Gobliiins 4

I'm Just Sitting here looking at the specs for Gobliiins 4 and I'm wondering whether they should actually read "MHz processor, 5MB RAM, and a VGA-compatible graphics card". This might be a slight exaggeration, but Gobliiins 4 just looks absolutely horrible.

We're not ones to blow the visuals trumpet more than necessary, but this is just very sloppy. It looks like they just took the engine for the early '90s originals and upped the resolution to a maximum (yes, maximum) of 1024x768. But don't worry! Your $450 graphics card will be maxed out by the fact you use incredible 32-bit colours!

Gobliiins 4 is similar in style (a good thing) to the previous three games, though it's neither anywhere near as hard (a bad thing) or anywhere near as good (a very bad thing). You control three goblins, each with their own abilities. For example, Stucco the Warrior is strong and can be used for, well, strength-oriented things. Tchoop the Detective is the object-manipulating guy, and Perlius the Wizard is... you get the idea. There are 15 levels to get through, each contained within one screen. It's a faithful representation of the original concepts, just one that is hideously executed.

If you do play this, you might be driven insane by the moronic noises and baby-speak of the characters (literally: one of them is the digitised voice of an infant). You might also grimace at the fact that on the second level, an object needed for progression is absent, preventing progression. A restart of the level was no help and we were stuck in place. Not good.

If you must have some Gobliiins action, just get the originals. This one should never have made it into the public domain.