Fury Of The Furries

Small furry animals may seem harmless and defenceless, but they have evolved one of the most effective survival tactics for life on Earth. It must have been back in prehistory when, after a hard but unsuccessful day hunting woolly mammoth, the gruff and violent men of the hairy-machos tribe had finally decided to settle for something smaller and easier to catch. Imagine the moment, during which the square-jawed hulks, all with hard-as-nails names like Ug, Thug, Nog, and Killer, are carefully creeping up on a rabbit warren, when the silence is suddenly broken by the harrowing sound of a grown man squealing: 'Oooh, look at da cute little bunny wabbits'. So, not only did our furry friends avoid being eaten, they also convinced early man to keep them safe and sound in a centrally heated cave and supplied with free straw and lettuce. What is the point of this little-known tale of Darwinian success? Small furry creatures are not as stupid as they look. In fact the small furries we are concerned with here are about as crafty and resourceful as it's possible to get.

Union rules guvl

Despite the title, the heroes of this game are actually called 'times'. They are best described as bits of coloured belly-button fluff with hands and feet. In fact they look suspiciously like those little toy things stuck to bits of ribbon you used to be able to buy, which would inevitably end up getting stuck behind the sofa for a decade or being choked on by small dogs.

Unlike the toys, these tinies have their uses. In fact each of the four types has its own very specific uses and, in the true tradition of tiny unions, each may only perform its specified tasks and not those of any other tiny. So, yellow tinies can throw fireballs and are resistant to fire, blue tinies can swim underwater and blow bubbles, green tinies can attach a line to objects and swing from them or pull them, and red tinies can eat bits of the scenery. Having all these skills to hand is pretty useful; essential, in fact, when your king has been kidnapped and it's up to you to rescue him.

Sophistication and charm

What we have here is a loveable cross between The Lost Vikings and Lemmings, in which the general idea is to work out how best to use the skills of the four different tinies to solve the problem set on each of the hundred or so levels. But while the influences are obvious, Fury Of The gurries does have a unique appeal. Although the sprites are small, they are superbly animated - just check out the expressions on the tinies' faces when they are heading for a deadly hazard. The game has an engaging simplicity too, because although there are four different types of tiny, you only control one at a time, and it is changed to a different type simply by dematerialising and then rematerialising in a new form.

There are ten worlds, with approximately ten levels each. I'm vague on that point simply because, at the time of writing this review, I have still seen only about a third of all there is to see. And that brings me neatly on to my one criticism - although the first couple of levels are pathetically easy, they soon get very tricky indeed. In itself, this is no bad thing, but unlike the other similar games I mentioned earlier, Fury Of The Furries will only let you save your game at the mid-point and end of each world, which means that you may be faced with the prospect of playing up to four levels again before reaching the point at which you got stuck. This is going to frustrate players who don't have a lot of patience.

A furious conclusion

Despite its difficulty, Fury Of The Furries should appeal to fans of the action/puzzle genre. It's a little bit more action orientated than The Lost Vikings and that's where most of the difficulty comes from - the puzzles being easier to solve than those in Lemmings. It has charm though, and if you're prepared to be patient with it, this will certainly be the game that's responsible for you falling asleep in the office/failing your exams/getting divorced. What better recommendation can I give it?