Game Review: Hollywood or Bust (Commodore 64, Mastertronic)

Hollywood or Bust, Commodore 64, Mastertronic - IC0127
  • 4/10
    Score - 4/10
4/10

Summary

Hollywood or Bust does try hard to be a different game with two game styles, with front face on platforms and ladders and a single screen shoot out.  Despite the plot and some good graphics and sound, the game falls down somewhat with the gameplay, which can be difficult and frustrating with game over being sometimes unavoidable.  If that gameplay had been tweaked it may have been in line for an award, but as it is, it is a flawed game which you may come back to if only to hear the music.

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You are Buster Baloney, a budding movie actor.  You need to locate five Oscars which are placed within the film studio set, and pursued by security guards and ghosts, armed with a supply of custard pies for your defence.   Some of the doors in the studio take you to a crazy kop chase, where you need to use the custard pies to ward off the kops (yes, it is spelt with a k in the instructions, just to verify) and return from the street to the studio to continue the quest to find the Oscars.  Find them all, and you will complete the game.

A Load of Baloney

Buster Baloney starts off at the ground floor set of the film studio, and is quickly pursued by the security guards and ghosts.  The ghosts can appear somewhat at random and the way to avoid the action being cut and the game being over is to make sure the ghost cannot get you from behind – so edging along the walls of the studio is the best way to avoid this.  You do have a supply of custard pies, and you can aim these at the security guards to stun them for a short while.  If the guard does get you, that is also cut, and game over.

Street Life

As you make your way up ladders and through doors within the film set, some will take you to other parts of the set in your search for the Oscars.  Others though will mean that Buster heads out to the street, which is where the game changes.  You are in a custard pie showdown, battling against the kops here who are trying to get you.  Unlike the film set, you do have a supply of energy, so one hit is not fatal, plus you can walk to the tap (top right) to activate the flow of custard and then walk to the bottom left to collect them as pies.  There is a set amount of time you need to survive, and the status display on the right-hand side shows you the number of frames left,  as well as the score.  You must wait for all the kops to appear on screen first before you start which takes around 20 seconds or so, and you cannot skip either.  That slows the gameplay down and can get frustrating.

Silence on the Set, Tape Rolling, Three, Two, One, Action!

As you make your way along the film set and climb ladders, you will soon work out that some of the doors take you to other parts of the set.  However, some of the doors also take you to a fatal end, such as one where you end up dropping off a ship into the water, and instant cut, game over.  At least these are in the same place each time, so once you have worked out through trial and error which ones to avoid, you can at least get further.  However, the ghosts always seem to appear when walking across a staircase to another part of the set, with no wall to protect you, and cut, game over.  I must have lost the game several times at this same point with a random appearance every time that was hard to time to wait to get past.

Cowardly Custard

Buster earns his salary for surviving when he moves around, and scores increased salary (and thus points) if he stuns the guard with a custard pie, or shoots the kops in the street showdown. Turning on the tap in this section also gives you some handy salary too, as does surviving the showdown.  Managing to collect an Oscar does increase the salary a fair bit, and there is one close to the start of the game. Unfortunately, there appears to be a serious flaw when firing a custard pie – normally you would expect the default direction to be the way you are facing.  But no, it appears somewhat random – bottom right in the shootout section and sometimes firing right can see the custard pie to the far left when in the film set sections.  What should stun a guard does not, and inevitably, he gets too close, cut and game over.  In fact, this gets worse after a few plays – being against a wall does not protect you against the ghost any more either, possibly a bug that needed to be fixed.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Hollywood or Bust are generally bright and colourful.  There are some nice touches when on the film set with the massive status display that takes up half the screen, where the film roll shows being processed and wound along by the camera operator, along with the salary rising. Buster Baloney himself is nicely drawn, and the ghost and security guard well defined.  The kops and Buster in the shoot out sections are fine too, and although more a yellow blob than custard pie, it is visible.  Rob Hubbard supplies the excellent music here, with versions of ragtime tunes (Twelfth Street Rag and Dill Pickles Rag respectively) and certainly keeps in with the theme of the game.  The sound effects can sometimes get in the way of the music and are purely functional but they do the job.

Final Thoughts

Hollywood or Bust is a nice idea that could have delivered so much, and yet it is a massively frustrating game instead, something which was already a hallmark of John Ferrari’s games back in the day.  In this case, the flawed firing of the custard pies, and the all too random ghost appearances resulting in instant death really do make the game a little too frustrating to be enjoyable.  The graphics and sound are nice and jolly, but the game does make you feel not so happy once you have succumbed to death through no fault of your own once again.  And it is a shame, because with more care this could have been an original and fun game to play.

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