Reviews

Picture yourself in Blackpool, you play a game for prizes, your goal? To roll the ball into the holes to move your horse, if your horse finishes first, you win. Sounds like a fun game and trust me it is, I've done it and I've won before, great feeling of victory yet great fun of taking part.......but why on earth would Alternative Software release a computer game with that concept! Daft Daft Daft!

Seriously of all the possible ideas for a game this is one of the daftest ideas out there, this is not very fun at all, it all appears to be random and a matter of luck rather than skill and effort, to say this game is Alternative is an understatement, it's also pretty crap as well. Stick to the real thing rather than this garbage.

One of the most bizarre concepts in any computer game. Doesn't quite work out well but at least they tried something different.

You can't fault the programmer for trying something different and be innovative, who knows the idea probably hit him one day and he just thought sod it lets do it, and he did. The problem is it doesn't work very well, rolling the ball into the holes to move your horse is a matter of luck, there are times it'll go past the hole but not drop in and there are times you'll go through a period without dropping anything, this makes the race more prolonged than it should be. Also despite there being three horses in the race it is essentially a head to head battle between you and the computer player beside you with third player who is nowhere to be seen doing next to nothing and its horse barely moves. So the idea is a great one and has never been done before, or since I think, but I think we can see why it hasn't been done since, because for the large part it is ineffective.

EDIT
The very next race I did after posting this review the third horse raced through and won by a mile! So I was wrong about this third horse, it'll either sit at the back for much of the race or it'll just blitz through the field as if it's on steroids. So to call the third horse completely random is an understatement.

1991 Alternative Software (UK)
by Richard Stevenson, Mike Lister & Paul Bellamy

The idea is based around carnival games found in fairgrounds and the sort, but it doesn't quite work on software.
You throw a ball into a board filled with holes, some more distant than others, each hole will have a different result on the performance of the racing horses on top.

Innovation is always welcome, so you can't blame anyone for trying something different.