Director - Dave Hughes

Some entries are accompanied by emails that ramble on at length about the virtues of the attached software, or that go into exquisite technical detail. Some are not and the latest entry falls firmly into the last camp. The crux of Dave Hughes' email was,

"Here's another one"

That was it, fortunately, the game itself has instructions built in.

All quite straightforward, keys O,P and SPACE. I should be able to handle this though after my dismal reactions in Jamie's Art House I'm already worried about maneuvering Tom Cruise at speed, especially a younger Tom Cruise. To prepare myself I google Tom Cruise's running speed, apparently, he claims to have been clocked at 17MPH, the power of the Internet agrees that this is probably true. No Usain Bolt, but a very decent speed. I press SPACE expecting to launch into action, but I needn't worry, there is another screen of explanation. 

I have questions, I know a lot is made about Tom Cruise's height, but he isn't that small.

Which implies this scene involves some particularly tall extras. Height issues apart I am concerned by Jack Nicholson who appears to be suffering a bad case of Jaundice. I'm presuming Rob Reiner is remaining firmly seated in the Director's chair so as not to intimidate the vertically challenged Tom.

While typing this the game has been sitting on the Cast screen and I am almost going crazy due to the repetitive sounds it plays which are reminiscent of terrible 1980s Scifi computers. To escape the torture of this I press SPACE once more.

The screen slowly builds itself into a scene which for some reason my mind associates with Horace goes skiing. Tom Cruise sets off...

...at this point it is safe to wander off to the kettle, brew a cup of tea, remember you wanted a coffee, pour the tea away, reboil the kettle, and feed the cat who has decided that as you are in the kitchen it must be dinner time, make your coffee and then amble back to steer Tom on course. I know he broke his ankle in Mission Impossible Fallout, but it appears that he may have badly damaged it years earlier while filming A Few Good Men, there is no other explanation for his dismal speed.

For some reason, Tom can rudely walk right over the extras with no one complaining but if he should diagonally approach them from the side filming stops due to a collision with an extra.

Dodgy collision detection

The best route therefore seems to be to line up with the flashing red square and let Tom crawl towards it while you entertain yourself with the whole box set of Firefly, including Serenity. Your only real input is to press SPACE at the correct time. Too early or too late and Jack will fluff his immortal line and another take will be needed. I'm not going to ruin gameplay with spoilers such as when to press SPACE. I am certainly not going to ruin the promised finale with all its high-resolution filming and sound.

Technical Ability - 10.1%

The game is written in 50+ lines of basic, so type-in quality. It does contain some extra non-basic effects which are loaded in as part of the first line of the program which has the unfortunate side effect of not being able to just run the program to play again should it contain for example a STOP command. Should you have a burning desire to replay you will need to RUN 2.

There is gratuitous use of BEEP which on the main play screen with Tom adds to the tedium of waiting for him. The machine code effects while elevating this above your standard type-in do nothing to rescue it.

Achievement - 0.9%

I was unable to believe the speed I was getting out of Tom, I tried 3 different emulators to make sure it wasn't me before complaining to Dave. He was kind enough to give me a little deeper insight into the coding.

"A lot of that time is the PLOT routine to draw Tom Cruise. I wanted to have him move smoothly like a sprite, but the draw/delete is so slow that it doesn't even look smooth!"

As a result, I want to give achievement a 0% score, but I'm not that mean.

Fun - 2%

No.

Crap Factor - 93.2%

This game is a strong contender for setting a benchmark of crapness. I'm sure it is possible to do worse, but I'm praying that will be reserved for the next host.

Roundup

Pros -

• It is possible to enjoy a 3-course meal of varied porridge suggestions while waiting for Tom.
• Your nail polish will have enough time for 2 coats to dry without risking damaging it.

Cons -

• It'll be time for another haircut by the time you have shot the scene.
• You'll have a strong aversion to the results of the BEEP command.
• No bounds checking should Tom ever make it to the top of the screen.

Remember I play these games so you don't have to. Should you play this game I bear no responsibility for your mental health afterwards. Should the warnings not be enough you can download and play it here.