Producer: Melbourne House
Retail Price: £7.95
Author: Beam Software

After getting thrown into the slammer for his original scam, Mugsy is free again and in search of a fast buck. It's 1919, America is winding itself up for the Depression and the most relevant change noticeable to Mugsy is the introduction of Prohibition. Since alcohol is now illegal, a large black market has sprung up, offering very high profit margins. Being an astute hoodlum, Mugsy decides that this is the racket for him. Everything is set for Mugsy's Revenge.

Those of you familiar with the original Mugsy, (which is on the B side of the cassette) will realise that Mugsy's Revenge follows a very similar format.

Mugsy's aim is to regain control of his empire by taking advantage of the Prohibition situation, and investing the £50,000 that was safely set aside before the cops caught up with him. Conversations with a right hand man supply the information needed, and a list of options available is presented. All the relevant day-to-day decisions faced by a gangster are put before you: how big a bribe should be given to the cops? who would you like rubbed out? and so on. The central decision rests on the number of barrels of liquor to buy and sell - shrewd deals at the start provide the capital needed to buy Speakeasies later on in the game.

If things get rather nasty then your top man scarpers, dropping you into an arcade sequence in the middle of a gunbattle. This section has Mugsy running about to the command of left, right, up and down keys. Fire lets loose hot lead from the revolver supplied, and the idea is to eliminate the Feds and avoid shooting the ladyfolk who parade around. Get hit too many times and it's Game Over.

Information is passed to you via a window superimposed over one of several detailed backgrounds. These backgrounds change after a few choices have been made, and every now and again a small animated scene pops into view showing a bit of a scuffle at Gino's pool hall. After the whole cycle has been run through, a year is deemed to have passed and a synopsis of your progress is resented.

If too many bad decisions are entered or you run out of money the game finishes. If, however, Mugsy manages to keep around for ten years, then Prohibition is lifted and a detailed analysis of Mugsy's progress is supplied.

COMMENTS

Control keys: I left, P right, Q diagonally up Z diagonally down, B, N, M, SPACE fire
Joystick: Kempston
Keyboard play: fast and responsive
Use of colour: pretty and well done
Graphics: also very neat
Sound: one tune, very nice it is too
Skill levels: one
Screens: a good few

Other than the great graphics there's not much to Mugsy's Revenge. I think the game is too much of a copy of Mugsy, and the gameplay is almost the same. Once you begin to play it, after a year or so has passed in the game, you are being asked the same questions - it got on my nerves. The movie clip shows you the year's events, and the animation is great but there are some jerky patches. The arcade game isn't that spectacular, and after a few people have been killed the game goes dead slow and is almost impossible to play.

I was expecting a real advance on Mugsy, but I was wrong: it's more of a step backwards. I wasn't compelled to carry on playing after I'd seen a few screens and heard the music once. The arcade screen isn't much fun - it's very easy and gets very dull once you've been through it a few times. There are no sound effects during the game although there is an excellent tune on the pool hall screen. I expect that if you stuck with it for a while, the game would probably become fun, but I hadn't got the patience.

Mugsy's Revenge could have been a good follow up to the hit Mugsy but I felt that the game was too repetitive. After a while I got heartily sick of the snide comments that the person running my operations kept churning out - over and over I heard the same jokes. I guess the screens take up a lot of memory, but it would have been better if the game had branched off more to the strategy side of the plot. With the great Mugsy on side B of the tape, the package presents tremendous value for money, but really it's a case of 'nice graphics, shame about the game.

Melbourne House
£8.95

Hey, boss, come quick - I tinks I got news for you. You know dey said Mugsy was expected back in town. Well, here he is. An' you said you toit he was never comin' back.

Seems he ain't exactly got smart while he wuz in de slammer. Oh sure - yes - he still looks great as ever. A real snappy dresser - but, boy, does he take forever to look pretty as a picture. You'd tink nowadays that they could hide all de time he takes to appear in public. Reminds me of how dat Hobbit gang used to just sorta get filled in whenever dey came on de scene - hey boss? Hur - hur - hur!

Yeah, but lookin' good don't make up for a lack of brains, like you always tell me, and Mugsys commands remain strictly monosyl.... monyslyb.... one word at a time. You see, he tinks de smart ting to get into is booze, and he's got dis henchmen who says tings like 'How many boys da ya wanna hire, 0, 1 or 2?'. Ha, da dummy can't even speak good English! So Mugsy sits dere, mumbling dese answers wid all de chutzpah of Marion Brando on downers, an' dependin' on his decisions he can watch his fortunes grow or go.

