Danger Mouse in the Black Forest Chateau

"'Cor, chief! How're we gonna save the world with just a bunch of multiple choice menus?'"

If a game featuring Danger Mouse were technically perfect, I don't think it could really be that truthful to the spirit of the series. Indeed, there are a bunch of random items popping up in the right place, many reprieves from certain death, and the usual silly comments from his hamster sidekick, Penfold. It's probably more complicated than any one episode of the show, with a nice commercial break between sides one and two, and although many of the main elements of the show are left out(no escape of your oft-winged car from under the pillar box where DM lives and no Stiletto, Baron Greenbacks's right hand crow) it's a great example of what people managed to do back when they had to make do with very little memory and even retains the sarcastic narrative voice in its room descriptions.

'Now DM, the hardest part of this mission is waiting for the game to load.'

'I'm on it, Colonel K. The world still needs saving.'

'Oo crikey chief!'

At the game's start, Colonel K calls in, and after bumbling over a few words, directs DM to find some terribly destructive weapon called a pi-beam hidden deep in the Black Forest Chateau; the beam is actually hidden in something else(hint: the show was always pun-heavy.) The game focuses on brief narrations to tell you what's going on but is not a true text adventure in two aspects; first, you have a multiple choice of options(i.e. go to the stream, return to the hut, or stand around idly,) and second, there are always little doodles floating about the screen giving a rough picture of what's going on.

For variety you get an extra option if you bring the right item to the right place such as a key to a room with a locked door(in fact, no extra option ever misleads you,) so solutions stick out like the sort of levers Penfold trips over anyway to spring a trap. Making the wrong choice may provide useless entertainment but never kills you but knocks you back to a location that is not so far along in your quest. You'll also find some locations containing several items, of which you can only have one at a time; not that it's easy to keep track without an inventory option. Usually you'll need two or three such items in a certain order and although you can sweep through all locations with every item pretty easily, the items' uses are relatively sensible even if the situations where you must use them are random as you'd expect.

This game, annoyingly, forces you to load another segment in the middle of the plot. It doesn't allow for saved games, but if you get halfway through you're given a code number to type in so you can access the second part. Fortunately these load times are the only really slow parts of the game, and the rest of the time you'll be occupied between finding the one-way access routes between important locations and working your way through some minor nuisances of mazes. The scrawlings along the way will keep you entertained; even though any one is bichromal, Penfold's too-tight suit jacket shows(too bad the tie isn't in full splendor,) and Danger Mouse finds many ways to look nonplussed. There are even cameos from Count Duckula and Baron Greenbacks. But a good deal of the scenery is recycled, which is not all a bad thing, because the show occasionally made fun of itself for the repeated backgrounds. There's also a motif of moving in even wider circles as the game goes on, which works well enough for such an absurdist cartoon. DM himself would frequently run into an obstacle or enemy several times before finding the right way through.

Danger Mouse, the show, worked well because it had many silly pictures to go with puns children might not understand. The game works much in the same way with quips as 'the lone shark takes a great deal of interest' or the red herring you find. DM and Penfold also stumble through the requisite trap doors and secret passageways with the help of goofy gadgets or common items used for extraordinary purposes, and so for a game with such simple controls(maximum five choices on any screen,) the clever narration and pluck make it a credit to the cartoon show that inspired it. A full-fledged Infocom-style adventure would have been ideal, and a corny Bananaman sub-game for people who'd saved the world with Danger Mouse would have been a big hit, but what's there is entertaining enough.

'Jolly Good Show, DM.'

'It's not a show, Colonel K, it's a computer game.'

'Oo lumme chief, that was a good 'un. Cor!'

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/24/02, Updated 06/24/02