Crash


Catwalk
By Power
Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Crash #11

Cat Walk

Catwalk makes a nice change from the usual run of violent computer games, because here you play a night-prowling cat, whose harmless interests include pouncing on - and eating small mice and birds - well it's nature anyway! Suitably, you have nine lives and nine screens of varied action to get through, munching on fur and feathers all the way. There is a very good demo which shows you all the screens, taking you from home, through a building site, the graveyard, to eventually end up in a missile silo, of all places. In each of these different locations there are either birds or mice or both to be eaten, and all the screen must be cleared before progressing to the next. There are also hazards like night prowlers, witches, ghosts, moggy bashers and the like.

On the fourth screen the pace changes as the fauna vanish, but in the factory there is a large pile of cat food tins to be reached. Each screen has its own graphics to identify it, and in some respects, each screen makes for a different game.

Comments

Control keys: user definable, but seem a little unreliable in selection
Joystick: Kempston, but others through UDK
Keyboard play: fairly responsive
Use of colour: fair to average
Graphics: variable, generally quite good and detailed
Sound: good tunes, some spot effects
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 9
Screens: 9
Special features:

Comment 1

Cat Walk

'Catwalk is a fairly original game that is quite challenging. The graphics are quite good, but not very colourful. Overall the game is good fun to play with 9 screens of feline frolics.'

Comment 2

'This game seems to be quite simple at first, and I seemed to play through the first four screens without any trouble whatsoever. But on the fourth screen I got stuck and there was no way I could work my way round it - it needed a little bit more time spent playing on the game, and obviously this does mean there is more difficulty than first appears. The graphics are fairly small in some cases, and quite large in others , but never a balanced combination. Moving jerkily, there were tragic attribute problems. This can be quite serious, depending on the state of your mind, and whether you like purple red cats from time to time. A quite cheerful demo comes with the game which takes you all the way through, which aids you in explaining how the game is played. Overall, an original game, but although saying this, I don't think it will appeal.'

Comment 3

'Catwalk has some very nice touches in the graphics. Your feline hero is quite nicely drawn and pounces with appropriate ferocity. I liked the touch in the first screen, outside the slumbering houses, where numerous objects are hurled at you from the windows pity there's no howling on the sound track. The sound isn't too bad, with a few tunes in between screens and a rendering of Three Blind Mice' at the start. Each screen is given a title in the now time-honoured Jet Set Willy tradition, but Catwalk doesn't really come up to the standard of that game at all. Nevertheless, original, playable but not over addictive.'

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