Bubble & Squeak)


Title           Bubble & Squeak
Publisher       Audiogenic (1994)
Game Type       Platform
Players         1
HD Installable  No
Compatibility   A1200, CD32
Submission      Emanuele Rodolà

Review
The evil Kat O'Nine Tails has kidnapped every animal on earth and
brainwashed them. Squeak the doggy and Bubble the master face the evil cat
in an attempt to liberate the animals and bring the bad feline alien to
justice.

You play the part of Bubble, a little boy with puffy cheeks and smiling
face, followed by his always loyal canine, Squeak. With a simple joystick
flick you can choose whether to be followed by Squeak, and use him as a
lift to gain access to higher locations, or as a kind of landmark to
prevent you losing your bearings. Levels are populated with
baseball-playing ducks, caterpillars, and other cute monstrosities as well
as gems and coins for you to collect. What's more, coins can be used with
bubblegum machines to make your mutt more obedient and piggyback you
around the place, running faster and jumping higher. Pretty funny, and
very playable as well. Levels are well-structured and of the standard
type, with a start-point and a finish-point. There is no savegame or
checkpoints throughout the levels (that is, you have to start the level
from the beginning if you lose all your lives), but you are given
passwords each time you complete a stage. Of course, to get a stage
completed, both Bubble and Squeak must get to the escape door alive.

But Bubble & Squeak is more than a hit-and-run platform game. You have to
think of the least painful way to do the thing, and do it quickly. In each
level you'll have to face different tricky puzzles, and not all of them
are that easy to solve. I had to struggle around and blindly hit the walls
(unsuccessfully) in search of a way out of the level more than once, before I
found out what the right move was; it was actually very logical.
Pressure to the game is given by the ever-rising water which chases you
upwards within the level; in fact, the game stages are mostly of the
vertical type, but often the escape-point is not at the upper level, but
instead in the middle, or worse, at the very bottom; and there are 30 of
them, and up to 5 extra levels and bonus stages here and there.

Sound effects are well produced and Bubble's cute voice fits in
beautifully with the inspired soundtrack by Allister Brimble, very
recognizeable in his cheesy pop style and reminding me of certain other
successful game-scores such as Superfrog; the background music works very
well with the game. Regarding the graphics, all is very cute-looking
and polished, sometimes resembling James Pond's level design and colouring,
but all in all fitting very well with the music, the sound effects and the
neat playability of the title.

All of this should keep the longevity above the just-one-day-of-play
limit, together with the right amount of challenge for the average player.
But unfortunately, this (often over-rated) platformer is not all roses &
flowers. Stages are fairly short and can be frustrating at times,
especially as you proceed further into the game; even though arcade and
logic are well-balacned, longer stages and slower water filling up would
have certainly hit the spot. The game can be hard at times, with
the need for pinpoint accurate jumps and quick reflexes, and it may
require a lot of patience to complete something which would otherwise be
fairly simple. An annoying example is represented by the fact that when
you die you have to go through the intro sequence again, wait for the menu
to appear again, then enter the password and finally be ready to play the
stage which brought you here dozens of times already.

All in all, Bubble & Squeak is a nice platformer with sparse bits of
logic, nice graphics, great music and some hours of fun ensured. A good
and fun timekiller for your afternoons, but it can be a real challenge; I
would suggest to have a run at the demo version first, or make for
Superfrog instead.




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