immediately obvious like some I've seen.

If you haven't already, you MUST go and buy this game! Otherwise I shall belt you around the mouth and mouth you around the belt, do you understand... :)