Dennis (Desktop Dynamite)
Dennis, developed and published by Ocean Software in 1993. Also included in the Commodore Amiga 1200 Desktop Dynamite pack. This is an early incomplete build of the game that shipped at retail.
| 
Screenshot |
Player's Review
"Yipes! Grab your slingshot, water pistol and pea-shooter. Margaret, the fist-fighting doll-toting little miss dynamite, and Joey, Dennis' wimpy but loyal friend, are missing and so is Mr. Wilson's valuable coin collection. Can you sneak into Mr. Wilson's house and fine your slingshot and pea- shooter without being spotted? You've got rope ladders to climb and hidden switches to find... it's going to be tough You're gonna need those weapons bad as you face off with the beastly Betty Sue Dubrovski, the crazed Coach, the foul Fish and Sam the scariest of them all. On this late-night escapade, bees, bulldogs, birds, frogs and even bunnies will be a menace to Dennis. Finding Joey, Margaret and Mr. Wilson's coin collection will be an adventure more harrowing than a garden full of cheek pinchers, and you know what Mr. Wilson says, "that's no g. d. (gosh darn) joke".
Dennis, the Amiga game was released in multiple versions for Amiga 500 class machines, A1200 AGA and CD32 and also released on the Super Nintendo as Dennis the Menace. The version played here is the Amiga 1200 game bundled as a pack in game with the Commodore Amiga 1200 Desktop Dynamite pack. Something to note is that ocean appears to have short changed Commodore by providing an unfinished version of the game. The game has bugs and missing content and I suppose the thinking was, nobody would notice as the difficulty of the game would put players off from finishing it anyway. Some issues I noticed, but there are likely more.:-
Missing Wood levels as well as boss battle levels and the boss battles that are there are in the wrong place. No level numbers. No end of level score tally screens. No ending or credit roll. A bug can appear at the boss battle where the boss only needs one hit to kill. somehow losing a life will reset the stage to normal health levels. Finishing the last boss loops the game back to the title screen. On the first Boiler stage, it is posable to collect five large coins. doing so will block you from leaving the level. The sfx are basic or missing. The second disk drive is not recognised.
The opening level is quite promising as it has you jumping around, platforming collecting coins whilst destroying any enemies in the way if you choose. It looks alright for a 1993 Amiga platform game but what's the the gloomy music that plays throughout the game. You only get sfx or music, solved in the snes or cd32 game. So on the first level, you are required to find all four large coins as well as the two additional weapons before you can leave the stage. After leaving the house it's onto some quite bland by comparison platforming levels go up, down, left, right all over to find those coins. Later in the sewers it is mostly just left to right with a very annoying jumping section. The boiler levels go back to going all over the place to find the coins. Before leaving each themed area, there is a boss battle and you are limited to the water pistol requiring to land a certain amount of hits before they hit you. These stages can be annoying as you have to wait some seconds between shots for them to land.
There is no difficulty option apart from starting amount of lives so the game is what it is. The game provides plenty of energy and loads of extra lives to find but if you lose a life its back to the beginning of the stage, although you get to keep the coins. The difficulty comes from the floaty controls and extremely bad collision detection. You have to land before you can execute another jump. Just holding jump wont work and stringing multiple jumps together as you cross a death chasm can be frustrating. Whilst enemies are not always packed together its all to easy to run right into them as you cross the screen but there are lots of them throughout the levels which are again frustrating, more so as they all respawn. You get three weapons but you have to cycle through them as needed to defeat particular enemies.
Overall, it's quite a basic platforming game thrown together to promote the movie. Maybe another Highlander situation. The first level is interesting, but after that it just seems like a minimal effort. For this version in particular, if this was your first game on your brand new A1200, you would likely be revaluating your live choices and deciding if the Amiga needs to be taken back for a game console!. Ocean short changing commodore with an incomplete game was surly not good for a pack in game.
