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Happy Hour is an arcade/adventure. The basic idea is simple. Visit as many pubs as you can, drink as much beer as you can, collect as much money as you can - points are awarded - whilst avoiding the law, the punk, and sundry dogs, bottles and cars etc. - until you fall over or get arrested.

On the left of the screen is a status panel showing the state of your head, the number of hours utilised and the number of pints consumed, together with the amount of money found. For the princely sum of 50p you can activate a pub locator which will tell you if there is a pub in the adjoining square. Don't catch the bus or go into the wrong house however, you get thrown out on your ear!

Although this isn't far away from the plot of Pi-Eyed, it's still fun to play, but, by today's budget game standard, it's let down by graphics. True it's all machine code, but the animation's not quite right, it's all rather flickery, screen changes are rather abrupt, the attempt at perspective is off, and when you enter a pub for a jar, the bar, and attendant bar-maid towers above the main character.

Wobbly Wilf becomes more and more difficult to control as he sinks more pints. Strangely, no provision for joysticks is made, and, perhaps I'm a puritan, but would we be amused by a game which featured any other kind of addict getting a fix?

D.M.