You must keep your head for this game

By Peter Eley

HEDZ **

Hasbro Interactive

PC $89.95

No rating available

We all look the same, don't we? So say the HEDZ, a highly developed alien civilisation.

The trouble is, they are identical, with not even a freckle out of place. Hey, the time travel may be awesome, but dating is dull, dull, dull.

So the HEDZ decide to raid the rather backward third rock from the sun (that's Earth) where the inhabitants are the galactic equivalent of lichen. But they have very, very interesting heads - which make rather good wearable art and pretty useful weapons when spiced up with a bit of alien technology.

It all gets out of hand with aliens stealing each other's trophies. To restore order, the Head Extreme Destruction Zone is set up on an asteroid belt. Alien combatants take five human heads into an arena and slug it out in a variety of 3D environments. The winner takes all.

The heads themselves are a hoot, all 200 of them, ranging from a projectile-spitting punk rocker to a little old lady with a set of false teeth a crocodile would kill for.

It's an interesting wee plot, backed up by a rather good movie, and makes for a sophisticated platform game.

Sadly, the graphics let it down. While they were reasonable on a high-end 3D-accelerated machine, they were clunky and slow on a less well-endowed PC.

Computer owners who have spent $1500 to $3000 on a Pentium mainly for entertainment are unlikely to flock to the shops to buy such titles. This type of platform-arcade game looks almost as good on a $200 PlayStation or Nintendo 64.

And you don't have any trouble running games on consoles - HEDZ was a bit of a problem on my Pentium 2/Win 95 setup. There was a conflict with DirectX 6, and I had to tweak it to get the game running properly.

Despite its gory storyline, HEDZ isn't particularly offensive. No official rating was available, but Hasbro says the game is suitable for 11 years and up.

A possible need to tinker with the system and a difficult interface may frustrate many younger children.

Required: Pentium 100, 16Mb Ram, 2Mb graphics card, x4 CD-Rom, Win 95/98.

* Send your comments e-mail to peter_eley@ herald.co.nz