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Despite the enormous success of Jet Set Willy in 1984, it was the first outing of Monty Mole that was voted by Crash readers as the best platform game of the year. Like Willy, Monty is a miner. At the time of its release, the terrible blight of the miners’ strike was still recent news and was the theme of this terrific platformer. The graphics are large and colourful, Monty is a loveable little scamp and the general opinion at the time was that the game was every bit as good as JSW. He was certainly more prolific, featuring in three sequels, making him one of the most enduring computer characters of the Spectrum era.

MONTY MOLE
GREMLIN GRAPHICS
Monty Mole is probably the most similar to Manic Miner but there are many similarities to Quicksilva's Fred as well.
This time, you get to play a mole whose graphic is on four cursors, thus avoiding any confusion that this game is based on Manic Miner. Your task is to guide the mole around a series of caverns - about 21 in all - until your eventual escape. This package received a lot of media attention a few weeks ago due to its supposed connections with the miner's strike and its inclusion of an Arthur Scargill character. How Gremlin Graphics conned the TV companies into believing this, I'll never know - I've been through the whole game and can find no real links at all with the current industrial situation.
Anyway, back to the game. On the first screen you guide Monty over a river to collect a coal bucket in which to steal your coal - but the owner's not too happy about this and starts chasing you down the nearest available mine shaft. Once there, you can start collecting the twinkling pieces of coal. (For all you bug-hunters, try carrying on running towards the house and jumping just before you reach it - with any luck you'll find yourself in the coal-miner's house and he can't do a thing about it.)
The caverns are, in essence, very similar to those found in Manic Miner, with platforms and graphics characters trollying along, and up and down. Ropes have also been added for Monty to climb up and down (a la Fred), and extending platforms are also used quite effectively. You'll also come to hate the Coal Crushers that appear in most screens - they are totally unpredictable, except for the fact that you can assure yourself that whenever you decide to walk under them you'll be crushed! Another nice feature is the Antics-like technique of being able to change events by doing certain things; carrying certain objects around with you makes various walls disappear when you enter the screen, allowing you to explore still more of the caverns.
The program has a number of slightly off-putting characteristics which don't enhance its playability - for example: the graphics routine allows you to stand on any INKed pixel; you can get Monty actually standing in a graphic and still not have the fact that you've collected it registered; and if you die in a room having just caused a wall to disappear, that wall will appear with your new life and there's no way you can get past it!
Despite all this though, I still thought Monty Mole the most challenging of the three (comparing Wanted: Monty Mole, Frank N Stein and Astronut) - even though it's the most blatant clone of Matthew's Manic Miner.

Ross Holman

Producer: Gremlin Graphics
Memory required: 48K
Retail price: £6.95
Language: machine code
Author: Peter Harrap

The inlay says that this game has caused quite a stir with games experts, the national press and television. Television was naturally interested because the game contains a caricature of Arthur Scargill, the Miners' Union leader. In fact a sequence was shown on TV News at the height of the strike. It's been released simultaneously for the Spectrum and the Commodore 64, but reviewers in the CRASH office feel that, with all the Commodore's better looking graphics, the Spectrum version is the better game of the two.

The story goes that it's a long, chilling winter, and Monty Mole makes a daring bid to raid his local South Yorkshire pit to snatch coal. Battling through flying pickets, man-eating fish, coal crushers and drills, he escapes to emerge in Arthur's Castle. Seizing his only chance of toppling the great man, Monty collects the secret ballot papers and vote casting scroll. But Arthur's no fool when it comes to the heavy stuff and his personal bodyguards put up a struggle.

So much for the blurb - what about the game? Instant viewing will bring Manic Miner/Jet Set Willy to mind, and not without some justification, for Wanted: Monty Mole is a complex platform game with a jumping character and interlinked rooms to the maze. There are also a few guessing tricks involved and a strategic element to finding the route through a room or series of rooms. Monty himself is an endearing character likely to reappear in more games, who has an attractive walking gait and an athletic jump very reminiscent of his mining cousin from Surbiton.

Unlike Manic Miner, which ends on the surface, Monty starts on the top in a screen with a bridge over troubled waters, squirrels dropping acorns and a steaming bucket. The bucket looks tempting - it should be, for without it coal won't even appear in the mine shafts to be collected. First timers, take heed - grab the bucket and run like hell! The mine shafts contain ropes, moving platforms and dice-with-death crushers as well as ghosts, monsters and deadly machines. There are also objects to be collected but only the coal lumps score points. The objects do, however, have their uses, and it will no doubt be the cause of much speculation and playing hints in issues to come, as to what does what. One thing is certain, some useful objects cannot be collected until a particular tool on the screen has been collected first. In all there are 21 rooms, or levels, to get through.

CRITICISM
In my view Monty Mole will be a future Spectrum hero and there will be posters of him adorning every wall in Britain. After hearing about this game on the News, I thought it would be a winner, and when it arrived I found I was right. If you liked Manic Miner (is there anyone who doesn't?) you will love Monty Mole because it's a classic platform game, more complicated and, in my opinion, better than Manic Miner. The graphics are certainly up to MM standards and with no serious attribute problems. As to the sound - well the Spectrum's never been up to much on sound, so don't expect too much! I found this game fun to play and certainly addictive this has got to be one of the best games for the Spectrum this year and definitely worth buying.

Monty Mole is a fantastic Jet Set Willy type of game with excellent graphics and a good use of colour throughout. I liked Monty because he is well detailed and animated, as are the flying pickets, hair sprays, debris and so on. It is very addictive, and I will be coming back again and again. The only thing is that a bit of continuous sound wouldn't hurt.

This program carries on where Manic Miner left off on a similar platform basis, again in the mining industry. As the game progresses, the dangers increase dramatically. Monty is very well animated, and moves about with ease from the well positioned control keys. Well into the game the elusive Arthur Scargill appears with a big head and a huge conk. Overall I got completely immersed in this well thought out and highly addictive game which I think will provide many hours of fun.

One of the major distinctions between Monty and Willy, is that Monty requires a deal of luck in certain situations, like the crushers. While this might be thought to reduce the playing skill element, it does add one of sheer thrill and nerves. The graphics, design and animation of all the moving characters is excellent, amusing and attractive, and that adds quite a bit to the playability of the game. Whether Monty Mole is better than Manic Miner will have to remain a question of the near future, and more hours playing. I suspect it might be better by a touch; better than Jet Set Willy? I don't know that either, pretty much as good though.

COMMENTS
Control keys: Q/A up/down, O/P left/right, B to SPACE = jump
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair ZX 2
Keyboard play: very responsive, good positions
Use of colour: excellent
Graphics: very good, sensible scale
Sound: good
Skill levels: 1
Lives: 3
Screens: 21
General rating: highly addictive, excellent value.

Use of computer 86%
Graphics 94%
Playability 95%
Getting started 88%
Addictive qualities 96%
Value for money 90%
Overall 92%