C&VG


Harvey Headbanger
By Firebird
Amstrad CPC464/664/6128

 
Published in Computer & Video Games #59

Harvey Headbanger

Harvey Headbanger, what a strange name for a game I thought as it was thrown at me across the room. I do hope that the game isn't as bad as the title.

So, with caution, I placed the tape into the Amstrad and away it went. After about a minute, my ears were assaulted by what I thought was a horrible version of the Monty Python theme.

Unfortunately, the tune kept playing while the game was loading, so it was a 'quickly hit the mute button' job. At last, it was loaded!

Harvey Headbanger

There I was, plonked in mid-battle with Hamish Highball and he was quickly filling the whole screen with red squares. I can't have that, I thought, so I moved around the screen pasting blue squares all over his.

Then - zzap! - I found that when I closed up a square of blue squares, the ones in between changed to blue too. Also, a lot of cocktails appeared and, as I collected them, my twisty tube at the side of the screen filled up. I was winning.

Then it had to happen, we bumped into each other, we both blacked out. We wandered around the screen hopelessly for a good few seconds, before returning to normal control. To win a point, you don't have to fill the whole screen with your colour; you must trap your opponent by boxing him in and filling the box with squares.

Harvey Headbanger

Now onto the graphics. The characters are cute and swing around with some good animation. They are also nicely coloured, and in quite high-res - rare for the Amstrad.

Now to the music, which is quite good, it's a nice little tune which you can turn off if you want.

Overall, Harvey Headbanger is a great game, despite its title and horrible loading music. If we get this kind of quality for £1.99, we should get Arcade quality for £9.95!