Featuring three titles by the same coder (Elliott gay), Action Pack brings us two very un-actionlike sports in fishing and show jumping, an Atik Atac style arcade adventure and a platformer. But are they any good?
You can watch our full video review of Action Pack below, or read on for the edited highlights…
The pack was reviewed back in November 1986 by Computer Gamer magazine. They felt that Show Jumping was hard to master, Labyrinthian was too difficult in the early stages, they enjoyed Son of Blagger and its recognisable game mechanics, but they found Match Fishing a little unusual for a computer game.
Commenting that the pack included ‘nothing outstanding’ but also ‘nothing terribly bad’. They scored Action Pack 12 out of 20 (60%) and it is hard to argue with any of their comments (other than them being a bit too lenient with Blagger).
Even in 1986, four games for under a fiver looked like a great deal and Action Pack had a striking pink inlay for its single jewel case, featuring tiny images of each game. Screenshots on the back were equally miniscule. But for a budget compilation the packaging was better than average so scored of 6 out of 10.
To work out the value we divide the price (£4.99) by the total points the game received (22) and that gives us a ‘pence per point’ of 23p, which is enough for 8 points.
The scores are then sent to an independent invigilator, who confirmed that Action Pack 1 gained an overall score of 61%
That score isn’t enough for any of our accolade badges, but by virtue of being the only budget game released, it sits proudly atop the fledgling Budget chart.
