Have you ever been ill and wondered what exactly was
going wrong with your poor little body? Sitting there
sweating, head throbbing, stomach making horrible gurgly
noises and all that sort of thing. Now the inner workings
of your body can be revealed by playing Gerry the
Germ.
You
see, Gerry has been thrown out of the institute of Infectology
for failing to get his stinkploma . . . out on the street,
no money, a bacteria and a colony of viruses to support.
Most ordinary germs would be defeated by this crushing
blow, but not Gerry. He's a fighter, a rebel, a rapscallion,
and he's going to show the world that he's the best
by taking on and completely infecting a human being
single-handed.
You
play the part of that heroic, teensy-weensy little germ,
and have to successfully infect six parts of your host's
body. There are six tasks, each forming six separate
screens, and failing one results in him being put back
to the first screen.
Gerry
starts his quest in his unsuspecting host's lungs (after
he's been inhaled). In the middle of the lungs are four
square-dancing red blood corpuscles. Every time they
cross, a bottle of oxygen is produced which Gerry has
to collect, until the lungs become diseased. Once that
has been done he can whizz down a handy vein to the
kidneys.
Here,
Gerry has to eat as many kidney beans as it takes to
make a reaction in his bacterial botty . . . and he
can then go to the toilet and ruin the poor man's bowels.
Naturally his task isn't an easy one and there are antibodies
floating about the screen in the form of a plunger and
toilet attendant These have to be avoided and at the
same time Gerry has to hack about after the kidney beans
before they run off screen.
The
next stop is the bladder. Ho, ho, ho. Gerry has luckily
picked up a little rowing boat and is paddling around
the pi-lake of strong liquid. Swimming about in the
lake is a bull (!) which can overturn the boat . . .
But luckily Gerry can pick up highly dangerous tactile
nuclear toilet rolls to throw at it. If one hits home
then the bull sinks for a while before continuing its
chase. Gerry has to survive long enough for the bladder
to pack in, and then it's on to the stomach.
[This
screenshot was not in the original review]
Lots
of nasties trundle their way around the stomach -- a
tapeworm, a gas pocket, and lots of healthy food. Some
stun, others shunt you about the screen, so you have
to watch out! Gerry has to dissolve Mr Asprin, guardian
of the exit (he stops the stomach from going wrong),
by dissolving him with the acid bottle found wandering
around the screen. If Mr Asprin is dissolved then the
stomach gets all acidic and the host suffers horribly,
har, har.
The
next stop is the pancreas, which looks rather like the
inside of a train carriage (pancreas sounds like St
Pancras -- joke). The screen is split in half, one half
the inside of the carriage and the other the driver's
compartment, with the fireman and driver. In the carriage
are medical supplies that should be dealt with. If Gerry
touches them then they're infected, but he has to watch
out for mean white cells whose touch spells trouble.
Once the medical supplies have been ruined Gerry must
stop the train, done by climbing unseen into the driver's
compartment and lobbing coal at the driver. The driver
thinks it's the fireman and a fight ensues . . .
Gerry's
final job is to stop the heart. The objective of this
screen is to reach the heart, made difficult by the
amount of antibodies zooming around the screen. If Gerry
finally manages to infect the heart then he wins, and
proves to the rest of the germ world that he's a jolly
clever fellow really.
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