Leaving the round-house kicks with Way of The Exploding Fist behind us, we look at a game that on first impressions you may want to walk away from, but if you stick around for a few minutes Splat! – at no.#66 in the Your Sinclair Top 100 – will hook you in for hours!
Splat! – released in 1983 – comes from the stable of the rather impressive publishing house of Incentive Software, known for Driller, Total Eclipse and under a different banner Spy vs. Spy, though as said you probably wouldn’t guess it from the initial first glances of this simple-looking game.
The rather basic idea of Splat! is that you control Zippy who is forced to run around a constantly moving maze. Level 1 is initially tricky as you get to grips with the movement of the maze, but as the game continues and the percentage covered ticks up you easily pick up the basics… then Level 2 of 7 arrives. You slowly realise why there is a “No Chance” message next to Level 7 at the main menu as you plough through this next level, then when Level 3 opens up you really understand the “No Chance” message.
Splat! came with a cash prize for the highest score – when it was released – of a mighty £500 (GBP), and it was won by the (clearly a robot) 17-year-old James Tant, with 112,930 points back in January 1984. It’s certainly a game that everyone should play at least once, to make sure they play for the rest of their lives.
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