"Not terribly ambitious, but solid and amusing"

In the game ''Popeye,'' you cycle through three levels, with Olive Oyl inaccessible at the top and you(Popeye) on a series of platforms below connected by ladders trying to avoid Bluto and other nuisances. She drops items down to you, which fall down at a constant rate but move unpredictably left and right and are worth more the higher you collect them; in the first, hearts, in the second, musical notes, and in the third, the letters H, E, L and P. The backgrounds are different in each level, too; the first is generic, while the second has buildings in the background, and the third is aboard a ship, with Olive in the crows-nest. On each level, you can grab spinach at the side of the board and punch Bluto, who may try to run away--during this time you get double points for the items you pick up, too. There are also a few tricks to nail Bluto another way, the best being the first where, at the top level(where he'll never follow you) you can hit a punching bag which drops a bucket--if Bluto is under, he'll be temporarily immobile. Your progress(how many items you collect) is cleverly shown at the top of the screen. In the first two levels, you see a bunch of hearts or a musical score at the top, and there's a ladder that gets built in the middle of the screen on the third level. You die if an item sinks to the bottom(it will stay at the bottom level for a while before this happens--a nice touch is that the hearts start to break) or if you're hit by an enemy or one of the objects they throw.

The gameplay is straightforward. Popeye can't jump horizontally(he can fall vertically without any damage) but he can climb stairs and punch(this does not work on Bluto.) Its huge weakness is that once you climb an up/down ladder(as opposed to a 45-degree stair) you are stuck doing so. Even though this is not good strategy in general, it seems like a slip.

The graphics are not too bad. They are not especially ambitious, but Popeye(sans pipe,) Bluto(who finds time to change clothes between scenes,) Wimpy(level two, Popeye's brother), the buzzard on the third level, and Olive are more than passable. Bluto, who seems to walk around randomly at times, is the real star, as there's a lot of physical humor involving him. When Popeye decks him, or when he knocks Popeye into the water or, as previously mentioned, gets a bucket on his head are the most obvious ones. But Bluto also jumps down where there is no gap, shaking a platform, and he takes his hand and searches the level below for Popeye, and it's funny to watch him jump sideways, too. You can also see helpful and cute ''thru'' signs for when Popeye can wrap around to the other side. The background sound contains ''I Will Follow Him'' by Little Peggy March, which seems to be a pretty good choice. It's the sort of song that can loop over itself with the catch in its chorus, and besides, there are enough other sounds so that there really is legitimate variety and you only hear the background music half the time. Of course, you hear the Popeye theme when you grab the spinach, and it lasts about the right amount of time for you not to get sick of it. The end-of-level tunes are unique as well. The sound on the whole is very much like the original arcade version, which is very nice

This game is hardly a world-beater. As it loops around when you get to the third level, you may find that the challenge and novelty wear off quickly, and you want to find another old arcade game for quick reminiscence. But Popeye is very likable even in low resolution, and catching the falling hearts, etc. without too much a sense of urgency is different from Pac-Man(stable items to pick up) or shoot-em-up games. If you like the cartoon, this game is definitely worth a look.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/09/00, Updated 11/09/00