|
Title: Bongo
Programmer: Udo Gertz
Publisher: Kingsoft
Year: 1986
Language: English
Genre: Platformer
Download or Play Online
Notes: Mark Sabbatini. Retro Gaming Times Monthly
An intriguing cross between Miner 2049er and Popeye. likely to score with fans of either platformer. One or two players control a guy working his way through levels picking up drifting letters to spell "Congo" while avoiding another guy whose AI is basically taking the most direct route to you. Unlike Popeye. the letters go up as well as down and there's no penalty for letting them sit too long - but there is an overall time limit to each level. The "Miner" part is the platforms. complete with elevators. slides. trampolines to jump gaps and other ways of getting around. You can also trigger random jumps with the spacebar (it does not seem to have unlimited use) when you're trapped in a location you can't escape Mr. Enemy Dude from. The graphics aren't great or all that clear at first - both you and the enemy look rather big. goofy and fuzzy. And there's a slight lag after you capture all the letters and the end of the level - meaning possible death for those who relax or are facing close calls. But they're pretty minor grips. There's a relatively puny five screens. but a level editor helps compensate. Among the other nice touches are requiring a keystroke to resume play after you die and lots of selectable options such as starting screens and number of men.
Cheats
For cheat mode, use this poke: POKE 15173,0
Review by Clarance
Udo Gertz released five games on the C16, all of them head and shoulders above most of the competition. His game design was great, his visuals superb, music was top notch, and maybe most importantly for me, he was one of the few programmers that managed to master sprite manipulation on the C16.
Bongo, one of Udo’s five C16 releases, contains possibly the largest and well animated sprites to hit the machine. Bongo the rat looks lovely… as far as rats go. The game is a single screen platformer, your aim is simple – as Bongo the rat of course – to rescue the fair maiden on each screen. Another feature of Bongo is the in game music which is simply wonderful. Play the game for yourself, and see if you can resist going down the slides just to hear the accompanying ditty!
Time here should be taken to mention the cassette inlay artwork, which features a rather nicely attired distressed damsel (in a dress) – at the age of eleven, she rocked my world…
Anyway, undressed... I mean… distressed damsels ….yes… To save Bongo’s girl, our ratty hero must skitter around the screen, making use of slides, ladders, lifts and trampolines, and collect five gems on each screen. Why this would free our rodent’s girl is not entirely clear, but it does, ok? It is not advisable to question the ways of rats. This I have learned.
Bongo’s quest is of course made more difficult by the ubiquitous baddies that patrol the levels of each screen, but Bongo has a trick up his ratty sleeve – he can teleport around by standing over one of five large letters dotted around the screen that spell out his name. How so – who knows – remember, don’t question the ways of rats.
Bongo looks a simple enough game to start with (it only has six levels), but the game includes a level designer, so there is the potential to create unlimited saved sets of levels on tape - a remarkable feature in itself. This linked with the overall quality of the game makes it a real must have game.
|
I never owned this little gem back in the day, fortunately I do now :)
One thing though, what on earth is Bongo supposed to be and will the damsel want rescuing from him?