Producer: US Gold
Retail Price: £8.99 cassette, £12.99 disk
Author: Bubble Inc

Scene One: After making a note of his starting balance, the prospective director chooses a script from the eight provided. Each one displays production costs and includes a short synopsis together with a list of actors and props available.

Cut to black and white set: Against a background of bars, city street, drawing rooms and parks a number of actors are busily acting their parts. Taking the role of Chaplin, the player attempts to turn the scene into an episode of slapstick comedy. How efficiently Chaplin twirls his cane, shrugs his shoulders, worships his sweetheart and beats up his rivals determines the film's success.

Pan to cutting room: Here the film can be paused or shown at twice normal speed. Dissatisfied directors can opt to re-shoot a scene any number of times but at an extra cost.

Opening Night: Once complete, the movie is shown to a cinema audience. The response of the critics, indicated by the tone of a Variety headline, determines how much money the film makes. A profit and loss sheet displays the financial fate of the movie. Make a loss and the director's film career is over, make a profit and he survives to make another Chaplin film.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: totally black and white. The detailed characters and backgrounds make all the scenes atmospheric
Sound: a few very simple spot effects
Options: choice of eight scripts (levels of difficulty)

The slapstick world of silent movies is particularly suited to the capabilities of the Spectrum and US Gold certainly exploit the possibilities. All the sets are finely detailed and the presentation of each film, from script to final showing, is faultless. Chaplin survives the translation into machine code particularly well, his characteristic walk being perfectly portrayed. Unfortunately the substance of the game doesn't match up to the high standard set by the graphics. Neither shootting nor editing provide much scope for variety. Chaplin's moves are very limited: all he can do to show affection for his sweetheart is twirl his cane, shrug his shoulders or punch her in the face. A little more attention to content and Chaplin might have starred in a completely different story.
KATI [57%]

Starring Charlie Chaplin makes a welcome change from the usual 'shoot the alien' or 'rescue the medieval monk'-type games that a lot of software companies have been churning out lately. The cartoon style characters are all well animated and Charlie swings his stick in a very convincing manner. According to the inlay the idea is to do as many whacky stunts as possible, but all I could seem to do was hit everyone! Mind you, I did make £10 profit - who said you couldn't make money in the film business! The game includes many neat touches, such as the curtain-opening sequence, but there just isn't enough to keep you occupied for long. It's a pity because Starring Charlie Chaplin had loads of potential.
NICK [63%]

Starring Charlie Chaplin would be a fantastic game if only it had more variety. There's no doubting the quality of the graphics - they suit the Spectrum computer perfectly - and the sound in a silent film can hardly be inspirational. But all you have to do is knock people over - that's it! You'd have thought US Gold would have given Chaplin more violent things to do - like banging doors in people's faces. The game requires no directing or financial skill at all - all you do is hit people! The more times you hit people, the more money you get. The game has so much potential it's a pity the idea hasn't been exploited to its full.
PAUL [60%]

US Gold
£8.99
Reviewer: Duncan MacDonald

Aaah, Charlie Chaplin, doncha just love him? (Eeerm - no, actually). Waddling around twirling a stupid stick and wibbling a useless 'Hitleresque' moustache does not, in my book. a comic genius make! Let's face it, what the old chap needs is a 'catchphrase', "Don't touch the pack, well be right back!" or 'Come on down!" or "Awright???" -something like that. I'll see if I can come up with something later, but now its review time.

The game is set in the 1920's and you are a movie producer/director/actor and editor. As a producer its up to you to pick and, erm, produce eight silent movie classics, each of which has to make a profit. You're on a tight budget, so if a film bombs at the box office then you bomb as a producer, because your dosh will run out. Film one finances film two finances film three and so on.

First you've got to buy a script. As I said, there are eight films to make, so guess how many scripts are on offer? (Pete 'Puzzler' Shaw eat your heart out). That's right, eight - each of which not only differs in price but also in the number of 'scenes' there are to 'take'. Let pretend we've plumped first for the cheapest script with the least number of scenes.

