CHUCK ROCK 2 REVIEW - March 1993
| It's been a while since Chuck Rock's original
prehistoric frolic, when he rescued his unfeasibly gorgeous wife Ophelia Rock (snigger,
fnar, etc) from the clutches of the evil neanderthal glam pop star Gary Gritter. He's
obviously found better ways to spend said time than coming up with appalling stone-related
puns, though, because Chuck and Ophelia now have an heir to the family fortune. 'Hang on a minute', you cry in a Les Dennis-y sort of way, 'What family fortune?' Oh yeah. Well, dubious though it may seem, the brick-brained hero of Chuck Rock is now a respectable and comfortably well-off businessman, in charge of the thriving Fjord (Fjord? That's not a kind of rock) motor company. Life would be all wine and stone roses if it wasn't for the one blot on Chuck, Ophelia and Chuck Jnr's horizon, in the rotund and flabby shape of the aforementioned Gary Gritter. Gary is the head honcho of the Datstone (that's better) motor company, Fjord's major rivals, and he's deeply jealous of Chuck's soaraway success. Now you might think that the best way to combat such a situation would be to work harder, design better and more innovative cars, capture a larger market share, mount a hostile takeover and give Chuck the sack (like any normal businessman worth his salt'd do), but Gary hasn't got the patience for that, so he kidnaps his adversary instead and demands that Ophelia signs over the deeds of the company before Chuck is released. Ophelia, being a woman, collapses in an unproductive fit of tears (of course), but Chuck Jnr isn't about to sit idly by while his inheritance is stolen away, so he smashes his way out of his playpen and sets off to mount a rescue. Chuck 2 follows what it must be said is an extremely similar path to the original game - lots of levels of mostly horizontally-scrolling platformy action, with lots of cartoon-type baddies to clobber and some enormous end-of-level dinosaur-related bosses. Actually, I'd like to pause at this point and talk a little more about the bosses, because they're possibly the most impressive the Amiga's ever seen. The bosses in Chuck 1 were very big and pretty (well, as pretty as prehistoric monsters ever get, anyway), but they were basically just large sprites with minimal animation which glided and twitched about in a not-particularly-special manner. In Chuck 2, though, they really seem alive - different bits of their bodies move at different times, and more or less the entire bodies are animated in some way, with particular attention paid to facial expressions. This facet of the baddies' personalities is put to especially good use in level three, which takes place entirely on the body of a giant dino ensconced in a lake. The 'boss' is in fact his head, and the mournful expression he wears as you attack makes you feel such a heel for clubbing him to death with your (er...) club that it's a real struggle with your conscience to continue. Still, continue you must ('The family's depending on you, young 'un!'), and you'll have to harden your heart, because things don't get any less cute as you go along. As with Chuck 1, there's some laughs to be laughed, too - my personal faves are the evil dinosaur which, after being on the receiving end of a few good swings of your club, breaks apart to reveal that it's actually a little caveman in a dinosaur suit, and the William Shatner-style wig-wearing thug whose rug takes on a life of its own and attacks you independently when a hearty thwack separates it from its owner. But. For all the impressive giant sprites and all the funny enemies, it's not all sweetness and light for Chuck 2. While there have been a few refinements and enhancements made to the original gameplay, this is still really just a slight update rather than a real sequel (taking 'real sequel' arbitrarily to mean something which expands and builds on its predecessor, rather than simply rehashing it), and players of Chuck 1 might well feel as if they'd be just as well getting the original game out and playing it again with a sheet of psychedelic coloured cellophane over the screen to give the graphics a new look. And while gameplay-wise the game IS practically identical, and a bit faster to boot, it's also a deal more frustrating - there are some annoyingly tricky jumps, made tricky mostly by the imprecise collision detection as regards whether Chuck Jnr is actually standing on a platform or not. The baddies themselves, apart from the aforementioned
bosses, are lacking in movement character too, which is to say they all look very groovy,
but when it comes to actually attacking you, it's nearly always a straight
walking-backwards- and-forwards-and-only-hitting-you-if-you-happen-to-get-in-their-way
affair, which makes much of the game a fairly dull session of platform-climbing and
relentlessly battering the fire button just to take care of anything which might
mistakenly cross your path. There are other, natural, hazards to contend with too,
(falling rocks, giant snowballs and the like), but since they mostly move too fast for
Chuck Jnr's reactions to cope with, it's just a case of learning where they come and
keeping out of their way, rather than any kind of battle of wits. (I'm talking about the
player against the game here, by the way - a battle of wits between Chuck Jnr and a rock
would probably be too close to call, and lead to a depressing stalemate.) |
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* Lovely graphics, if a bit pixelly some of the time. * A couple of nice bonus games provide a welcome break. * Chuck Jnr's tantrum when he loses a live is really cute. * Gameplay begins to get very repetitive by about halfway through. * Won't take you all that long to finish. 79 PERCENT |
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