THE CAST
	Pengo	our hero
	Sno-bee	his nasty enemies!
	Ice block	both Pengo and Sno-bees can destroy these blocks
	Diamond block	unbreakable, can be thrown by Pengo only

A funny penguin, a few cool and colourful sno-bees (are they "snow bees"?!?), lots of ice and the aurora borealis... this might be the introduction to some naturalistic documentaries from National Geographics, but this is Zzap!Raine not BBC, isn't it?

I wonder how they woke up at SEGA's, that far-away morning in 1982, when videogame was swiftly to become an authentic mania... it was already clear enough that the destiny of software houses was strictly hooked to the discovery/invention of funny, winning mascots, eventually cartoonish, isn't it? Pacman for example: it was a true idol in those times, and Mario and Donkey Kong were the kings of arcades... Japanese videogamers were crazy about them, and Nintendo was going to conquer the USA too... What about SEGA? They were simply standing there and watching, until...

Pengo... the name itself immediatelly reminds us of a penguin. It would be the same as if we called our cat as Catty of our brother as Brotho. So it's nothing but a quick-and-easy marketing strategy to recollect the crowds that the newly-born mascot was a chubby non-flying bird coming from the Antarctic circle. So let's see his story - even though it's totally useless for us, videogamers of this century...

The fact. It was one of those cold mornings in Antarctic where, as we know, days last six months and nights too, and our chick fond himself surrounded by a horde of stinging and hungry sno-bees. If you don't know what a sno-bee is, well try to look at the Britannic Encyclopedia - or the videogames one heh!

Well those nasty dipterons (insects? who knows!) are hard nuts to crack: they come out of scattered eggs all around the playground, and it seems that their interest immediately becomes hunting Pengo, grabbing him and putting him "knock-out". They respect no limits and do all their best to reach their goal: they move around the maze, eventually squeezing the ice-blocks by just touching them, quickly pointing to our hero.

At every stage there are a certain amount of eggs, and their number increases as game proceeds. They're hidden in randomly-placed blocks and, as Pengo kills enemies, eggs disclose and new enemies come to life. Our hero's task is in fact clearing all playgrounds from sno-bees. That can be done in four ways:

1. hitting the sno-bee with an ice-block. Pengo can operate it in two ways, one of which is an attack mode: if the block stands between him and the sno-bee, he pushes it and it slides, squashing the enemy against the wall;

2. squashing the egg before it discloses. It's easy: if Pengo finds the ice-blocks where the eggs are hidden in, he can push them and then squash the eggs by walking over them;

3. stunning sno-bees. In a different way than other maze-games, Pengo's playground border has an important feature: if our chick stands beside it and pushes it (joystick towards border + action button), it stuns the sno-bee eventually touching it. At that moment, they can be easily be squashed by walking over them;

4. joining special blocks. Do you see the three flashing blocks having a diamond in the middle? Well, they're magic and unbreakable ones and, if you move them in order to join them all, Pengo completes the stage and gets a bonus score of 5,000 points. Also, if you're able to join blocks without having them touch the playground border, bonus becomes 10,000 points!

When stage is complete, a bonus score is awarded. The amount depends on the time we used to complete it: it varies from 0 ot 5.000 additional points.

Though having a really simple design, the game is enriched by few touches of class. The remaining Pengo's, in the lives indicator, fall down when our hero gets hurted; sno-bees change colour as game proceeds; the soundtrack's rythm is chasing and the tune is very popular: that's "Popcorn" by Hot Butter, then rearranged by pop musician Jean Michel Jarre - whose interest to Antarctic and penguins is well-known...
At every two completed stages we can enjoy funny intermissions with Pengo's family running and dancing... the whole graphics contribute to create a nice, hooking and... "anime-style" atmosphere.

After completing all sixteen levels, game starts again. Difficulty also goes back to normality.