Boing!!! Now you're the director. Say "Scene x, take n..... Action!" and press the fire button on your joystick.

Boing!!! And now you're the actor, yup, ol' Charlie himself and this is the 'action' part of the game. The cameras are going to be 'rolling' for one minute, and for a successful Chaplin movie that means 15 billion nanoseconds of rib-wrenching slapstick larkery, 15 thousand million femtoseconds of tactical tomfoolery or, to return to the more comfortable world of feasable positive integers, sixty seconds of knocking your fellow actors/actresses onto their derriers with well placed and deftly timed punches. This is where the 'jocularity' points are scored.

Click! Your minute's up, the celluloid is 'in the can' and you're now (being) the editor. You can replay the whole scene, just sit back and watch what you did as Charlie. Were there enough knock-downs to keep the punters happy? You can always re-shoot the scene - but it'll cost.

Once you're happy with the scenes you've done it's time to commit yourself to a public screening of the whole film. The curtains open and the whole thing is played back - all you can do is sit and wait (which can become a trifle boring, but adds brilliantly to the frustration factor when a film bombs - all that waiting for nothing). Following the screening, a headline from the front page of Variety pops up which let's you know what the critics thought. Thumbs up and you remain in the black and can make another film. Thumbs down and more than likely you'll be in negative dosh zones and will have to start again.

Everything about this game is good - except one thing: lastability. There isn't really quite enough to do. Not that it's easy (it isn't), but simply walking around and positioning yourself correctly for a successful punch, does soon become a bit, erm, tedious. There's not enough interaction.

Full marks, however, for originality and high marks for the graphics (which really have a nice 'twenties' feel). What a shame about the 'action' part of the game. Definitely a case of the 'could have been really good'.

Anyway, I've had time to think about that catchphrase and I must say - it's a corker! Here it is (cue trumpets and a drum-roll): "............Cor blimey Missus!!!". (Crikey).

Label: US Gold
Author: Bubbles Inc
Price: £8.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

As part of the recent trend for digging up dead comedians and turning them into computer games (Laurel & Hardy, 3 Stooges...), US Gold has made a brave attempt to digitise the little tramp aka Charlie Chaplin. It could have been brilliant, it could have been a disaster, it turned out to be both.

All you have to do is make a funny movie. Simple, huh? Your first task is to choose a script. Using the joystick, you step through a menu of titles, each one of which is accompanied by a brief description of the number of scenes, actors and props, plus the cost of the shoot. Obviously, you can only choose a script which is within your budget, and the aim is to make enough money from each film to finance a bigger and better one.

Once you've selected a script, choose a scene to shoot and you'll move to the main action.

The beautifully-detailed displays of the film sets are in glorious black and white, so one thing the game doesn't suffer from is attribute clash. I suppose they could also have justified dropping the sound effects (silent movie, see?) but there is the odd bleep and bloop.

Now, the big problem with the game is that all you are told to do in the instructions is "move Charlie around the set doing whacky stunts." The little waddling figure of Charlie and the other actors are nicely designed and animated, but could I make them do anything funny? No, kiddies, I couldn't. Wiggle the joystick and press the fire button, and if you're lucky someone will fall over of get a smack on the nose, but this is hardly the stuff of which comedy classics are made.

After a minute of this aimless waggling you have the choice of viewing the scene at normal or double speed, and if it's not up to scratch, reshooting it (if your budget permits).

The average film includes four scenes, set in a pretty limited selection of scenes including a garden, a hotel and a shop. Once you're happy with your production, you move to the Screen routine, where you have to sit through the whole bloody thing again and wait for the audience reaction in the form of newspaper headlines - in my case, something along the lines of "Chaplin Stinker Does Zippo Boxoffice".

The funnier the film, the more money you will find displayed on your accounts sheet at the end of the round. I guess that the aim of the game is to make all the films available, then die.

