| Introduction
Alfred Chicken is yet another one of the many game
characters who has been resurrected from the early days
of the SNES to make an appearance on the GameBoy Color.
The publishers SCI appear to be becoming a real force
in converting these 16 bit classics and will also release
SWIV (an incredible 'top down' shoot 'em up). Alfred's
Adventure stars our 'plucky' hero Alfred Chicken in
a battle to rescue Billy Egg who has been kidnapped
by the Meka-Chickens for their bizarre cloning experiments,
at least that's what the box says. All we GBC owners
care about is the playability...
GamePlay
Yes, it's a platform game so if you haven't encountered
this type of thing before, where have you been? The
difference with this title is the number of various
skills you'll have to employ to get through some of
the levels. You'll need to travel over land, underwater,
on various tricky platforms and solve puzzles. This
is before you try and dodge the clockwork mice and circular
saws. It's always worth jumping onto at least one of
these to watch the feathers fly. Very funny.
The game itself is simple. Collect the number of
allocated balloons on each level (this will be shown
on the counter, which will count down) whilst collecting
diamonds (100 gives you an extra life) and the elusive
watering cans. The levels themselves go from very simple,
where you'll collect not only the balloons, but even
the watering can with little effort, to the near impossible.
It's here that Alfred's Adventure really shines. The
latter levels will have you finding keys, changing symbols
to activate platforms, controlling robots, setting bombs
and doing those near impossible jumps just to get that
last balloon. Alfred's main mode of attack is the simple,
but effective 'peck'. Other enemies can be destroyed
with the very impressive 'dive bomb'. Also on your journey
be sure to check out the radios and cans of worms. You'll
know what I mean when you find them.
The screen is very uncluttered with statistics only
scrolling in from the right when you call them with
the select button or when you collect something. You're
given a password at the end of each level which will
then obviously lead you onto the next. A really nice
feature here is the ability to scroll through all the
levels when completed so you can replay them. This also
tells you which levels have been totally completed (i.e.
the watering cans have been found). If you enjoy this
game as much as I did you'll keep on exploring just
to find all of them and get the special ending.
Control
Controlling Alfred is simplicity itself which is
a real plus for a platform game of this type. Whatever
you want Alfred to do he does with split second timing.
There are no clever button combinations to learn which
is just as well with the amount going on in the game
already.
Graphics
This is an incredible demonstration of getting more
colors out of the GameBoy than you would imagine possible.
Yes, it has a great FMV intro and Hi-color cut screens
but the 'in game' graphics are just wonderful. Alfred
himself is also very well animated regardless of what
he's doing or what else is on screen. If only all GBC
titles had this much thought in them.
Sound & Music
The music doesn't kick in until you actually start
playing the game so you'll be playing with your volume
control thinking something's up. When it does however
you may want to get to the options menu and switch it
off. It's not that it's bad, it's just a little too
much. A kind of Tom & Jerry meets The 3 Stooges.
Stick with the excellent sound effects and you'll enjoy
the game a lot more.
Final Comments
Although die-hard platform players will have little
trouble with this game everyone else will find it reasonably
challenging but not impossible. If you do breeze through
it however, there's still the matter of collecting all
those watering cans in order to view the special ending
and, if the intro is anything to go by, it's probably
worth it. You can also make things a little harder on
yourself by limiting the number of 'replays' available.
I still haven't found all of them and I've been playing
this game for some 3 months now so if you do manage
to find them do us all a favour and post them up on
the hints and tips board.
If you're into platform games then this is a must
purchase. From the start this title has a very polished
feel to it. A real quality game. It's not original but
it is a fine example of this genre.
|
Hardware
Reviews 
Game
Title
