BOULDER DASH - "Eats its own mum's fanny kippers"

Whilst not without a certain sordid charm, Boulder Dash isn't Barcrest's finest hour. On the surface it's another fun trail based game but after a prolonged period of play its shortcomings become apparent.

Higher %ages definitely help (anything less than 80% and it's a bit dreary) but ultimately the whole thing is just too predictable and repetitive. There's an entry trail that runs 1-8, bonus at 4, feature entry at 9 with bonus, extra life and repeat advance at 10-12 respectively.

Once on the board you have a looped trail, with squares to add to the cash and feature columns. There's also a bonus column (with jackpot repeater at the top) and a cash repeater column (with jackpot repeater at the top). But I'm getting ahead of myself, getting on the board in the first place is irritatingly hard work. The bonus at 4 is crap, full stop. It gives an endless procession of useless boosts and stoppers, hi/lo climbs that don't let you get on board and skillstops that only go to 9. That wouldn't be so bad but it also has a terrible habit of letting you get to 6 or 7, holding a few times and then resetting the trail. Holding at 8 to let you in is also irritatingly rare.

It's almost as if the software realises it's being a pain in the ass because every so often, out of the blue, it spins in 3 numbers to put you straight on the board. Unfortunately, once you get on the board things don't improve a great deal. Main culprit here is the world's nastiest mystery square. Your first move on the board can't kill you (you can however land on a ? and get a collect prize, very annoying when you're on a high exchange with an extra life) but after that you're fair game. The ? is kill-happy in the extreme, it's got a simple Game Over, a Dinosaur (Game Over), Hi/Lo to continue (can be Game Over) and Spin Even (can be Game Over) at its disposal. Just for a laugh, it can also give you a Collect Prize, forcing you to take a feeble low-down feature when you've got a nice bonus and an extra life in reserve. Oh yes, it also commits the cardinal sin of letting you survive one ? square, only to spin you straight to another one and kill you. Yeah, thanks.

Reel wins are rare, particularly for a Barcrest. It doesn't like to give flasholds, and the hi/lo is annoyingly nasty, especially on high wins. When you *do* get a reel win to exchange, it seems to take a perverse delight in killing you off on the board before you've managed to improve your position one iota.

The Extra Life is useless too, expect to lose it on a mystery, land on a pointless bonus nudges square or something similar, then another mystery. Which kills you. When you do get a jackpot on a board where you start with an extra life you'll generally find that you've still got the extra life in reserve, it having been of no use at all to you. 

All of this is a great shame because there's potential for a skilful little game here. There are "bonus nudges" squares on the board, which you can use to manipulate features such as Step To Nearest Win, Seven Stepper and Golden Hold. There's also a fruit matrix, if you fill this (using bonus nudges or on the respin at feature entry) you get a shot at a cash value which increases with every subsequent successful move on the board. The bonus column helps matters too, keeping an add again, taxi or skillstop in reserve can prove very useful for completing a column or getting the feature that you want. If you complete the fruit matrix outside of the feature game it will offer much higher values (often 13 or 14 pounds). The skillstop is tricky, but satisfying when you hit what you want, and when it gives you the chance, you can get an enjoyable run of the board.

One thing you'll notice is that when it gives you a brutal shafting on the board it'll sometimes spin you straight back onto the board on the next credit, and then give you another brutal shafting, mmm, that's entertainment.

For all its failings there's still a reasonably enjoyable game to be had, the sound package is good and if you play conservatively you can last quite a long time without losing a huge amount of money (although that's hardly applicable to the emulator). It does have "moods", when it's in a bad mood it's about as annoying as fruities come, but when in a good mood it is reasonable fun.

I can only assume that Barcrest did quite well with it as they cloned it in Cash Arena and Ooh Aah Dracula, which were exactly the same games with different themes and artwork.

August 2001.