Zeppelin Games
£3.99

Philleas Fogg is a strange little game. It seems this wise man (complete with handlebar moustache) was on one of his trips around the world when he volunteered for a dangerous and daring mission.

Set in the war fields of 1871, Fogg controls his special hydrogen balloon complete with High Pressure Thrust (oo-er) and splatters the enemy with the bombs he's carrying. Moving around the landscape is bleedin' hard work, as the wind blows you wherever it feels like and floating too low over enemies may result in the balloon being popped and the gas igniting - BOOM!!!

You take off by dropping sandbags over the side of the basket to make the balloon lighter. The more sandbags or bombs dropped the easier the balloon is to control. There are four levels of altitude and getting the correct one for your area is a must. The troopers roaming around blast you at level two, cannons get you at level three, hills are tough to cross and mountains can't be passed at all.

Towns, rocks, lakes and shacks are also dotted around the levels and all affect the balloon. There's also the odd friendly shack, identified by a flag, and landing near one of these will increase your hydrogen, bomb and sandbag levels.

Balloon Battles is extremely annoying at first. You have to read the instructions over and over before you reaslise what you're supposed to be doing! Once you've got the hang of the game it's quite fun, though. Zeppelin have always been one for the more obscure titles and this is one of them - great fun to play.

REPLAY

More fun than a bouncy castle, better looking than a double cheeseburger. It's JON PILLAR and RICH PELLEY!

Zeppelin
£2.99
Reviewer: Rich Pelley

Phileas Fogg is a somewhat mad and totally fictitious character who once, and for no apparent reason, decided to venture around the world in eight days. During his travels, he came across lots of yummy snacks and sent them all back to his Aunt Agatha. Zeppelin have completely ignored this and, using a decidedly hefty chunk of artistic licence, have got him stopping over mid-journey to help out some Allies who are at war at the time.

Actually, the game has got nothing to do with Phileas Fogg, but I suppose Zeppelin had to find some excuse to produce a game which has you flying a balloon around a sparse play area and dropping bombs on enemy installations. In fact, after much thought, I couldn't come up with a better one than the Phileas Fogg story either.

So why don't I like this game? Well, it's boring. There are no map making skills required, there's no map (the background graphics cease to exist), no technique is needed to bomb installations or baddies, it's all up to chance whether or not you're shot down, the graphics and sound are pretty shoddy and overall the game plays more like a sub-game than anything worth releasing. In other words, there is just far too little to it. Call me Mr Complete B... (I will not! Ed), but I would have severe difficulty recommending this game to even the most narrow-minded of people. It's repetitive and utterly unaddictive and certainly not worth the bother.

Label: Zeppelin
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: 3.99 Tape
Reviewer: Alan Dykes

I have it on good authority that Phileas Fogg never actually used a balloon in the book but he has been immortalised on film in "Around the World in Eighty Days" in one and it is roughly around this plot that Phileas Fogg's Balloon Battles is based.

Basically the idea is to travel around in said balloon, destroying enemy cities, soldiers, gun emplacements and buildings. Control isn't complicated, because you are flying a lighter than air craft with no power of it's own and basically it gets blown all over the shop. The only way you can change direction is to deflate the balloon and fall, or lose weight by dropping sand bags and rise, this enables you to catch different air currents which will shoot you in another direction.

Foggy world rotates between day and night, and this time cycle effects the hydrogen in your balloon. During the day it expands, making your craft more buoyant, conversely during the night it contracts and you need to use much more of the gas to stay in the air.

The graphics are all black and yellow whilst icons around the screen show your current score, the proximity of friendly troops, the coming of night and day and the direction the wind is blowing. Gameplay is easy and once you get used to the unusual movements of wind and balloon the game is quite playable and becomes reasonably interesting.

Phileas Fogg's Balloon Battles is just about a fun game, it's such a good idea that it will fascinate you for awhile but ultimately, even though it is a budget title, it lacks the class needed to be really good.

GARTH:
This is certainly a novel idea for a game - but certainly better executed than Virgin's Atlantic Challenge or Sam Fox Strip Poker, but just about similar in the complete tit stakes.