The Flintstones

G.S.E Design/ Teque 1988: Programmed by Peter Harrop and Shaun Hollingworth, Graphics by Mark Edwards, Music by Ben Dalglish

The Flintstones were everywhere during the eighties, it was in fact the Simpsons of its day. Fred Flintstones' catchphrase 'Yabadabadoo' was so overwhelmingly popular it was incorporated into the popular culture and probably has a dictionary entry all of its own. The plot line revolved a family of prehistoric characters, who seemingly oblivious of the fact that humans (or at least the particular culture the cartoon satirises) were not due to reach the American continent for several millenia, live out their lives doing things everything day modern americans do. The gimmick here being that instead of dogs they have dinosaurs, and instead of cars they have what looks like a wood framed tent with stone rollers for wheels. The main characters in the cartoon are Fred, a somewhat dim Homer Simpson type character, Barny, his best friend, Wilma, Fred's wife, Bettie, Barny's wife and the two family's kids Pebbles and Bam Bam. In the cartoon series they got up to all sorts of japes, unfortunately this game consists of two (well possibly more but I gave up) rather tedious sub-games. The first of these involves painting a wall while babysitting Pebbles. Truely the most exciting gaming concept ever. And this is the better of the two. Basically you have some animal in your hand that substitutes for a brush. You need to dip this into the paint and then walk to wall before pressing fire to start painting. Easy enough, but occasionally Pebbles escapes from her cot and you have to put down your brush and grab her. Then you pick up your brush and start painting again. You also have to use a ladder to paint the upper portion of the wall. All this against a very strict time limit. If you somehow have the skill and patience to succeed in this, then you get to go bowling with Barny. Oh dear. A couple of bars controlled by the joystick control speed and direction, but frankly you'll find this sequence all very boring and will rather wish you were watching paint dry again. The sequence is made even more tedious by the pin loading machine which resets the pins one at a time..
There are some nice touches. The graphics are fairly good approximations of the cartoon (though for some reason, on the title screen only, Wilma has bleached her ginger mop) and the animation is quite faithful as well. There are a few samples put in there to cheer things up, which is a good thing as the main Flintstones chip tune is dire. This is a waste of a potentially fun license, there's not even a Flintstone car racing sub-game and you'll quickly be reaching for the reset button..

Zogging Hell Rating: 5/10

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