0f course it's never so simple as dat and dere are rival gangs to be considered and booze parlours to buy and molls to keep de customers.... satisfied. And even though he's payin' off do Feds he'll still get trouble if they're not satisfied. Seems dis sidekick of his ain't too hot wid a rod, so Mugsy has to do all his own shootin', and' hang me, if it ain't like some penny arcade amusement, and none too difficult at that. Then it's back to de day to day of deciding whether to rub out the opposition an' de rest.

Well, in no time a year's gone by and the financial report comes in, then it's de edited high spots on the annum's quota of capital offences. No, sorry, boss - even dat ain't so good as it sounds. In fact it was the same as last year an' the year before. Hey - I tell ya, after da first few times I got really bored wid it.

Hey, boss, I can't help feelin' old Mugsy ain't really come that far. Maybe we should go show him de error of his ways - if you follow my meaning. He may have had a novel type of business strategy once but now it's just as mechanical as any board room decision makin'. And like youse always says - rubbin' out people an' booze an' everything is lacking in couth. Now where's dat new modem youse got so we can hack into da Federal Reserve and make some real money, kid?

Publisher: Melbourne House
Programmer: William Pang
Price: £8.95
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Cursor

Gee boss, dis is it. With your 50 grand and my brains we can break into da seedy woild of smuggling.

So what if it is prohibition, Boss? Dere's a lotta money to be made. Yeah, well da foist thing is to hire da boys - hoodlums. Boss. Now how many ya want? Remember Mugsy, we gotta make wid the foldin'stuff. Five grand to Pat McGroin - yeah, revolting name - and two grand for Pickey Zitz.

Boss, Boss. I don't unnerstand ya. If you pay Pat McGroin two grand you'll have to pay foive grand to stop him squealing to da Feds. Now that's finished can we buy some liquor. Boss? How many barrels ya want? Take 40, Boss, we can buy at $700 a barrel and sell at $1400 a barrel.

Hey, Mugsy. How much you gonna pay to set up da smuggling net? - I advoise 16 grand - dey gotta good ring up there. Now how much you gonna give da police charity fund? Two grand - very generous.

Boss, Pat McGroin squealed to da Feds. We got nothin' left. Gee, you're a turkey Mugsy, you couldn't even run a kindergarten. Hey Boss, you knowwha... (dat's enough, goil, dis Mugsyspeak is getting on my noives. Da Ed).

Well, having flunked the smuggling game, Mugsy and Co try again but this time with better results. By paying out a few more grand to the boys and the Feds they manage to make a profit. The Capo and the Italian mob haven't muscled in and Mugsy sets up a speakeasy to sell some of his liquor. At $3 a glass who wouldn't make a profit?

To add a little extra spice, Mugsy puts some goils in the clubs - they bring in the customers, the customers drink, Mugsy gets rich. And then after paying out vast back-handers to everyone in sight, something drastic nearly always happens. Like Matt Guano running off with all the clubs' takings, or the mob taking a third of the profits, or the Feds taking the lot.

When disaster strikes, and if you've got the cash, you can always take out a contract on whoever's causing the problem. However, if you don't pay the hitman enough, the contract might fail and it's the soup kitchens for you, Mugsy.

Of course, as you become more successful, so your empire expands. In gangsterspeak - the family grows as do your responsibilities. Your main worries are paying off those in authority - so always keep enough cash for those little emergencies, and enough liquor in stock to keep the speakeasies from running dry.

Gameplay is almost exactly the same as that in Mugsy, its predecessor. Mugsy's Revenge is a partially animated strategy game, with detailed and beautifully illustrated pictures of a 1930s gangster Chicago scene - shifty characters lurking on street corners with turned up collars and pulled down hats. As you progress into the game more backdrops appear, so that the buying and selling of liquor takes place on the dock and so on.

Instructions are carried out by single keypress. As Mugsy you are constantly being updated on your various rackets by a member of the family. He'll ask you to make decisions by asking questions in comic-style bubblespeak. You answer by Y, N or a number signifying dollars, barrels, goils or whatever.

