** 1 page game review / 504 words **

Willies Adventures

** WILLIE.GIF here **

Colin Polonowski gets an early look at one of the latest Falcon games under development by New Beat Development... 
Despite the excellent gaming features offered by the Falcon hardware the number of games developed to take advantage of its capabilities is small. With the forthcoming release of Willie's Adventures New Beat Development intends to improve this situation.
New Beat Development is a group of four Swedes, Daniel Hedberg, Thomas Bergstroem, Anders Olsson, and Robert Cooke  - all with many years experience of Atari computers.
Anyone who has played the excellent Rayman on the next generation consoles will be instantly at home with Willies Adventures and it's not all gameplay, this game oozes quality. To date the only other game of this genre, worth mentioning in the same sentence, is Double Bubble 2000, coded by the Reservoir Gods.
Surprisingly even the story is original - although the idea behind the game itself isn't. Willie is a painter who one day discovers his paintings coming to life. Eventually he gets trapped inside his paintings and has to find his way out.
Willie's Adventures are played out over giant smooth scrolling worlds, with each world consisting of at least two levels of watch out for secret bonus levels. Each world features different enemies and its own distinctive graphical style - the overall aim being to find the exit on each level. Here's a rundown:
** bulleted list **
* Jungle world; many secrets of the jungle remain to be explored
* Water world; Willie swims around exploring the many secrets deep down in the ocean
* Winter world; cold and snowy - watch our for the penguins
* Desert world; Willie has to careful in his dealings with the crazy cowboys and indians
* Spooky world; a twisted world where you can expect the unexpected
** end list **
The graphics themselves are well crafted, colourful and the animation is second to none. Willie can be controlled using the keyboard or an Atari Powerpad plugged into port A on the side of the Falcon. The Powerpad is undoubtedly the best option and the game makes good use of the extended functions available on the Powerpad.
Sonically, the game is impressive with sampled sounds punctuating a catchy background tune - which unusually didn't get on my nerves within minutes!
This is a sprawling game which should give even experienced gamers something to think about. It's very addictive and incudes the magical 'one more go' ingredient. I can't wait to see the full game which should be available before the end of the summer.

** Product boxout **
Product: Willie's Adventures
Publisher: New Beat Development, Daniel Hedberg, Bengtsheden 80, 790 23 Svaerdsjoe, Sweden
Telephone: +46 246 60187
Email:
Daniel Hedberg: dhedberg@algonet.se
Thomas Bergstroem: tb@kuai.se
Anders Olsson: aolsson@kuai.se
Robert Cooke: rcook@cottagesoft.com
URL: http://www.kuai.se/~dhedberg/
Cost: Around £30 TBC 
Requires: Falcon, RGB/VGA, 4Mb memory minimum
** end boxout **

** Screenshots **
** WILLIE1.GIF **
Jungle World is full of surprises - there's a wide range of enemies lurking out there!
** WILLIE2.GIF **
Willie's only defence is an axe - which he can throw