That fat, overblown, waddling, lazy scoundrel of a cat Garfield is out to do his good deed for the day — his feline friend Arlene has been taken to the local pound, and it’s all down to Garfield to pluck his true love from her imprisonment. But first he must get out of the house, and that won’t be easy.
Garfield, the comic-strip cat brought to the Spectrum screen for his tenth birthday (see panel), has two appetites — one for food and the other for rest. So this heroic ball of fluff must keep on consuming food, or he’ll become very tired, drop off to sleep and leave Arlene languishing in the pound.
But at least there’s more to eat than dry meal. There’s his ‘master’ Jon’s coffee, for a start; and later on Garfield can scoff a string of sausages and numerous other scraps. And this cat has a helpful digestive system — watch out for the Snack Attack warnings which appear periodically below the main screen. When there’s a Snack Attack on, the flabby beast can nosh practically anything.
Garfield can be helped or hindered by his ever-present pooch Odie. Our hero doesn’t really deserve this faithful dog as a friend — a well-aimed swipe at Odie earns points for the callous cat. Still, Odie doesn’t seem to mind this mistreatment, for he always bounds back for more.
Garfield can also get help from his nephew, Nermal, the cutest little kitten ever — if he can find him.
Now Garfield is not the most house-proud or best behaved of cats — given half a chance, he likes nothing better than to tear the best chair’s upholstery apart and add a stack of points to his collection. Still, the purple Dralon never did look too good on the three-piece suite, did it?
Messages at the foot of the screen keep up a running commentary, and useful objects lie around for Garfield to gather. There are newspapers, dog bowls, bones, towels and tin cans — but it takes some experimentation to find out what they’re used for.
And if he does make it out of the house into the bright light of day, Garfield will be distracted all the way to the pound by useful places such as butchers’ shops — in fact, they may prove so diverting that the fat cat never gets to free his long-suffering Arlene at all.