A Gee-Rated Adventure

Dynamix’s “The Adventures of Willy Beamish” is a pleasant, appealing little adventure game with super graphics and very little of that noxious, nauseating, violence-packed sword-and-sorcery stuff. It’s just the sort of story that we all wish that pubescent boys would prefer over the likes of “Conan the Impaler Versus the Dragon King of Golgatha.”

In other words, the prime video game-playing audience is sure to find this little PC sitcom strictly Nick at Night. “Willy”--which someday we will probably refer to as “Willy I”--is “Leave It to Beaver” meets “Dennis the Menace.”

Willy is a suburban 9-year-old “Nintari” game whiz with a pet frog named Horny, a best friend named Perry, a crush on Dana, two mega-yuppies for parents, a big sister who “slips tongue” with her boyfriend and enough innate mischieviousness for his own prime-time series.

As Willy wanders the streets of Frumpton, he uncovers a shady real-estate deal that includes a plumber’s strike and a plot to destroy the city’s sewer system. The tale takes a couple of spooky twists here and there, but for the most part it stays well within the confines of acceptable innocuousness.

The G-rated story is a welcome break from the cliche-ridden pixels-pectorals-and-potions tales that dominate the adventure game genre. But what really sets “Willy” apart are its graphics. The pictures are the closest we have seen on a disk-based computer game to Saturday-morning quality animation. This is far from classic Disney, but light years beyond the fuzzy little fellows who wander through the static backdrops of most gamescapes. Young Willy is some kind of hero, and his game is a visual wonder.

Willy Beamish

Rating:

IBM and compatibles, Tandy; VGA; 640K hard drive required. List: $59.95.

Computer games are rated on a five-star system, from one star for poor to five for excellent.