No, this isn't about the TV show. This is about the very first computer game based on the well-loved comedy property, Monty Python's Flying Circus. A while back I covered a multimedia extravaganza, 1994 release Complete Waste of Time, which was only the second home computer release based on the comedy of the Python group. A couple of years before it, a shooter(!?) carrying the name of the series was released for Amiga, DOS, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum.
Really, when you look at it, the oddest thing about the game is the fact that it is, indeed, a side-scrolling shooter. Out of all the genres that were popular in the late 80s and early 90s, why a shooter? Who looked at the comedy series and thought, you know what? This would work as a shooter. Not as a platformer or a text adventure or an RPG or a graphical adventure, but as a shooter. It is a brainfart worthy of the playable character of the game, Mr Gumby, a well-known nitwit from the series itself.
Gumby, or Gumbies, are recurring characters on the Monty Python show. They are loud-mouthed idiots, usually dressed in a knit vest, a rolled sleeved shirt, knee-high shorts, glasses and rubber boots. Perhaps the best-known catchphrase of theirs is "My brain hurts" uttered when one Gumby goes to the brain specialist. What I'm getting at here is, there's nothing remotely shootery about them. Even an oddball puzzle game would have been a better idea. Well, I do think in one sketch a Gumby explodes to smithereens, but that's as close as it gets.
So, let's take a glance towards the developer, Core Design. Maybe that could explain the genre choice. It doesn't really, as their previous games were mostly action platformers, not straight out shooters. There's also a sports trivia game (now, the Python trivia game could have been something interesting) and a bike racing game. And only a couple of years later, they released Curse of Enchantia, a somewhat forgotten adventure game, but a game in a genre that could have worked nicely for a Python game as well. A bit later, Core made the game they are best known for, a certain little game starring a pointy breasted tomb raider called Lara Croft. Can you even imagine what kind of a game Monty Python's Flying Circus could have been if done in the way of Tomb Raider? Granted, it would not have worked in 1990, but still.
The smartest thing Fling Circus does is that it sets the game in the cartoon graphics style of Terry Gilliam animations. I can only imagine how dreadful the game would look with 1990 quality digitized graphics from the series. For a reference, you can always look at Access Softwares early FMV precursor, Countdown. Or better yet. the first Tex Muphy game, utterly terrible Mean Streets.
I guess there is a story in the game. Gumby is minding his own business when his brains are suddenly freed from his noggin. Now even stupider loony has to go and get his brains back. Not that it is actually necessary if you want to complete the game, but apparently there is an alternative ending screen if you do manage to get the brains back.
You play the first level as a fish with Gumby's head. You shoot fish at your enemies and at the end, you fight a boss. Each boss is shaped as some notable Gilliam cartoon character, like the gangster chicken or Spiny Norman. In between levels, you have an argument and a bonus count where you drop all the found food items in a pit. During the levels, the game is constantly interrupted by Python jokes like how to identify a tree from far and Malden. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the game is the score counter, which is actually counting backwards from the maximum score.
Let's get this out of the way. Monty Python's Flying Circus is a terrible game. While it does have some graphical appeal, it just isn't fun to play. It is annoying more than anything else. It also is terribly difficult and the only reason I played it through was that I cheated. It's far too clumsy of a game to be playable otherwise.
I don't know why Core made it a shooter. I really don't. Perhaps that was the genre they felt they were the best-versed at or it was the publisher's idea. I can assume Virgin is the actual party paying for the license and wanting a quick bang for their buck.
There would have been other genres better suited for the material of Monty Python, but all said, this was what the very first Monty Python game was. Of course, you could always claim this to be some sort of a joke in the vein of Python's themselves, you know, an absurd take on game development by making a bad game in a genre not suited for the style of humour. Instant Leprosy Gaming.
I tried two versions of the game for this review, the Amiga and DOS versions. Out of the two, the DOS version is clearly worse thanks to then constantly looping PC beeper version of the Python theme playing in the background. Gameplay-wise, they both are equally bad, graphically they are more or less on par. Amiga probably has a couple of more colours in use.
Should you play this game? No, not even if you are a Python fan. It might have some value as a collector's item, but as a game, it's just dreadfully done. It's not funny nor fun to play, so in those terms, it has nothing going for it.
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