Willies Adventures

Section	Author(s)	System	Requirements	Writer
Preview	New Beat Developments	Falcon	4 Meg, Colour	Colin Polonowski
Other Information
Supports Keyboard and Atari Powerpad Web page: http://www.kuai.se/~dhedberg/ Email: dhedberg@algonet.se

The Falcon may be an excellent computer, but one area it is lacking in is decent games. New Beat Developments hope to change things with their soon to be Willies Adventures. Colin Polonowski takes an early look...

Anyone who has played the excellent Rayman on the next generation consoles will be instantly be at home with Willies Adventures. In fact, Willies Adventures is an excellent attempt at bringing the platform genre to the Falcon.

The story is, for a change, quite original even if the game itself isn't - Willie is a painter who one day finds his paintings coming to life. Eventually he gets trapped in them and must find his way out.

Willies Adventures is played over a number of large smooth scrolling levels each with its own enemies and graphical style - the overall aim is to find the exit on each level. Levels included in the final version are:

"The Jungle world"
Many of the secrets of the jungle are yet to be explored.
"The Water world"
In this world Willie will be swimming around and exploring the many secrets deep down in the ocean.
"The Winter world"
Cold and snowy, better watch our for those penguins.
"The Desert world"
Willie will have to be careful together with crazy cowboys and indians in this world.
"The Spooky world"
Things are not what they use to be in this twisted world.

The graphics themselves are very well drawn and colourful, and their animation is secon to none. Controlling Willie is acheived via either the Keyboard or an Atari Powerpad plugged into port A on the side of the Falcon. The Powerpad is undoubtedly the best option and the game makes good use of the pads functions.

Sonically, the game is equally impressive - the sounds are all sampled and the background tune is very catchy.

Willies Adventures is a very large game and will take a long time to complete. It is also very addictive and it has that 'one more go' factor!

I for one will be looking forward to seeing the full game - which should be available before the end of the summer for around Ł30.