GET IT

Main review

Get It is a pure and simple game in a true oldschool sense – there’s no plot, no back story, no excuses or explanations for what is happening, just an objective and a score. After all, what else does a game need? If you really feel you need a plot then I suggest you stop reading the review here, imagine something epic and grandiose to work towards, possibly involving saving the world, then return again once you’ve finished. Back? Good. The objective of each level in Get It is deceptively simple, collect the key on each screen and move to the exit before the time runs out. This would be a trivial task (and a lot less fun) if it wasn’t for the roaming enemies which force you to time your actions carefully to avoid running into them. Your progress is further hindered by the fact that if you take too long to plan your movement then the key will be magically be transported elsewhere, consigning your original plan to the rubbish heap and causing you to swear profusely under your breath and try again.

In many ways, this game is like a lot of games released for older machines by other developers, and in some respects it reminds me a lot of the kind of games Richard Bayliss releases for the Commodore 64. However, what sets Get It apart from the rest of the pack is that it feels like the authors have put a lot of effort into adding a layer of polish, rounding off any rough edges and releasing a game that feels solid and complete. The game is fun, it manages to frustrate you without ever feeling unfair and, with passwords given every few levels, it allows you to make constant progress without becoming bored by continually playing through the early levels.

Graphically the game makes good use of the colour abilities of the TED around the edge of the screen and in the menus, however the game play area itself is restricted to greyscale as a trade-off to avoid colour clashes between moving objects but, since the graphics are well drawn and clear, this doesn’t detract from the game in any way. The background music is catchy and possibly some of the best music I have heard from the TED chip; whilst I have no problem with developers using SID cards for music on the Plus/4, I do also think its only fair to fully support factory specification machines, something which once again the developers have done well in this case. There are no sound effects however but, given that the only events that would trigger an effect are picking up a key, leaving the level and dying, this isn’t really an issue.

Whilst the simple nature of the game means it won’t hold your attention for a long time, it’s still something that is fun to play and which is well worth the download and it does keep you coming back for “just one more try”. If like me you are the kind of person who fires up a Tetris clone “for a quick look” and ends up losing an hour or two then you should be prepared to have an afternoon of your time disappear without a trace.

Second opinion

When I first loaded this game up I was pretty impressed, graphically it looked nice, and there was a decent little tune playing in the background, so I was hoping to be continually impressed. I have to say I was expecting more enemies, more variety in general, but all I had to start with was a portcullis and a skull, there is more as the levels progress but this is where I get to another point, the learning curve, the first couple of levels were easy, then the third one was noticeably harder and, when I had passed the third level, it became easy again… then hard, etc, you get the drift and a smoother learning curve would have been far better.

I did notice when I got to the seventh stage I was offered a level code; it was luckily I was looking at the screen at the time because it’s only there for a limited time, perhaps the game should have waited for the fire button to give players enough time to write it down, that would have helped me and other players with their own limited memory constraints a lot!

The tune playing in the background was nice, but after a while i did turn it off, and was expecting a few sound effects, but nothing, just quietness. Again, the option for music and/or sound effects would have worked since sometimes people enjoy playing a game with sound effects only. Also I was getting a little bit bored during the bonus count down, maybe a brief pause whilst it is displayed, and then count down faster or some way to speed it up with the fire button.

To conclude, overall I did like the game; it is simple to play (with the exception of the jumps in the difficulty curve) and an impressive display of what the Plus/4 can do visually but (and there is always a but) If I’d have shelled money out for it, I think I’d be a bit disappointed.