Spaghetti Western Simulator

Copyright : Zeppelin Games | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Clint Westbound (now where have I heard that beforeâ?¦) enigmatic protector of the West and all-round good guy has to clear up the town from pesky varmints and banditos, returning peace, law and order to the good townsfolk. You play Clint in this ambitious shoot-em-up.

Graphics

More blocky than a blocky factory with a big order of blocks, Spaghetti Western Simulator is a Spectrum conversion that left the good graphics on the inferior Sinclair. Read that last line again. Yes, this is a Speccie conversion with WORSE graphics than the original. Absolutely everything is blocky. As Iâ??ve reviewed just about all of Zeppelinâ??s atrocities for the Amstrad youâ??d think Iâ??d be used to this lack of graphical finesse but each time it just seems to give me an overwhelming feeling of nausea.

The colour scheme is erratic and not even erratically good as the unrealistically moving sprites lurch from one poor colour choice to another. Unrealistic etch-a-sketch style characters and objects are soon inching their merry way around your screen and youâ??ll find yourself curious to continue on as far as you can if only so you can see what square monstrosity awaits around the bend for you to gawp and marvel that a computer system six years old should have a commercial game released for it that even Atari wouldâ??ve booted out for looking a bit basic.

Sound

Remember having one of those cap guns as a kid with the red paper and â??gunpowderâ?? that would bang and crack in your gun? Imagine, if you will, a faithful rendering of this noise and cranked up to the maximum in your Amstrad. And then realise that this is Zeppelin doing the program and that they arenâ??t even that goodâ?¦ What are you left with? Crap cap-gun effects that are irritating beyond belief.

Gameplay

I donâ??t care what a game looks or sounds like as long as itâ??s enjoyable. This isnâ??t. Itâ??s stupid, irritating and brain-meltingly pointless. Iâ??ve been trying to play this for weeks. Honestly! Every day, for the last fortnight Iâ??ve banged this in Caprice and attempted to get my head around the bizarre control system (press fire, left and up to jumpâ?¦ huh!), and summon up the will to play properly but I canâ??tâ?¦ Instead Iâ??ve taken to jumping my way through the level like some form of Wild West Olympics because I sure as hell canâ??t shoot anything straight, duck under the continual barrage of horseshoes, knives and other paraphernalia that comes hurtling across the screen or anything else that Iâ??m supposed to.

Iâ??ve never been to the Wild West (nor am I likely to what with it being the 21st century and all thatâ?¦) but I canâ??t imagine that cowboys, sheriffs or otherwise, were continually having to avoid bouncing balls being thrown at them by their seemingly numerous enemiesâ?¦

A major downfall of the game is itâ??s choice of perspective despite giving a sense of 3-D with the large sprites etc, the knives and other things that come in from the side of the screen can still hit you whether it be in the head or the foot if they come in contact with your sprite. This means there is very little room to move to guarantee avoiding being hit with anything and this more than anything is what makes the game such a frustrating mess.

Thereâ??s an old Eskimo saying: If it looks like crap, sounds like crap and feels like crap, itâ??s probably crap. (n.b. I donâ??t think this is an actual bona-fide Eskimo saying â?? in fact I know it isnâ??t â??cos I just made it up â?? but it sums it all up quite wellâ?¦)