The game isn't so bad that Charlie Chaplin will be spinning in his grave; in fact, the basic idea is brilliant and the graphics are extremely cute. The trouble is that the gameplay is almost non-existent, and what there is, is unbelievably repetitive and monotonous. Pity, really.

US Gold, £8.99cs, £12.99dk
Amstrad version reviewed Issue 10 - Ace Rating 392

The game in which that great comedian puts his penguin-walk into action to make several films. You've got to organise the shoots, control Charlie and edit the film. The final aim is to make a box office hit. The mono graphics are more suited to the Spectrum, but unfortunately the gameplay hasn't changed. It's still just a matter of wandering around trying to hit the other characters as often as possible. Hardly a true picture of the great man's talents. Ah well, back to the story board.

MACHINES: Spectrum, Amstrad, IBM PC, C64 and ST to follow.
SUPPLIER: US Gold
PRICE: Spec 48K £8.99 cass, Amstrad £9.99 cass, £14.99 disk, C64 £9.99/£14.99, ST £19.99 disk, IBM PC £24.99 disk
VERSION TESTED: Spectrum

In my short(ish) time here at C+VG I've seen some great games, some good games and some less impressive ones from Britain's biggest software publishers.

Never, however, has a US Gold product made me laugh quite as much as Starring Charlie Chaplin. Yep. It was that bad!

It is a "unique game concept" indeed. The idea is that you are the director of one of our Charlie's black and white classics, and have a choice between making Modern Times, The Tramp, Married Life and a bunch of others based to varying degree on his movies.

So far, so good. You chose your script, you flick past the screen which tells the cost of each scene, the actors and props involved and so on and then... the comedy begins!

Yep, it's funny alright. Funny that there should be so little to do. Each backdrop, be it a ship deck, a country garden or a pub is laid out in exactly the same way: empty, with some steps to a balcony at the back.

Each is populated by a couple of characters who walk about, back and forth, across the screen. Every time, you have to move around this rather basic set in the manner most likely to amuse an audience and so make your flick a success. It dawns on you that an audience would have to be pretty starved of entertainment to be tickled by any of this.

The first film I attempted to make was The Immigrant, a tale of Charlie's arrival in America and inevitable falling in love with the woman of his dreams. The instructions advise you to perform "wacky stunts" on the other actors, but since the only wacky stunt my particular Charlie seemed to know how to perform was smacking people in the face with a good right jab, this soon began to pail, and I sent him roaming around the set instead, climbing ladders and suchlike.

If a black and white game is surprising on the Spectrum, then it is surely unbelievable on a 64 or (gulp!) an ST, however atmospheric it may be. The game obviously looks a lot better on the ST, but the game play is just so ill thought-out and limited, I can't imagine anyone sitting down and playing it more than twice.

Spectrum 48/128 Cassette: £8.99, Diskette: £12.99
Amstrad CPC Cassette: £9.99, Diskette: £14.99
PC Diskette: £24.99

A WRONG CHARLIE

Some nine months after TGM001 showed screenshots of the ST version, the game has at last been released for some home computers. The programming house responsible is Canvas; their people wrote Wizard Warz and converted Road Runner. Conversions for Spectrum and Amstrad are by Tiertech.

Besides being a renowned actor, Chaplin was also a respected director/producer - the US Gold game has you taking on all these roles.

To begin with, as a prospective film-maker you must select which of the available scripts he will shoot - the best place to start is a low-budget movie with as few scenes as possible. Scenes can be shot in any order you choose, but while the sets and backdrops vary from scene to scene the basic objective is always the same: beat up the bad guys. Once shot, the scene is 'edited'

YOUR PUBLIC

Once all the scenes have been shot to your satisfaction you must show the whole film - linked together by captions - to a cinema audience. Whether it's a runaway hit or a massive flop, audience reaction remains minimal.

Starring Charlie Chaplin contains minimal film-making activities and is more a segmented beat-'em-up than anything else. If all the scenes had been linked together, it might have been a lot more impressive.