Its a Knockout

Copyright : Ocean Software | Reviewed by : Ritchardo

Conveniently forgotten when talk comes around to some of the worst licence games, It?s a Knockout won few friends on release and was one of the lowest ebbs for Ocean?

Based on the British TV series that was itself based on the infamous ?Jeux Sans Frontières?, this multi-event game looked to capture the oddball antics of the TV show and provide the same kind of belly laughs.

Sadly the howls of laughter that greeted this game on release probably weren?t what Ocean had in mind?

Graphics

Basic presentation, basic graphics, basic screen layouts, basic backgrounds. Oh yeah, this game just screams basic.

It?s hard to find anything positive to say at all. The graphics are appalling and frequently slow down, thus crippling the gameplay considering most of the events require some sense of timing.

I?ll grant you that the different events are completely different looking to one another but none of them come close to capturing the imagination or stretching the CPC to it?s limits. Of the six events only one takes place outwith a single screen and when you look at the pathetic scrolling, it?s easy to see why.

Sound

No music and basic sound effects. Hooray! The odd raspberry sound (like when you press delete when the CPC first boots up) and the odd beep here and there. It?s hardly ground breaking stuff and yet, it?s not even the worst thing about the game?

Gameplay

Like Winter Games on acid, It?s a Knockout is a series of six sub games that you can compete in against the computer or up to five friends. The ?wacky games? involve you taking part in some ?car-razy? escapades as you show the cream of the continent what you?re made up of. Or something like that?

The first game is flying flans and requires you to catch some flans that are hurled over the wall by your teammates. Requiring good timing to catch the flans, what could be a nicely addictive part of the game is crippled by the terrible changes in speed and the fact that your character is takes uncontrollably long strides at a different pace depending on where the flan is on the screen.

Next up is Harlem Hoppers which involves you being attached to a bungee rope and trying to catch a ball that is dropped from the back of camel? this task is made borderline impossible as you have no way of knowing how far the ball is going to travel and when you start moving you can?t go back until the rope throws you back to the left of the screen. The game is reduced to sheer luck as you attempt to time your runs?

Refusing just to die, the game lumbers on with Titanic Drop. Drop your man (or woman) through one of the rubber rings that are floating in the water. These rings change colour regularly and you get bonus points for dropping through the correct one, dependent on what colour of top your player is wearing? Probably the worst of the lot, it?s difficult to get your fools to go through the ring in the first place let alone through one of the correct colour. Utter pap.

Diet of worms requires you (dressed as a giant chicken or maybe you just are a giant chicken? who knows or cares) to collect as many worms as you can. Controls are bizarre crippling this unplayable.

Obstacle Race is a simplistic waggler with you having to jump over logs and avoid giant beach balls? except you can?t and are knocked over by them every time. Putrid.

The Bronte Bash is the marathon and only one team per round get to perform it. Reminiscent of the old arcade games where you had to bash something that pops out of a hole with a rubber mallet, this variation involves you crushing dinosaurs that appear from one of six holes with a one ton weight that you control via use of the joystick. Although way too difficult when the dinosaurs begin to speed up, this sub-game is definitely the strongest in the game.

So there you are: a multi-event game with five shockers and one that?s not bad, although it?s difficult to tell how much of this is an allowance for the others being so shite.

This game fully deserved it?s grave status and although it does keep in tradition with the TV series, that? s no excuse for what is a howler of a game. If you?re kid brother programmed this you?d belt him over the head with a claw hammer. And no court in the land would convict you.