2008 Competition Results: (4:A Game For Helen)

6th Place – Carnival 1980 – Total: 228

Ian:

Roll up! Roll up! Step right up folks for all the fun of the state fair!

See the Amazing Yak Lady, or the Mysterious Snake Man. Maybe a trip to the Hall Of Mirrors or a ride on the world’s scariest Ghost Train. You can grab yourself some popcorn, a hotdog or candy floss. But whatever you do, don’t leave before testing your darts skills at the Carnival!

This is a remake of the 1980 SEGA/Gremlin arcade game Carnival, only instead of shooting bullets from a gun, in this game you throw darts. Targets scroll across three layers of the screen and it’s your job to hit them with one of your limited supply of darts to remove them from the game. Removing all targets and the pipes off the Ferris Wheel sends you to a simple bonus game where you score extra points shooting at polar bears, which changes their direction and increases their speed with each successful hit until they eventually leave the screen.

The game’s enhancements over the nearly 30 year old original are minimal at best, none of which improve the actual game to any degree. The sound, graphics and gameplay remain simplistic, but the game is as playable as it ever was.

The game offers a number of accessibility options at the start of the game that should cater for many different abilities.

Simple fun for all the family, but nothing more.

59%

Geekay:

I am going to be brutally honest and say that I hate this fucking game.  Not this remake, but the Sega game that I avoided like the plague even way back in 1980ish.  I was lucky enough to have an arcade amusement filled promenade growing up and with all the choices of games to play like Defender, Phoenix & Aster****, why on earth would I want to play this bland shite.

With that out of the way, I have to say that this remake just as boring but it does come with an utter plethora of accessibility features which is the whole point about GFH.  It bright, colourful and full of Carnival flavour that there is no denying that it is a superb title for the sake of this category.
There is not way I can test all of the features, so I really do hope that they function well for those who need each particular feature. This certainly boosts its marks up.

Like anyone else though, I will guarantee they will get bored of shooting rubber ducks.  If there was the definitive example of a game that is truly outdated and stale, this is it.

58%

Spray:

Roll up! Roll Up! Time for me to don my Gypsy garb and con you all out of a quid.

Carnival recreates all the fun of the fair in the comfort of your own home AND you don’t need to pay £4 for a thimble full of flat Coke.

You’ve all played Carnival haven’t you? Of course you have. The Retro Police insist that anyone not having played this, Space Invaders, Pacman and Asteroids  at least once are locked up and forced to watch re-runs of Rod Hull and Emu until they learn!

Ah, but this remake is different, this be a special remake, this be a Game For Helen. And work well it does too, offering a wide range of controller options and gameplay configurations. Some combinations work better than others but I was equally as pants on them all, which hopefully says more about the successful use of accessibility features than it does my abysmal shoot em up skillz.

Admitedly there a bit of dodgy sprite work, but you can’t have it all can you?

Carnival is simply a nice game which fits nicely into it’s category. Good job sir, damn good job.

69%

Oogy:

Who doesn’t like the carnival? There’s Cotton candy to be eaten, rides to ride and games to be played. Especialy the shooting-stand where everyone can feel like a sharp-shooter.

This game is well tailored to people with disabilities. Just about any game mechanic can be tweaked to suit a player’s need, which in this case is a big plus. However, no matter how you tweak it, it’s still incredibly easy. So easy in fact that I could stand in one spot and clear at least three levels. Not really a challenge, even for a person that can only use a single switch. There’s really no need to dodge anything since the items moving at the top of the screen don’t seem to shoot back at you. There’s only the occasional bird that swoops dow, but even he almost always moves in such a position that you never have to worry about him.

The music is nice but very repetitive, and I soon was reaching for the mute button on my computer. When the game ends (in case you limited your amount of darts and you run out) the music doesn’t stop. No big deal you would think, but when going back to the menu, another instance of the same tune will start while the old one is still going. Very annoying (though it does give you a feeling of being at a real carnival where several musics are playing simultaneously).

42%

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