Tarzan Goes Ape!
Tarzan Goes Ape, original game by by Martyn Hartley C64 conversion by Simon Hartley and published by Codemasters in 1991.
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Player's Review
"TARZAN made a WITCHDOCTOR angry, by saving his pet MONKEY from a nasty looking stew. In a fit of rage, the WITCHDOCTOR cast a spell which turned TARZAN into a MONKEY! ... an OLD WIVES TALE says collect herbs, diamond, mask, bones, ring and a cauldron in a SIMPLE RECIPE to gain a cure! Not so easy, when the local wildlife don't take kindly to this NEW MONKEY faced intruder! TARZAN needs all his strength to fend off the unwanted attacks and collect the right INGREDIENTS."
Vertical platforming action as you climb ladders to the top collecting the magic ingredients along the way. The challenge is to avoid the animals and shoot them unless you want to eaten costing a life. There are three levels to get through with the third particularly brutal making it a fight to the ending. yes there's actually an ending in a budget game, a codemasters game no less.
The C64 conversion has some odd colour choices making the main character details difficult to see and the levels a little gaudy overall. Perhaps it would have been better to keep the Spectrum look and feel but otherwise it is the same game. The controls are a little floater and all to easy to over compensate or jump hitting the enemies. It plays just a little too fast and the usual c64 collision detection issues will likely get you. The game starts by offering the choice of music or not but disabling it just results in silence as there is no sfx.
The longplay shows all three levels and the two bonus levels in between. Level one is ok, allowing you to get used to the game mechanics. Level two steps it up by hiding one of the ingredients in with killer skulls requiring some fine movements to avoid death skulls. Level three dials the difficulty up to eleven moving one of the ingredients out of order as well as traversing some fiendish skull tunnels which are guaranteed to eat up your extra lives. Note that it is important that you collect the ingredients in the correct order else they will kill you. Skulls will generally kill you but some will make you drunk reversing the controls.
Overall, it comes across as a little ugly looking similar to earlier generation titles and the controls will probably frustrate while you try to enjoy what should have been a simple climbing platform game. The same developer went on to produce Bignose's USA Adventure which shares the same traits and unforgivingly the exact same music. As for the colour of the main character, I do wonder if the developer was using an Old Luma 64 which results in a grey skin with brown outline.
00:00:00 Title Music
00:02:14 Level 1
00:04:34 Level 2
00:07:35 Level 3
Vertical platforming action as you climb ladders to the top collecting the magic ingredients along the way. The challenge is to avoid the animals and shoot them unless you want to eaten costing a life. There are three levels to get through with the third particularly brutal making it a fight to the ending. yes there's actually an ending in a budget game, a codemasters game no less.
The C64 conversion has some odd colour choices making the main character details difficult to see and the levels a little gaudy overall. Perhaps it would have been better to keep the Spectrum look and feel but otherwise it is the same game. The controls are a little floater and all to easy to over compensate or jump hitting the enemies. It plays just a little too fast and the usual c64 collision detection issues will likely get you. The game starts by offering the choice of music or not but disabling it just results in silence as there is no sfx.
The longplay shows all three levels and the two bonus levels in between. Level one is ok, allowing you to get used to the game mechanics. Level two steps it up by hiding one of the ingredients in with killer skulls requiring some fine movements to avoid death skulls. Level three dials the difficulty up to eleven moving one of the ingredients out of order as well as traversing some fiendish skull tunnels which are guaranteed to eat up your extra lives. Note that it is important that you collect the ingredients in the correct order else they will kill you. Skulls will generally kill you but some will make you drunk reversing the controls.
Overall, it comes across as a little ugly looking similar to earlier generation titles and the controls will probably frustrate while you try to enjoy what should have been a simple climbing platform game. The same developer went on to produce Bignose's USA Adventure which shares the same traits and unforgivingly the exact same music. As for the colour of the main character, I do wonder if the developer was using an Old Luma 64 which results in a grey skin with brown outline.
00:00:00 Title Music
00:02:14 Level 1
00:04:34 Level 2
00:07:35 Level 3
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