Iwalked into the Blarney and Shamrock pub and ordered a drink. And as I was stood there I noticed a pig in a very small cage behind the bar, trying to get out. So I says to the Irish barman, "What's the pig for?". And he says, "Ah, well, you see, the last customer complained we had no pork scratchings". Who was I to argue? Strangely enough, when I got home I found they had sent me a game with pigs in it to review. It is a small world, I thought as I started downing the bottle of brandy required for reviewing mindless arcade conversions. Ah, I am a duck. Quack quack, as they say in duckland. And here are my friends. Pin the duck and Lucy - a piece of curvy fluff if ever there was.
Oh no, here comes Achacha the Great, who, besides sounding like a Latin American dance, has whisked (not stirred) away Lucy to do all sorts o horrible things. I musht wescue her, mefinks drunkenly, so off I set.
There are six levels with two bonus levels of Dynamite Dux, a Sega coin-op converted by Activision. This is not many when you get credits to continue games with, and even I in my uncoordinated condition managed to stagger through to level four on only the third attempt.
It is a sideways scrolling saga, right to left, though there are sections where it pays to go up and down ramps, which introduces diagonal scrolling. Very smooth it is too, but unfortunately, it is also very slow. So slow it has a detrimental effect on the gameplay.
Bin the duck, for that is thee, sets forth on a very strange journey though a rather hazard filled town. Chomping mouths dance along the pavement like Chinese firecrackers, while Zebedee-like creatures on springs hop around like demented one-legged grasshoppers.
A marker shows how far through the level you have managed to get. Expect something nasty at the halfway point as well as at the end.
Bin is armed initially with only his fist, but alas this is one boxer who does not dance like a butterfly and sting like a bee. He dances like a bricklayer.
There are three types of punch - regular pow, hold the fire button down and twirl the arm for big buy POW and hold that fire button down until the sun goes supernova for mega POWWWW!!!
As you stop moving when the arm starts twirling, Bin has probably bin biffed by this time. Hohum, search out the extra weapons. The most crude extra weapon is the armament of your average rioter, a supply of rocks. For the nasties further on you are more likely to need the exploding bombs with faces, which have a wonderful explosion. The flamethrower or the rocket launcher.
The homing missile rocket launcher is almost as good as it gets. The big problem is that every time a sprite runs into you - which is quite hard to judge as there is no depth to any of them, yet there is depth to the playing area - you drop any weapon being carried.
If something like the snake happens to be treading all over your feathers, as soon as you recover you are hit again without any chance to pick the weapon back up again. It can be very irritating.
The animation and the graphics of the characters, duck and the bad guys, are all very good, but the mediocre backgrounds detract slightly. The music is very jolly and arcadish, but can grate - at least there are different tunes. My favourite is the Bongo special on the jungle level, which is pretty good.
The problem with Dynamite Dux, which scores well in the graphics and sound department, is that it can be irritating in some places, and slow in others. That apart, it is a reasonably good conversion. Now, if you will excuse me, I am off in search of those pork scratchings to round off the brandy.