Reviews

An original dynamic adventure based on a book written by Ade Edmonson, a British comedian no one here (Italy) has ever heard of, but appears to be very popular in his homeland.

In the book, and the game, your task is to gatecrash at a yuppie party and spoil all the fun they are having. You must use the objects lying around to light up the "Complete-Bastard" caption at the bottom of the screen by performing some ludicrously evil deeds like covering a guest's hair with machine oil or toothpaste, tying him/her up with a hose or making a custard pie and slapping it on his/her face. You must do this while getting as drunk, smelly and generally unpleasant as you can - some of the tricks can only be performed when you are completely intoxicated!

The screen is divided in two areas, each showing a different angle of view of the room you are in. While rather confusing at the beginning, this unusual presentation - named 'Bastavision' - proves to be very valuable in helping you understand your surroundings.

Yes, the graphics are pretty sketchy - you do not get to see the effects of your actions, just a caption or in some cases a large writing - and the sound is minimal, but the sheer, sadistical fun you have in doing the most offensive things to those hateful and unbearable icons of '80s Western society is simply too good to be missed. No matter how crazy it sounds to you - you will be surprised at how nasty you can get here!

No, not a guide to becoming a Tory but a game based on a book by Adrian Edmondson. The aim of the game is to basically to ruin the party and generally annoy the hell out of the guests. Now if you're David Cameron you can do that by simply turning up at said party. For anyone else you're gonna need a bit more effort. To do this you need to find objects around the house and use them where appropriate. It's all pretty dull though and not worth the effort.

The concept is an amusing one, but the gameplay is poorly executed for me. I never liked dual-screen games, Troll had it and I disliked it and now this has it and while it's less confusing it's still annoying and it's still not clever. I really wanted to enjoy this, but I didn't, and now I feel like a bastard playing this.

198 Virgin Games (UK)
by Elliot Gay and Allistair Watt

I loved both the "Young Ones" series and the less known show "Bottom", both featuring Adrian Edmondson, the bloke who wrote the book which inspired this game.

The game goes something like this: your invited to a party and decide to be as bastard as you can by playing tricks on people or doing disgusting things to yourself such as drinking detergent, eat whole packages of curry, etc. The screen features 4 meters (Drunkometer, Weeeometer, Fartometer and Smellometer) I think they are self explanatory, so no need dwelling on that. Each time you do a nasty task including to yourself, the meters rise. Keep them active. All you have to do is make all the invited guests leave and you can have the place to yourself. Each time a guest leaves a letter of the phrase COMPLETE-BASTARD will light up, if your deeds are not sick enough a letters will only light for a short period of time.
So you will need to perform really nasty actions sixteen times to win the game.

The idea is extremely original, if you exclude Jack the Nipper which debuted (to my knowledge) a somewhat amoral and mischievous character , but the execution this time fall short from good. Several features could have been added to make the atmosphere much more enjoyable such as visual and sound effects whenever you break stuff up and things like the sort. The double screens don't help either specially at the beginning.

The toilet humour is fun to a teenager but soon gets secondary if the game hasn't more to give.

If I had played this game as a kid or a teenager in the 80's I'm sure I would had loved a lot more than today.