zFrankenstein Commodore 64 game

Egor's first priority is to collect the bodies conveniently littered around the many screens, then find a way back up to the top of the tower where his master impatiently awaits. On his travels, he passes through the tower vaults (unpleasant), a local village (worse than Ludlow), Baron Frankenstein's Castle (tasteless decor), the Black Forest (well, more green than black), the Graveyard (dead dudes), and The Morgue (Spectrum Fan Club offices). Now, the local populace is hardly pleasant, as (and you may notice this very quickly) they all seem to take the form of disembodied eyes, bouncing skulls, and Steve in a cameo role as The Village Drunk, among others.

Baron Frankenstein stands in his laboratory, quaking with anticipation; in half an hour, a lightning bolt will streak from the skies, bringing life to the thing that lies on the slab. Turning on his heel, he strides purposefully towards a hatch and shouts, 'Egor! Go and get the shopping!'. So JAMES 'FRANK N. FURTER' PRICE nips off into town to show us around the latest Zeppelin creation.

While loading Frankenstein, I took some time to read the inlay. Quite usual behavior, really, the sort of thing most people do if they haven't experienced a game before. Something that immediately caught my attention was the astounding similarity between the picture of Frank on the cover and our very own Mark Caswell. Feeling slightly puzzled by this, I continued my perusal of the instructions. It turns out that the Baron is short of certain body parts (also a bit like Mark!) which are essential if the experiment is to run smoothly.

So, like people in power everywhere, he delegates the task of collecting the necessary bits to a servant, the faithful but dim hunchback, Egor. He's an obedient kind of fellow, and after being kicked out of the castle by his master, he sets about his task with a determination unusual for someone with such a cowardly disposition.

The game begins with an animated sequence showing the Baron stomping about his laboratory, setting up the experiment. Turning to Egor, he requests more body parts and, to accentuate the urgency required, he physically hurls our hunchbacked hero from the top of his castle into the graveyard below, where the game begins.

The first thing you notice is that our Egor has no weapons - he has to rely solely on his limited athletic ability to negotiate the many platforms and dodge the terrifying 'things' that patrol the six game areas. Rather than losing a life when he comes into contact with a creature, Egor merely becomes more frightened until, when the bar representing his fear level reaches its limit, he screams and pops his clogs (something I can identify with after seeing my caricature, as created by the evil hand of our Art Editor).

The graphics are clear and well defined with some excellent backgrounds, while the sound is suitably atmospheric. However, there are a few problems that could hamper your enjoyment.

The most important is the 'monkey' thing. On the stairs in certain parts of the game is a solitary creature that closely resembles a red monkey. If at any point you come into contact with it, you lose a life immediately and are moved a few steps back. Which is all fair and well - I assume the purpose of this is to block off certain routes to force the game player to explore more thoroughly. The problem arises when you fall from a screen above and land on 'monkey features'; wham bam, every single life lost! - smacked bums all round and general loss of brownie points.

Secondly, I had negotiated the entire map within my first four attempts. Not to say that the map is too small; quite the opposite, in fact. I just feel a game of this genre needs a quota of well-hidden rooms to add a little interest.

Despite these flaws, I like the game. If you're not a great lover of platform games, it could be a bit tedious. It'd be a shame if you didn't at least try it out, though.

SCORE: 000040 FEAR: LIVES: 86

Good introductory sequence, no multiload (shock!) GRAPHICS: Serve their purpose well, but dated in appearance SOUND: Excellent atmospheric sound effects; interesting tunes HOOKABILITY: This could become very tedious indeed... LASTABILITY: ...and thus leaving very little long-term appeal OVERALL: DONG!

Moan, groan, a hunchback's work is never done. Oh well, I suppose I should try to get ahead. And a heart, a spleen, pair of legs, some ears...

There's some quality body parts lying around here. Should make a good monster. I wonder if the doc can patch me up too - he's my mate, he is! Grrrrrr!

Dr. Frankenstein must find and destroy his murderous escaped monster; the monster must remain free and learn the reason for its existence.

Gameplay Frankenstein is a standard text adventure with static graphics in some locations to set the scene. It is similar to the earlier game Dracula, which was produced by the same author. It is divided into three parts; the player takes the role of Dr. Frankenstein in the first two, and of his monster in the third. Part One is entitled Hard Journey, Part Two The Slaying and Part Three The Monster's Story. Part Three is only accessible once the first two parts have been completed.

In the second part the player can engage in conversation with other characters. In the third part the player has to raise the monster's intelligence which can be done by using their senses. Both this and experiences they undergo will raise their IQ rating.[1]

Reception As with the earlier CRL adventure Dracula, the game was awarded a "15" certificate for its gory graphics.