Joystick Power

Review by Steven Pick from the Sam Coupé Scrapbook

Yipe! Weird warning! What you are about to see is a review of, erm, not your average SAM title. Wayne Coles of Innocent Productions invites you to sample what he probably calls a “new age” SAM title. No puzzles to it. No sub-plots. Just plain man power (Grrrrrr!). Remember all those athletic games on the Speccy (someone write a SAM Athletics Simulator!!) where in some events, joystick waggling was the name of the game in order to get anywhere? Well, relive those moments once again with Joystick Power. First off, Wayne looks as though he’s now joined the ranks of the Illusion demo group, and the presentation of Joystick Power is quite nice in the graphics department. You start off with a normal demo-type screen with scrolly, starfield, you know the sort of stuff. Lee Willis struts his musical stuff with some excellent tunes, and fitting for the events.

By the way, the events in question involve “Joystick Power” and “Button Power” relating to your joystick (or keys) or your fire button (or key 0). When you play, there are no athletic events to play - just a (large) graphic of either a joystick or a fire button. You then have a certain amount of time (which can be changed by the option Time Warp) to waggle the joystick furiously or tap on the fire button incredibly fast (you can’t hold down the button). Very arthritis-forming.

That’s it. Told you it was strange. Though the strange thing is that it is rather addictive. The possibilities of getting your mates over to waggle their joysticks (Ahem) are unbounded and I can just picture the great contests you could be having with each other. One problem. Price. It is a little bit steep for a posh looking-demo which would just about look out of place of a normal Public Domain library. And yet, the fun you have with mates around is brilliant - group contests can be set up, which unfortunately this game doesn’t have - it would of been nice to see a “joystick olympics” without the fancy graphics. But a high score is enough for me.

In short, don’t expect too much from this title, only when you play with hoards of mates. Expertly programmed and nice to look at and listen to, and it may actually surprise you…