00:00:00 Title Music
00:01:15 Mr Wilsons
00:08:55 The Park 1
00:10:55 The Park 2
00:13:07 The Park 3
00:16:07 Boiler Boss
00:18:07 Sewers 1
00:19:26 Sewers 2
00:20:40 Sewers 3
00:22:33 Sewers 4
00:26:00 Sewers Boss
00:27:47 Boiler 1
00:32:36 Boiler 2
00:36:26 Boiler 3
00:39:58 Boiler 4
00:42:55 Woods Boss
-------------------------------
00:45:11 Mr Wilsons (SFX Example)
Dennis, the Amiga game was released in multiple versions for Amiga 500 class machines, A1200 AGA and CD32 and also released on the Super Nintendo as Dennis the Menace. The version played here is the Amiga 1200 game bundled as a pack in game with the Commodore Amiga 1200 Desktop Dynamite pack. Something to note is that ocean appears to have short changed Commodore by providing an unfinished version of the game. The game has bugs and missing content and I suppose the thinking was, nobody would notice as the difficulty of the game would put players off from finishing it anyway. Some issues I noticed, but there are likely more.:-
Missing Wood levels as well as boss battle levels and the boss battles that are there are in the wrong place. No level numbers. No end of level score tally screens. No ending or credit roll. A bug can appear at the boss battle where the boss only needs one hit to kill. somehow losing a life will reset the stage to normal health levels. Finishing the last boss loops the game back to the title screen. On the first Boiler stage, it is posable to collect five large coins. doing so will block you from leaving the level. The sfx are basic or missing. The second disk drive is not recognised.
The opening level is quite promising as it has you jumping around, platforming collecting coins whilst destroying any enemies in the way if you choose. It looks alright for a 1993 Amiga platform game but what's the the gloomy music that plays throughout the game. You only get sfx or music, solved in the snes or cd32 game. So on the first level, you are required to find all four large coins as well as the two additional weapons before you can leave the stage. After leaving the house it's onto some quite bland by comparison platforming levels go up, down, left, right all over to find those coins. Later in the sewers it is mostly just left to right with a very annoying jumping section. The boiler levels go back to going all over the place to find the coins. Before leaving each themed area, there is a boss battle and you are limited to the water pistol requiring to land a certain amount of hits before they hit you. These stages can be annoying as you have to wait some seconds between shots for them to land.
There is no difficulty option apart from starting amount of lives so the game is what it is. The game provides plenty of energy and loads of extra lives to find but if you lose a life its back to the beginning of the stage, although you get to keep the coins. The difficulty comes from the floaty controls and extremely bad collision detection. You have to land before you can execute another jump. Just holding jump wont work and stringing multiple jumps together as you cross a death chasm can be frustrating. Whilst enemies are not always packed together its all to easy to run right into them as you cross the screen but there are lots of them throughout the levels which are again frustrating, more so as they all respawn. You get three weapons but you have to cycle through them as needed to defeat particular enemies.
Overall, it's quite a basic platforming game thrown together to promote the movie. Maybe another Highlander situation. The first level is interesting, but after that it just seems like a minimal effort. For this version in particular, if this was your first game on your brand new A1200, you would likely be revaluating your live choices and deciding if the Amiga needs to be taken back for a game console!. Ocean short changing commodore with an incomplete game was surly not good for a pack in game.
00:00:00 Title Music
00:01:15 Mr Wilsons
00:08:55 The Park 1
00:10:55 The Park 2
00:13:07 The Park 3
00:16:07 Boiler Boss
00:18:07 Sewers 1
00:19:26 Sewers 2
00:20:40 Sewers 3
00:22:33 Sewers 4
00:26:00 Sewers Boss
00:27:47 Boiler 1
00:32:36 Boiler 2
00:36:26 Boiler 3
00:39:58 Boiler 4
00:42:55 Woods Boss
-------------------------------
00:45:11 Mr Wilsons (SFX Example)
No Comments have been Posted.