Admittedly we've all done it. The radio's on at full blast and you're singing at the top of your tuneless voice to a song that you don't even know the words too, when all of a sudden the door is thrown open by a parent/partner or any one with a key and the predictable screech follows: "The neighbours are threatening to call the police and the neighbourhood is threatening to have you evicted!" Turning the music down momentarily, albeit to put Nirvana in on full blast, you relax on your bed and imagine the unlimited possibilities of revenge.

Imagine no more; JoWood has brought us an escapist gamers dream come true. It's time to swap the deodorant for super glue as News0r gets to grips with its preview of Neighbours from Hell.

In the Beginning…..
There was man and, undoubtedly, there were neighbours. What could be more of an annoyance than the Neanderthal next door (or cave) clubbing his wife about the head and generally making a bit of a racket. So the obvious solution was to take your own club to his head and batter him relentlessly. However we are far more advanced and mature, so we chose to take our aggression out in a different way. Give modern man a tube of super glue and a pair of binoculars and let him free.

Neighbours From Hell brings a new angle to gaming and fits very snugly into its own genre. The game is based in a TV show format and depends on whether you can impress the audience by stringing the tricks together to amuse them. You play the part of Woody, a mischievous young man solely intent on tormenting his neighbour in as many ways as possible. As mentioned the game takes place in a TV show format and every level begins with the introduction of Woody through the front door to the applause of the audience. Every trap set is greeted with chuckles from the crowd and a mass of laughter erupts when the neighbour falls from his chair or uses hair restorer instead of deodorant. The whole angle is a new one to me and I have struggled to think of any game that matches it for setting, altough in terms of the ways puzzles are played out it is very similar to games like The Impossible Machine or Bill's Tomato Game.

Time For Some Analytical Torment
I'm going all out in this review not to overuse the word 'cute' but I'm sorry, the game is cute. There is no question of the pick-up and play appeal for the game; it is guaranteed entertainment for any age. Although the tricks seem a bit childish I can confirm that they can be appreciated by a large variety of people, and besides, its stupid humour that is the funniest anyway. The actual game play runs smoothly, there are not a great deal of items on the screen at any one time and this has allowed for a lot of detail. The animations of the main character Woody are very clean cut, there is no jerking in his movements nor is there any poor quality in the design.