Virgin Games
£9.99

Viz - the magazine that's not as funny as it used to be! Viz - you'll never read a bigger pile of s***e! Viz - the computer game. Oh dear.

Yes, here we are in Vizland and it's a one-way ticket to Amusement City (except there's no transport, so to speak). It's the game of the comic of the double entendre and our sides are waiting to be split. So, let's load it up and see what's going on...

It's the day of the grand Fulchester fun run and there are three athletes in the race. In lane one we have Johnny Fartpants, a little lad with a big commotion in his trousers. Lane two has Buster Gonad with his unfeasibly large testicles, and in lane three is none other than Biffa Bacon, a charming boy with a habit of unprovoked violence. Other Viz stars make an appearance during the game and Roger Mellie commentates.

There are five horizontally scrolling levels to race through. The first is the park where trees, logs and flying bricks have to be dodged. To make things worse, the Parkie will bash you with his stick if you walk on the grass and Bertie Blunt's (his parrot's a nasty piece of work) feather friend drops lethal messages from the sky. To complete a level you have to finish the race in first place - it's easier said than done.

To help you, each character can collect tokens to use along the way. Each token gives one unit of superpower plus a less impressive special power. There are two types of bonus game per character for collecting the tokens, all packed with amusing animation.

If it weren't for the antics of the Viz characters this game would be a complete flop. The racing is extremely annoying - you fall over for the slightest reason and spend precious seconds picking yourself up again. It's not as if the collision detection is accurate. There are certain areas of the level you cannot go, even though they may be open spaces! You soon learn by your mistakes, though.

No matter how hard I tried there was no way I could get past the first level. I could be running as fast as possible from start to finish when another character would just shoot past end win the race.

The utterings of Roger Mellie soon begin to get on your nerves, too, as he uses the same patter for each race.

Viz - The Computer Game is a big let-down. The licence could have been used to create an excellent game (rather than one like this).

NICK [47%]

Graphically, Viz is pretty good, with most of the comic book characters at least recognisable. Apart from the ultimately monotonous swearing, the thing that put me off the game was the computer-controlled opponents. However fast you run (even with your superpower), they're always ahead of you. And if you ever catch up with them and try to overtake, the buggers shove you into the nearest obstacle. It's all very frustrating and removes nearly all the entertainment value from the game.
MARK [40%]

Virgin
£10.99 cass
Reviewer: James Leach

No! Definitely not! I absolutely refuse to review something as rude as this. As if How To Be A Complete Bastard wasn't bad enough! I've got my reputation to think of. Nope, I'm not going to do it.

(Pause.)

Well, maybe if I close my eyes when I get to the rudest bits. Hmm. Okay. Here goes...

POPULAR!

Of course, if you've never heard of Viz before then you probably don't speak a word of English and you're not even reading this review, But here's a little explanation to help anyway - it's a 'comic' for 'adults', and its packed and absolutely throbbing (oo-er!) with violence, a fair bit of sex and a great deal of bad language. There. And it's officially 'not funny anymore' (according to its writers). So why make it into a computer game? Well, I haven't the foggiest actually. And after seeing it I'm still none the wiser.

It stars 3 of Viz's most popular characters - Johnny Fartpants, Biffa Bacon and Buster Gonad - who, for some very odd reason, decided to hold a charity race through Fulchester (where they all live). You pick who you want to play and then, erm, try to win.

But wait! Before you trot off, you've got to knock your player into shape and store up a whole wodge of lives to prepare for the marathon ahead. This means that if you're Biffa you've got to headbutt, kick and punch flying bricks (or drink as much beer as possible), and if you're Johnny you've got to inflate party balloons (or honk yourself very, very high up into the air). Buster doesn't have quite the same catalogue of choice since he's only able to churn out loads of pastry bases, using his unfeasibly large 'you-know-whats' as a makeshift rolling pin. (Blimey!) Anyway, what it all comes down to is a pretty straightforward waggler - you're up against the clock, and the faster you go, the more lives you get. Simple.

ESCORT!

Gosh, it's all getting so exciting! Now it's time to line up and get ready. Roger Mellie swears you in (as it were), Roger Irrelevant (he's completely fish-tank!) wanders on for no reason at all, and then whoosh! the race is suddenly underway. Obstacles and traps litter your path of course, and the others soon start to punch, 'guff' or 'testicle' you out of the way. What a bunch of basts, eh? And, as if that weren't enough. everytime you fall over you lose a life. It's a complete nightie!

As far as the scenery goes there's a sort of field to run across, then a park, and then the funky old town of Fulchester itself.

Actually, the racing is pretty nicely handled - the characters all speed up and slow down at their own pace so the leader keeps changing. But what a pity is that all you've got to do with the joystick is push it to the right and steer up and down. Viz certainly isn't the most interactive game you've ever seen, that's for sure.

But not that you don't have some fun. Making your way through Fulchester you get to meet all those characters who you've sniggered at 6 times a year in the comic - most of whom are jostling in on the action to cause even mere mayhem! And of course they behave just as stupidly as you'd expect (Or not, as the case may be. If you've no idea who anyone is then the jokes'll probably fly way above your head!)

CORTINA MK III!

So what's the verdict? Well, first off there's the bad language - it pops up at the top of the screen in the guise of Roger Mellie commentating on the action. Now this kind of stuff might work in the comic (because of the strength of the stories and the whole anarchic feel of it all), but here it's just been slapped in for a few cheap giggles and it looks plain stupid and dumb.

There's also the way it reminds me of Virgin's Monty Python from last year. The mere you play it the less you laugh! (Ahem.) But no - to be fair to Python, at least that had oodles of playability. Here it's all a bit thin on the ground. Not that it's easy. In fact you'd be hard pressed to finish it for quite a while. It's just that its all rather threadbare - it doesn't have that 'big, involved game' feel to it that you'd expect.

