Ooops Up! logo

DEMONWARE/SOFTWARE BUSINESS £24.95 * Joystick

After last issue's review of the official arcade conversion of Pang, along comes Demonware's 'interpretation' of the harpoon-and-bubble romp, this time set in the cold depths of outer space rather than the world's top tourist stops.

You've Got the Power

You play an astronaut who is trapped in a group of galaxies far away from Earth. You must travel between 100 of these galaxies collecting tokesn to buy a section of a huge space ship capable of getting you back home.

This would be a doddle if it was just a matter of hopping to a new world and picking up your token, but things are never that easy, are they? In order to escape the current galaxy, you must use a powerful harpoon to clear the zone of asteroids, thus making it safe to transport to the next area. Occasionally, you may uncover an additional power-up to help you in your task, from double-shot weapons, via time freezers to double-barreled laser guns.

Despite these helpful items, completing the later levels is extremely difficult. At times the gameplay seems to throw up an annoying quirk, such as the frustrating habit the asteroids have of flying straight down narrow gaps at high speeds, making them almost impossible to dodge. Couple this with the difficulty encountered when making the player climb and walk off ladders and you have got a hefty task ahead of you, in fact completing anything after level 80 requires near superhuman timing not to mention extreme patience!

If you have a friend who is into the idea of travelling through space armed only with a harpoon, then you can compete against each other on the same screen. If one player dies, then the other continues playing in an attempt to reach the end of the level and claim all the bonus for themselves.

If you are a hardened shoot-em-up fan, then you may find Ooops Up enjoyable for a while, and once you get into the gameplay there are 100 levels to tackle before the game is completed.


SNAPPY SOUNDTRACK
So where does a game about asteroids, platforms and harpoons get a name like Ooops Up? Well this question is answered simply by turning up the game's sound, since throughout the proceedings an instrumental version of 'Oops Upside Your Head' plays. Remember the title of the single. That's right! Ooops Up!
Demonware's next project also has a Snap tie-in, this time with their first hit 'The Power'. Should be interesting.

Ooops Up! logo

Name und Soundtrack zu Demonwares neuem Game kommen von der Gruppe Snap, das Spielprinzip stammt von der Arcade-Maschine "Pang". Ist also gut gemixt schon halb gewonnen?

Statt der üblichen Hintergrundstory gibt es bei Ooops Up! Einen putzigen Comic, der dem Spieler das Geschehen näherbringt: Ein knuddeliger kleiner Astronaut will sich ein Raumschiff zusammenbauen, um damit in die Weiten des Alls aufzubrechen.

Dummerweise sind die Bauteile über 99 Planeten verteilt, auf denen tödliche große Blasen herumschweben, die es abzuschießen gilt. Bei jedem Treffer teilen sich die Dinger, und es werden doppelt so viele kleine (aber nicht minder tödliche) Blasen daraus. Erst nach mehreren "Zellteilungen" verschwinden die Bläschen komplett und der Level ist gelöst. Jetzt noch schnell ein kleine Münze einsacken, und wieder hat man einen neuen Bauteil fürs Shuttle.

Wenn's nur so einfach wäre: Zwar gibt es allerlei Extras wie MG, Doppelschuß oder Symbole, die die Ballons verlangsamen bzw. einfrieren, trotzdem ist das Spiel frustrierend schwer!

Grafisch darf man sich auch keine Wunder erwarten - die Hintergründe sind ein bißchen monoton, und die Lichtreflexe auf den (gut animierten) Kugeln bewegen sich keinen Milimeter. Die Spielfigur ist dagegen recht lieb, auch der Gag, daß man dem Bau des Raumschiffs optisch beiwohnen darf, hat etwas für sich. Das beste am Ganzen aber ist und bleibt der Soundtrack.

Fazit: Was Ocean mit "Midnight Resistance" gelungen ist, hat Demonware leider nicht gepackt: Nämlich aus einer mittelmäßigen Arcade-Vorlage ein erstklassiges Computergame zu machen. (C. Borgmeier)


Ooops Up! logo CU Amiga Screen Star

THE SOFTWARE BUSINESS
£24.99

Yes, sad though it is, the new release from TSB is actually a license of dance hit 'Ooops Upside your Head', now rerecorded by Snap simply as 'Ooops up'. The game itself, despite the 'snappy' theme music, is really rather good.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a little guy with a large gun and a huge chip on his shoulder. Burning deep within him was a fiery raging hate; an all consuming anger that caused him to hate the universe and, in particular, large spherical objects. With only a space hopper for a starship, he must travel the galaxy destroying the aforementioned bouncing balls in order to find 50 pieces of a new interstellar space craft. You, as that man, must destroy these balls and gradually build the ship.

As gameplay goes, Ooops Up is pretty simple. You stand at the bottom of the screen while two large balls bounce around it. When these balls are shot, they split into two smaller balls that only bounce at half the height. Keep shooting the balls and sooner or later you will end up with some very small balls that will disappear when shot. The idea is to shoot the balls in a certain time limit but not get hit by them.

Certain balls will drop weapons, but not necessarily a better one. You begin with the weakest, a slow snake-like affair that rises to the top of the screen and vanishes. If any part of it touches a ball, the ball registers a hit and the 'snake' vanishes. Next up is a steel rope with a grappling hook that you shoot to the top of the screen, where it hangs, creating a barrier and destroying anything that should smash into it. Then you have the shotgun. The simplest and fastest, you can have a lot more fun blasting with this baby. Finally comes the freeze canister. When collected, everything on screen freezes for a few moments, giving you plenty of time to pick off those particularly irritating balls.

Ooops Up has that special balance which always makes a good game. It is madly frustrating, but it is also furiously addictive. It falls at the first fence, however, by being too hard to begin with. It took myself and Dep Ed, Dan, a good few goes before we even left the first level. After a while you do learn the gameplay tricks, and after that you can only go forward! With 50 screens to play it is going to be a while before you finish this one, though!

I cannot see Ooops Up ever being called a classic game. What I can see, however, is a highly entertaining original game that will have you returning to it time and again. Just so long as you do not have to listen to that song.