Reviews

1985 Tynesoft (UK)
by Donald J. Campbell

Based on the TV show Super Gran.
I really liked this as a kid, maybe because it captured the spirit of the show.
Basically this is a shoot-em-up. The sprites are big and colourful, making some characters recognizable. There are quite a few diferent levels but I cant remember what they are. Can be quite adictive due to its dificulty.

Sub-standard multi-level arcade game based on an aged woman with supernatural powers, a British TV character completely unheard of here (Italy).

Graphics are very basic even by 1984 standards; the action is at best monotonously easy, while getting nothing short of irritating in the third stage (the car race). About the music and sound, the less said, the better.

Wasn't very good in its time, has definitely aged badly. Awful.

Yup can't believe I never touched upon this one sooner. So Super Gran, a very popular children's TV show from Tyne Tees Television, which has Granny Smith, played by Scottish actress Gudrun Ure, acquire superpowers, hence Super Gran. Although it only ran for two series, it was a massive success, airing in over sixty countries worldwide and it even won an Emmy! And the best bit? At the time of this review, Gudrun Ure is still alive today, aged 96, beautiful. And with a show as popular as this of course it gets a bloody game and so, behold! There were two games actually, the second is Super Gran - The Adventure, a text adventure which is not my forte and so we shall skip that and jump straight into this one. Both are done by Tynesoft so the connection between the show and game is there geographically at least. It's a multilevel arcade game with different games. First up is a shooter with Super Gran on her propeller-powered bicycle shooting what appear to be clones of Super Gran, you can shoot in all sorts of directions which can become a hindrance as you can end up shooting the wrong direction and become an easy target. The second sees Super Gran with her anti-gravity belt, and with it she must avoid planes, cars and balloons and collect cats to avoid them getting run over. Game 3 appears to be a car race of sorts, but I never got that far so bollocks to it. Well, a lot of Tynesoft's games are not great and this one isn't either. The shooting is awkward, so too is the flying, as I say, I never got far. It is however a much better game that Auf Wiedersehen Pet, also from Tynesoft, so it has that going for it at least.