Super Hair review – ZX Spectrum

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s…a hair? Yes, it’s a hair wearing a cape, okay?

Ted. Man. Glue. What do these words say when you prefix them with the word ‘super’? It means they’re brilliant, of course! Where would we be without Super Ted saving the world with his best mate Spotty? Where would we be without Superman saving the world with his laser eyes, ice breath and spinning the Earth the other way around by flying around it quickly? And where would we be without super…glue? You get the picture.

A solitary hair wearing a cape may not get the same attention or attract the same razzamatazz as a muscle man in Lycra and his underwear on the outside, but Superhair is not a hero to be sniffed at. Can Superman fire lasers out of his eyes, for example? Yes, I suppose he can, but can he do it to such an extent to blow apart an army of evil aliens trying to take over his home planet? Most importantly, can he do it on your favourite home computer? That’s right – no, he can’t, and this is where Superhair comes out on top. Take that, Superman!

Super Hair may look a little familiar to you and with good reason, as this is the character’s third outing on the Spectrum over the last few years. Starting with The Hair Raising Adventures of Mr Hair in 2019 which was then followed by Mr Hair and The Fly in 2021 with Superhair following even sooner the same year. He’s had quite the adventurous life considering that he consists of a singular hair – will his latest, most dangerous adventure be his last? Will it be, hair today, gone tomorrow? (Sorry.)

‘Our only hope’? *Gulp*

Super Hair is on a mission. With his newfound powers, he’s been tasked with taking on the job of protecting his beloved home planet of Hairtooine from the vile mutant empire! By protecting it, I of course mean to take to the skies a blast the living hell out of anything that comes his way. Anything evil, of course. With his aforementioned cape flapping behind him and his laser eyes, he has the goods to get the job done. How hard can it be to destroy all manner of evil mutants whilst navigating the planet’s rather jagged scenery and then taking on the big bad boss at the end of each level? Pretty hard, it turns out. It could be me and my lack of manoeuvrability skills, but Super Hair is not a game to be taken lightly. You have to be on your toes unless you use your hands to control your games, in which case you’ll have to be on your fingers and get them warmed up to hammer that fire button. For me, this seemed to be the way to make progress through the levels. That and making sure I didn’t take the wrong turn and find myself stuck in a dead-end, of course. Bugger.

Eat laser, evil wiggly things!

Flying across the screen, Super Hair looks great as his…erm, well… ‘hair’ I guess, flickers atop his head and his cape flows majestically behind him. The nice scrolling of the game moves along nicely, giving you just enough time to navigate the oncoming enemies and squeeze through any scenery that may or may not be approaching you. Should you become a cropper to any scenery (guilty) or any number of enemies (guilty, again) then there are power-ups to collect to help top up your energy. Don’t expect this to be too plentiful though so expect to lose a few lives whilst you get used to the game. Make your way to the end of the level and you’ll also have an end of level boss to contend with too – now these guys really don’t like you so this

Why are all of life’s bosses inherently evil?

time you’ll need to be on both your toes and fingers to send them back whence they came.

Away from the gameplay side of things, Super Hair has an abundance going for it audibly. Both 48K and 128K versions contain some quite fantastic music on the title screen, (along with some speech, too) with beeper maestro Rich Hollins on duty along with AY genius Pedro Pimenta, so we’re in an esteemed company here.

Additionally, the art contained within the game, notably the portrait of our hero surrounding the play area, is stunning too. Couple that with the loading screen and quite brilliant game cover art, and it makes for a great package.

Hello ‘game over’ screen my old friend…