The Icon Bar: Review_-_Century: The Icon Bar: Review

An arcade platformer from Darren Green, reviewed by Simon Jones.

Simon...

	This curious little platform game by Darren Green features a rather nifty plot surmise. It is typical computer-game cheese, but features a rather damn clever idea as well. As the instructions say, "you are Boing, a cute alien creature from Charon, with, as in most such computer games, an absurdly large mouth." It turns out that these aliens have created an archive of Earth's twentieth century, and Boing has got himself trapped inside this holographic museum. This is where you come in. Travelling from decade to decade, you must collect items that will enable Boing to exit from the simulation.
	A very promising premise for a game, offering all sorts of opportunities. Upon loading the game you are greeted with a a rather dubiously designed title screen and some music which just demands to be irritating. Once into the game proper, it soon becomes clear that the gameplay is to be equally frustrating. The main character bounces off everything that doesn't kill it, which makes navigating through small openings in walls extremely fiddly and annoying. Similarly, level structure is very repetitive.
	Each time zone has a different graphical style and accompanying music. The graphics are decent, especially considering this game is freeware - nothing special at all, but adequate for the type of game. The music ranges from being mildly groovy, in a Repton 3 way, to intensely aggravating. This game is polished and well-executed, but the gameplay is simply too fiddly. I can't help but get the feeling that this was too ambitious for a PD release.
	Had this been a commercial release, it could have been superb - the basic plot certainly offers up some very interesting scenarios. Something of a disappointment, overall. Decent graphics, sound is adequate - and silenceable - but the gameplay becomes too repetitive, frustrating and slow.