Rock Star Ate My Hamster (Amiga) (RE-Upload) - A Playguide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
43Rock Star Ate My Hamster was converted to the Amiga by Codemasters in 1989. It is a business management game in a recording studio, where Cecil and Clive are busy making their next big hit album. This video had 566 views, and 42 likes, before it was originally taken down.
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Production Notes:
Captured: 4th September 2021
Narrated: 14th July 2022
This was recorded in the first 10 for the series, back in 2021, after recording LOTT and Tiny Bobble. There was a bit of a gap until Twin World was recorded on the 4th of November. This seemed like an easy game to cover. I'd never seen or played it before, on any platform, but the tips on Lemon seemed to make the game sound easy. So I booted it up and set the recorder rolling straight away. But the first play didn't go well, and I restarted the game again (no shown) and carried on from the dates where the previous game finished off.
Editing of this one was delayed quite a lot because I wasn't happy with the quality of the audio. For one some now, the mixing of my narration has filtered out the bass, as I sound quite nasally; like I've go a cold. But getting a new amp recently highlighted the fact that there is almost no bass in the narration now, and it sounds very high pitched, like I'm on helium. I spent time re-mixing the narration levels, and also the volumes of the various sound tracks, but I wasn't happy with any of it; and it felt like I was going around in circles. Having spent a few days messing with the sound, I eventually abandoned the whole thing and went back to an earlier revision of the edit. The voice is still high pitched, but it's better than the alternative.
At some point in the edit, I got the idea to use some music to make the game feel more like a 1980s music studio, as the in-game music is rather bland and boring. So I found some instrumentals which seemed to work. These are all copyright songs, and so I can't monetize this video. I'm sure the songs will sound horrendous to modern audiences, but this is the music I grew up with. You might notice I don't mention the name Duran Duran throughout the review.
Danscore:
Back in the day, every band had to drive around in a tour bus, and drive around to venues come rain, wind and snow. They all had fast-talking wide-eyed managers, and young punk producers. But unlike this game, it was very hard to get a top 10 song in the charts in very first year, and it often took 2 or 3 albums or years before some bands eventually hit the big time. A game like this would have benefited from compressed time, so that the merry-go-round of publicity, practising and shows was simply events on a calendar, with an expenses sheet, where players can see past income/progress and forecast earnings. With just one year in the game, the only skill seems to be to practice for the first half of the year, and accrue lots of money, and basically buy your way to the top during the recording and promotion process. If you have over 4 million in this game, it's almost a done deal. In the early 1980s, videos for Rio or Save a Prayer only cost Β£25,000 to produce each, because tour bus bands did everything on the cheap. It wasn't at all about money spent, but developing an image; and this game makes no attempt to factor in fashion or style, photo shoots, TV appearances, or interviews. Another issue is that once the album is recorded, practising becomes almost redundant, apart from making sure the live shows don't get worse. If you did't practice enough before you cut the album, too bad. The lottery of 'death or glory' in the newspapers requires the player to save or lose everything, which is boring, and the penalty for 'bad' press should have not resulted in instant death. Also, surely being 'out of the band' would require hiring a replacement from the list of artists, and creating a new album. This would have made the game more interesting. As it is, Rock Star Ate My Hamster had a lot of good ideas, but failed to deliver on the promise of classic press headlines and publicity stunts. Instead it is a cycle of skipping past the shows to get on with the game, and then skipping through the menu and the charts to get to the shows again. But, it does have some of the charm you could expect from a game like this, so it earns some points for offering some fun at least; especially when you see your favourite tracks rising up the charts. So I give this 6.5 out of 10. It has some good ingredients, but they are laid down paper-thin on top of a bare-naked pizza crust. The graphics and sound are only 'functional', and a game like this could have gone to town with both of those. It feels like an Β£8.99 Codemasters Amiga port of an 8-bit ZX Spectrum original title, so this is all to be expected, I guess.