You should be relieved you didn’t hold your breath waiting for this one, after all Popeye was announced last Christmas. But in his defence the author, Don Priestly, has been occupied writing and converting the last Dk’Tronics offering, Minder.
Popeye loves Olive Oyl, we all know that; it’s why he does that nobody can explain! But Olive, as always, demands that Popeye should prove his love for her — not least because she is also fancied by Bluto and clearly wants to make the most of the situation. Popeye must win Olive over by collecting twenty five hearts and presenting them to her. The hearts can be found scattered around the town, pinned to windows, balconies and the like. Collecting them would be fun but for Bluto and a great gathering of other hostile beings — witches, giant birds and even dragons. All the meanies want to do Popeye in and, should they manage, the only way he can be revived after an attack is to eat a tin of spinach which must be collected in the same way as the hearts. If he hasn’t got a tin handy, then poor old Popeye has had it.
The screen area looks rather like a frame from a comic strip. The characters are very large. Popeye, for example is about half screen height, so not a great deal of the game area can be seen at any one time. While the graphics are not quite 3D the characters can move backwards and forwards allowing them to pass in front of, or behind, other characters or objects. These different layers play a vital part in the game. Popeye could quite happily walk past Bluto so long as they weren’t both on the same path, or ‘layer’ of the screen. Bluto is the hardest to deal with because he, unlike the others, can change from one layer to another. The different layers allow Popeye to walk behind buildings which often results in his being obscured from view until he emerges from the other side.
Most of the ground floor items can be collected by positioning Popeye under them and making him jump up. Other objects may be locked away behind doors, and for these you will need to find the appropriate key — each lock has a specific key. To make matters worse Popeye can only carry eight items at any one time, so to be on the safe side try to keep a good stock of spinach and and unload the hearts on Olive as often as you can to leave room for the keys and some other not so obvious items.
To remind you that Olive’s love for Popeye is not everlasting, you will notice on the side of the screen along side the eight cells showing Popeye’s possessions, a love meter which gradually dwindles as time passes. The meter can be restored by delivering the hearts but Popeye is always under threat of falling out of favour for ever. At the end of the day how Popeye scores with Olive depends on how many hearts he collected and how much time he took.
Producer: Dk’Tronics
Memory required: 48K
Price: £6.95
Language: machine code
Author: Don Priestly
