Amiga Power


Super Skweek
By Loriciel
Amiga 500

 
Published in Amiga Power #3

Super Skweek

The aptly-named Super Skweek is actually the follow-up to Skweek, a game which I personally thought was pretty good (though not many other people seemed to agree withme). In fact, I thought I'd do a bit of a survey by going round the office and asking everyone a series of questions to see what they thought, and at the end of it drawing up a pie chart or something (but I didn't!).

But anyway, what you want to know is... what's the game about? Well, no problem - here goes. You take control of what appears to be a clump of yellow cotton wool on legs ('Skweek') who has to walk up and down rather a lot of vertically scrolling levels built up out of tiles. Each tile changes from blue to pink when walked over, so the idea is to, as the saying goes, 'paint the town red' (erm, except here you have to 'paint the level pink').

It all sounds fairly simple - in fact, simple enough to be rather limiting - but luckily there's a lot more to it than that. The tiles are laid out in the form of a maze for a start, with walls to get in your way and holes to fall through (and die in). They don't all just sit there either - some disintegrate, some cause you to slip, some are higher up than others and some conceal secret passages. And then there are the baddies which - Pacman-style - prove deadly to the touch.

Super Skweek

And finally, warranting a new paragraph I believe, there are the bonuses. We're talking oodles of them too - at least fifty according to the instructions, and many of them usable at the same time. Most of them take the form of extra fire-power and changes in the way you paint things, but there are loads of other interesting ones too, including one which allows you to freeze all the baddies (sending you straight onto the next level), and another that provides a map. These bonuses can either be (a) picked up after they appear, or (b) purchased with cash (which appears after you've killed a baddie) from a special shop section, which appears at certain tiles.

In a concluding sort of way, I'd say that this is really rather an original, wacky, cute, addictive, enjoyable (etc) but ever-so-slightly repetitive sort of game. There are 225 levels (which you can play either in order or sort of randomly) including bonus levels and some sections where you have to kill monsters or rescue skweekettes instead of simply paint, so there's more than enough to keep you going. And there's even a construction kit that allows you to design your own levels if you get bored.

In fact, neat touches abound in this colourful, manic and ever-so-slightly-French (i.e. odd) cutesy arcade puzzler inspiring me leap up in the air, and shout 'Hooray'.

The Bottom Line

A cute, addictive and well presented little number providing a neat balance between puzzle and arcade qualities. I like it.

Rich Pelley

Other Amiga 500 Game Reviews By Rich Pelley


  • Super Space Invaders Front Cover
    Super Space Invaders
  • Toyota Celica Gt Rally Front Cover
    Toyota Celica Gt Rally
  • Paperboy 2 Front Cover
    Paperboy 2
  • Demolition Front Cover
    Demolition
  • Battleships Front Cover
    Battleships
  • Narc Front Cover
    Narc
  • Home Alone Front Cover
    Home Alone
  • Battletoads Front Cover
    Battletoads
  • Advanced Destroyer Simulator Front Cover
    Advanced Destroyer Simulator
  • Viz Front Cover
    Viz