Zzap


Bubble Dizzy
By Codemasters
Commodore 64/128

 
Published in Zzap #81

Bubble Dizzy

The egg-stremely romantic Dizzy was planning to give his girlfriend Daisy a lovely pearl necklace for St. Valentine's Day. But on the boat trip home, he discovered the ship was captained by that cholestorol-hating pirate, Captain Blackheart who took the pearls and forced Dizzy to walk the plank!

This animated scene introduces the first level with Dizzy sinking to the bottom of a vertically scrolling underwater cavern (I always thought eggs floated!). The only way our ovoid hero can get back to the surface is by hitching a ride on the bubbles which float from the sea bed. The trouble is that these soon burst, so Dizzy must keep leaping onto new bubbles or handy rock ledges which also hold valuable pearls.

Dizzy hasn't got much time to collect these, though - he must return to the surface before his oxygen runs out. This is exhausted even faster if he steps on any sharp spikes, or runs into any of the sea creatures swimming around. These gradually get more vicious and intelligent on successive levels - the 'homing' octopus is very tricky to avoid.

There are only ten levels, but the later ones are certainly challenging with ever-narrower channels to squeeze through - complete all ten caverns and you get to do them all over again but with less oxygen.

It may not rank with Dizzy's previous epic arcade adventures but Bubble Dizzy is a fun, well-designed little game, slickly presented with colourful scrolling caverns and a couple of jolly tunes. Definitely a good egg!