Stir Crazy (Amiga)

Can you remember when Infogrames were just a bunch of crazily-spelt Frenchmen, rather than a soulless gang going around pretending to be Atari? Ahhh, those were the days. Most of their games were a bit shit, but there was always a crazy French originality to them.

Stir Crazy falls squarely into the "original but shit" category. And to make matters worse, there's not a sign of Richard Pryor or Gene Wilder, which might have given some hope of saving the day.

I imagine that most people won't have heard of Stir Crazy, and are wondering what it's all about. That's a good question... there were only fleeting moments where I had a clue myself. It's basically a collection of "wacky" Gallic prison-themed mini-games. One of them is a bit like Tapper, but sees you running between tables, keeping the lags fed. Another level sees you peeling potatoes. Really. There's a game which is like Nintendo's "Fire" Game & Watch, where you must bounce the escaping convicts on a trampoline. There's a couple of levels where I really haven't got the faintest clue what's going on. Oh, and one with sleeping prisoners, where you appear to have to keep rocking them back to sleep.


Who cares about level two? Let them starve, I say.

Oddly enough, there's no soap-dodging mini-game. Not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing. Oh, and I'm not sure if my copy was corrupted, but the sound on many of the levels was just... not right.

Today hasn't been a good gaming day for me. I'd decided the Amiga would be my weapon of choice, seeing as I've got piles of unplayed games sitting there. I abandoned the first pick because I couldn't be arsed to keep swapping between the four disks. The second game, in a successful attempt at reminding me of the fragility of old floppy disks, suffered a software failure and wouldn't load. I only picked this one just to make sure it wasn't a game based on the film. It's not, and despite it's weirdness, the best thing I can say about it is that it's no longer on my "to play" list.