If you're a devout Viz follower then you'll have some fun. The graphics are clear enough for you to recognise all the characters, a jolly tune bumbles along nicely and there are lots of nice little surprises (like the Top Tips which pop up out of the blue), But don't expect it to be as engrossing as the comic. It's all too samey and the idea of running in a race is hardly that exciting. Virgin have obviously used this approach as a means of getting as much out of their licenced characters as possible, but there must have been a better game idea to hang them on than this.

So there we are. The chap who didn't speak English and wasn't reading any of this in the first place didn't miss that much, and I got through a whole review without typing a single rude word. Not even a 'crap'. (Damn!)

REPLAY

And now, the moment a number of you have been waiting for. It's remarkable, it's resplendent, it's Replay!

Virgin Tronix
£3.99 cassette
081 960 2255
Reviewer: Craig Broadbent

Viz, for those of you who aren't aware of its existence, is a 'comic' which was a rather amusing novelty when it first appeared. Unfortunately, Viz lost its appeal by, ooh, issue two, and since then has been merely a rather sad collection of cartoons swearing at each other. Viz the Computer Game attempts to bring those lovable rascals (?) to life on the small screen, in the form of a race through their home town of Fulchester.

This involves you taking control of one of the three characters in the race, and attempting to overcome the various obstacles positioned along the way by using special powers. You get your powers by having a bash at your characters special bonus level.

Unfortunately, everyones special powers do the same thing - they simply speed you up and get you over obstacles. This has very little to do with the main event, which basically involves you walking quite slowly around each obstacle.

As you can imagine, this type of gameplay doesn't make for an incredibly addictive and fun-packed game. In fact, it's pitifully dull, and the dreaded multiload system means that you have to reload virtually the whole game every time you die, just like in Ghostbusters 2.

What's more, there's no sound at all on the 48K version, and the game occasionally loads other character's bonus levels instead of your own. Worst of all, the programmers (Probe, who normally write pretty good games and should know better) labour under the delusion that adding a heap of bad language will excuse the appallingly dull game.

Viz's only redeeming features are the nicely drawn character sprites and the miscellaneous 'Top Tips' you get when you complete a bonus stage.

Unless you're particularly unobservant, you've probably noticed that I don't think much of this game. Well, you'd be right. The games packaging says that "you'll never play a bigger load of crap", and in the face of the evidence, I have to say that it's absolutely right.

Label: Virgin
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £10.23 Tape, £n/a Disk
Reviewer: Alan Dykes

Weird? Wacky? Educational? I just don't know folks, one thing's for sure though, Viz the comic is even crazier than the paving on an Essex garden path, and twice as naughty as a scrumping schoolboy.

So, what about the game? We've been waiting, nay anticipating the appearance of Viz ever since Virgin first announced they were working on it, and ever since S.U. previewed it back in March. Well, this is your big chance to find out if Virgin and John Brown Publishing made good bedfellows, (fnarr, fnarr), as the S.U. Crew give the game (and Biffa Bacon) a bashing to see if they have managed to pull off, (yuk, yuk), the transition between comic characters and computer game giants.

The opening screen allows you to choose between three Viz regulars, depending on whether you want to be; incredibly flatulent, a bully, or have unfeasibly large testicles, because, yes, it's Biffa Bacon, Johhny Fartpants and Buster Gonad, making their first prime time T.V. appearance on Fulchester Television, yippee !! You then begin a race against time, the other contestants and a variety of invariably rude Viz inhabitants who will try to make it as tough as possible, in fact, a real rough ride, (heh, heh). The day's compere is that nice man on the telly... Roger Mellie and he's in a right ruddy humour probably 'cos Tom, his producer, is nowhere to be seen!. In order to make sure that people stick to their own lanes during the race Rodney Ricks will be chucking bricks at those who deviate.

Each race starts with a bonus screen in which Buster, Biffa and Johnny collect tokens for use with their specialist skills during the event. These bonus levels are wrist and joystick mangling, as their success largely depends on quick shooting and frantic wiggling, (double fnarr, fnarr.)

The bonus competitions for each character are naturally based on their world renowned talents. Biffa's include lager drinking and fighting, Buster's are painfully plum pulverising and Mr.Fartpants esq.'s involve lots of brussels sprout induced whiffy guffs.

There are five races; country, town, building site, beach and night dub where people like the Parkie and Mrs. Brady, old lady will try to spike your scrotum or cork your canal which makes things not so easy.

The graphics and the gameplay recreates Viz admirably - the zany personalities and images of the comic are all there, easily recognisable and with all there peculiar talents intact. Where Viz is let down is by the not quite so successful joystick-wrenching gameplay.

The graphics during the races are acceptable but the sprites can mix and become confusing, this confusion also extends to avoiding obstacles and crossing bridges/paths, which can be difficult to judge. Another annoying feature is a tendency to get put back in the same place or situation which you've just been killed, thus resulting in a second loss of life. There is a short period of immunity once you return, but because of graphic confusion this can be wasted. Be warned that all of this can lead to serious frustration.

On a more positive note the music and background sounds are reasonably good and fit well. Overall Viz is a mixture of good and bad. It's just possible that the bad points are actually deliberate, as Viz traditionally likes to do things differently, but I don't know..... as Biffa might put it. "It's a reet cheeky ghay-em, 'an not fer ya mutha or fatha like".

GARTH:
I've been following Viz since it's first inception and the actual characters themselves are brilliantly done. Some backgrounds however, can be cluttered and misleading and although it started out well, it looks as if Virgin couldn't keep it up long enough to have a creamey product on their hands.