Just occasionally you'll make an enormous error and find yourself in the game's only arcade sequence - the shootout with the Feds. It's helpful if Mugsy's got his shooter and you've got a joystick handy. It's a simple job to despatch the five or six Feds because they move like snails and have about as much intelligence.

At the end of each year you're treated to a short animated film sequence. Interesting the first time round, but by the fifth, it tends to lose its appeal. The clip is of Gino's Pool Hall and is accompanied by some atmospheric music. Peering through the windows you see a game taking place. Tempers start to rise and one of the three players leans over to pull the blinds. Your final glimpse, as the blinds are pulled, is of one of the players being thrown across the pool table. Hot stuff.

The game ends after a number of years when the law is repealed and prohibition is at an end. That is the most effective way of putting Mugsy out of business and you must leave everything clean and tidy, take your profits and run.

Mugsy's Revenge is relatively addictive and attempts to cater for all tastes with its arcade sequence. If you win it's as much by luck than good judgement as the amounts you have to pay out are selected at random. Sometimes you'll get off quite lightly, other times all your profits go in back-handers.

A complex and an enjoyable game - although I suspect it will begin to pall when you try for the seventh or eighth time to trade your way into year four.

However, there is a bonus - side B of the cassette contains a copy of the original Mugsy. For that reason, and because the package is such good value, we have awarded it four stars.

MACHINE: Spectrum/CBM64
SUPPLIER: Melbourne House
PRICE: £8.95 (Spectrum), £9.95 (CBM64)

"Hey boss, Mugsy and the Melbourne House mob are back in Town!"

"That little upstart. What's his angle this time?"

"Moonshine smuggling mainly, but he wants to get into a nightclub business too, boss."

"I heard he was having another crack at a computer games racket."

"Dat's right boss. I gotta holda of dis new tape when we raided the Melbourne House mob's new HQ. They put up quite fight boss, but we managed to grab a couple copies of da game before de Feds arrived and spoilt everyone's fun!"

"Well, let's see it then, Spike. Don't keep us in suspense ya dumb bozo!

"Mmmm. Looksalot like Mugsy's first game. Similar graphics - some animated. Very pretty. But, it's still basically one of those strategic trading games with a few frills.

"Looks like he wants everyone to know just how to become a Godfather figure like me. I must say the bits where you get to recruit a mob, set up a smuggling network and paya off the Feds is all very realistic. And this time you can send off your hit men to knock off your enemies - a nice touch, Mugsy. But is it nice enough to keepa my attention for longer than half an hour?

"Well, I don't think so. The graphics are pretty, But we all know what they say about pretty faces, don't we? And even the prospect of making a few grand and opening up nightclubs doesn't add much to what went before in the original game.

"Yeah, it's a nice idea and it looksa nice but it ain't really a full price game - not in this day and age. After all it is 1919! People want a bit more sophistication dese days."

"Yeah boss, like that cute little fox Samantha..."

"Shutaya face Spike, this is a family magazine! But while we're on the subject. What happened to my copy of my favourite card game?

"Well, uh, boss, you know, the boys...."

"You're just like Mugsy, Spike - cute on the outside but with nothing inside to back it up! Unless you find me that game you're goin' to end up reviewin' games for the ZX81 again! Now get out and find it - quickly!

Melbourne House
£7.95

Mugsy added cartoon strip quality graphics to the standard strategy, and trading game and now Mugsy's Revenge continues the idea.

Decisions are taken by replying to questions which are phrased in mock gangstereese. You start with 50,000 dollars and a limited set of options. Once you build up a profit then the options expand, opening nightclubs, hiring 'hostesses', putting contracts on other gangsters etc.

Mind you, other gangsters can put contracts out on you too! When this happens then an arcade sequence comes into play and you have to battle it out with a varying amount of opponents. The Feds may also invite you to a shootout. Although this is well done, I found it annoying as it often happened as I was just making progress and was usually fatal. The Feds even ran me down in a car once, after I'd finally managed to shoot their agents.

As a strategy game there is a reasonable challenge and it can be frustratingly difficult. Unfortunately the built in random element is far too frequently used. Just as you begin to make progress it seems disaster strikes.

At the end of each turn an animated 'highlight' of the year is shown which soon becomes irritating, as does the slowness and frequency of the graphic routines. The original Mugsy game is thrown in free, and this makes it a good bargain if you haven't already got it but if you do then there is not a great deal of point in getting this one.