Maria vs some b*******s
First appeared in ZXF issue 5 (Summer/Autumn 2003)
Author: Erix1
If I'm brutally honest, Manic Miner and its numerous sequels never really did all that much for me. I appreciate the significance of the game and - don't get me wrong - I don't dislike the game, but beyond filling a few dull moments of boredom or work avoidance it services no major need for me. One aspect of my indifference to the genre - probably the major one - is the graphics. To me they're pretty much of a muchness, samey, nothing to write home about. And so on. Yes, I'm aware I've missed the whole point, but there just isn't enough there to get me to it.
Which is why Maria vs some b*****ds took me so completely by surprise. The graphics are, quite simply, superb. Without using any special machine code tricks; simply by using Spectrum colour intelligently, Erix1 - author of this, one of the latest MM games to be released via the extremely industrious Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy Yahoo! Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/manicminerandjetsetwilly/) - has created one of the most visually stunning Spectrum titles I have ever seen. Many of the screens, in fact, look as though they could easily have stepped right off an 8-bit console, that's how good they are. I've always thought that BRIGHT was seriously underused in Spectrum colour and looking at this game I now feel completely justified in that view. I can't help but feel that if this game had appeared mid 80s the Spectrum world would have gone nuts about it.
Oh yes, the plot. Well it's this: Miner Willy has gone and got himself kidnapped by some very naughty ninjas and is being held for ransom (do ninjas really do the ransom thing?) for the pricely sum of 240 items. So Maria, Willy's long-suffering and much misunderstood housekeeper (she's a softy at heart really) is off to fetch these for him. It's kind of a spin-off really - or one of those sequels where they can't afford to get the original actors involved.
I'm really into this game, and MM/JSW fans will no doubt be pleased to know I am now spending time thinking about the puzzles. Now I want to see the next screen, see? And then the one after it. And the one after that. And maybe I might get converted along the way.
