Balade Au Pays De Big-ben

Copyright : Coktel Vision | Reviewed by : Malc Jennings

Based on one of the freakiest stories you are told as a chid in which Alice is sitting under a tree minding her own business when a rabbit runs by saying "I?m late!" while looking at his watch, Alice thinks he must be intelligent and decides to follow him down a rabbit hole. As you might have guessed the adventure begins and all is not quite as normal as it is in the real world.
Balade is not a game as such but we decided to review it anyway - don?t ask why...I said don?t.

Graphics

While Balade is mostly a text based program there are occasional illustrations to guide you along the way, a little like childrens books (which is who the program tries to attract in the first place). Everything else in the program is a set of coloured words (which you can type to get dictionary definitions) and standard words which you cannot enter, as it?s basically educational anyway this doesn?t cause any problems and the lack of graphics on every screen shouldn?t be held against it.

Sound

Sounds don?t exist in this program, well at least we here at CPC Zone didn?t hear anything to excite us or make us jump out of our seats. Again we?ll play the educational card here, if this program was used in a schools the last thing the teacher needs is 5 or 6 CPCs going off at the same time, though there?s always the volume control on the side.

Gameplay

There is no actual gameplay as such, don?t get us wrong it?s not just a story that you are forced to read page by page and it does offer a certain unique feature. This feature is a system that allows the user to type certain words (highlighted in purple or a darker shade of green) out of a particular page into the prompt at the bottom of the page and read dictionary style definitions for that particular word.
In all Balade is a strange little program and one that we have certainly never seen before, it?s a good idea but little attempt has been made to make it that little bit more special or to attract children into giving it a whirl. Coktel Vision are known for strange bits of CPC software here and there (as you?ll see around CPC Zone and TACGR) so it came as no surprise to us that it wasn?t quite your average computer game.
A novel idea but it could have been taken a few steps further despite the massive story that has been painfully typed into the program code (this was even more painfull back in the CPC generation). Worth a look if nothing else.