Guest review by: Becca Clipper
Thinking of ColecoVision, or Smurfs you wouldn’t expect to play a challenging game, let alone an interesting one. These thoughts could be no further from the truth. When playing Smurf Rescue you get thrown immediately into the game, you find your little blue self-standing in front of a mushroom type shack in the woods. You’re on a path, but a small part of a white picket fence stands between yourself and the rest of your journey. Why any Smurf build a picket fence in the middle of a path, and only in the middle of a path? I’m not sure, but it keeps all others out, and you in! A normal person would imagine that you could go around the fence or open it as if it was a gate or something. Attempting either of these in Smurf Rescue prove to be fatal. You must in fact jump over the picket fence, but that’s not all. Later in you journey you must jump over small plants, spiders, skulls, and sudden increases and decreases in elevation.
As stated before you start out in front of a small mushroom-esque house. Your adventure starts with no explanation of where you’re headed or why you’re going there. You know only to go, and that’s what you do. Onward you travel through woods, field, and cave. At last you’re brought to Gargamel’s castle. Realizing this is the end of the level and most likely boss of the game it’s expected that a new level of challenge is likely to ensure… this is not so. After traveling down a long and eventless hallway you must jump atop a skull then to a platform to rescue Smurfette. That’s it. I’m serious.
So why is this game interesting? Or worth mentioning at all? The main reason I believe is the death in this game. If you fail to jump over a fence or tuft of grass (and in later levels if you happen to get hit by in avoidable flying bats or black birds) you “die”. When you die you simply fall over, nothing more. The saying simple things for simple minds definitely applies here. One can be brought to tears of laughter from repetitively running oneself into a fence.
The music and graphics of this game are nothing more then what’s expected of something so classic. The music changes from good scene to bad scene, giving each area an either good or evil feel. Movements such as jumping and the flying of animals have sound effects that are… well, they definitely let you know what exactly is happening. This like many other things gets repetitive if you can last longer then five minutes playing the game. I recommend turning down the volume and blasting something of a more enjoyable nature. The graphics are fairly simple and I’m sure the game it’s self uses nothing more then five maybe six colors tops.
All in all, with it’s goods and little bads Smurf rescue rocks. Maybe not hard core, but it definitely rocks. If it wasn’t for the simplicity and classic-ness of the system and the Smurf theme the absolute entertainment that can be obtained from this game would not be so. But conditions are as such and a good ten to twenty minutes of your life can be used wisely in experiencing that which is Smurf Rescue.
