FRIGHT NIGHT

 Microdeal's FRIGHT NIGHT (based on the CBS movie) is a splendid example of a
game that has almost completely sacrificed gameplay for the sake of audio-visual
effects. FRIGHT NIGHT makes rather full use of the computer's wonderful graphics
and sound capabilities, almost to the point where I'd be willing to forego
gameplay...but not quite. This review is based on the Amiga version.

 You are Jerry Dandridge, the monster instead of the monster-killer for a
change. It seems that your neighbors don't take very kindly to your religious
persuasion or your epicurean ideals; they persistently hide in your nice house,
hoping to eventually wipe you out (and convert your house into a series of
condos or a nursing home, no doubt). But just because you're a vampire doesn't
mean you shouldn't be allowed to live in peace, right?

 The neighbors -- armed to the gunnels with garlic, crosses, jelly beans, and
whatever else it takes to kill a vampire -- are out to destroy you. Whenever you
enter a room they're in, they lob stuff at you, trying to knock you off.
Meanwhile, you're running and jumping toward them, hoping for an after-dinner
drink to restore the vitality you've lost while chasing down these pesky
neighbors.

 Once you make it through the first round (having killed off the uninvited
inhabitants and returned to your coffin for a well-deserved rest), you wake up
the next day and go through it all again. Except this time, the ghosts of those
you've done in (along with the ghosts of their relatives) are busy reaching up
through the floorboards at you, or circling around various rooms, ready to sa
your strength. Each time you move up a level, the amount of house you get to
explore expands; the rooms change as well, and the number of ghostly presences
increases, so the game becomes more interesting the further along you get.

 Unfortunately, you only have a limited number of moves: All you can do is run
back and forth, crouch, or jump. You can also go to certain rooms where your
energy will slowly return, but that's the extent of strategy involved.

 Although the graphic design is stunning proof of a real artist with a wonderful
imagination, and the music and sound are so much fun you could just turn your
monitor off and listen for enjoyment (lots of musical puns on horror-movie
cliches, interesting clunking/clashing/howling sound effects, and a wonderful
simulation of Vincent Price playing the organ after a few drinks), the animation
has got to be the _worst_ ever achieved by a game programmer!

 It looks as if the person(s) responsible for animating Jerry, his neighbors,
and his neighbors' ghosts may have quit while the game was still being written
In fact, if you could put a stick through the back of your monitor, paste a
cut-out of Jerry on the front of it, and move it around like that on the screen,
you'd be able to animate this game as well as they did. (Well, Jerry himself is
perhaps slightly better: His legs move, but not much.) You'll also find out --
if, for some reason, the screen goes weird on you -- that the animation is a
primitive two-step for the most part, alternating one frame with another
overlaid.

 On the positive side I should mention that, although you're limited to
searching rooms, finding neighbors, and draining them, there's a time limit for
each round. And the neighbors' beliefs in the efficacy of their anti-vampire
paraphernalia increases progressively with each round, so gameplay becomes
increasingly more challenging as a result. (Because the neighbors believe more
fully in their garlic, the garlic has greater power to sap you, for instance.)

 If you write-protect the disk (it's copy-protected and requires you to leave
the disk write-enabled if you want to record your high scores), when the game
asks you for your name and you just hit your ENTER key, it makes up all sorts of
amusing names for you. I played the game an Amiga 500 with 1MB RAM, but 1MB is
not required.

 Incidentally, I'd rate the graphics PG. There are various naked busts, sexually
suggestive human/animal combinations, half-eaten bodies, etc., all of which are
drawings, not photographs. None of these would make the average Clive Barker fan
think twice, but if you're put off by seeing such things, be forewarned.

 I think FRIGHT NIGHT is a design on its way to becoming a fun game. Despite my
complaints, I still find myself returning to it regularly to enjoy the graphics
and sound. And if you can forgive the animators for having left their job
half-done, even gameplay's not too bad. I only hope that someday somebody
revises FRIGHT NIGHT and turns it into a real game; I certainly don't want to
believe this is the best that can be achieved in the computer horror game genre.

 In the meantime, FRIGHT NIGHT will help while away the time until a real horror
game explodes onto the scene. Call it a holding action, if you will.

 FRIGHT NIGHT is published and distributed by Microdeal.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253