Previous Next

At last, Atari 8-bitters have the chance to try the arcade adventure which is guaranteed to bowl you over, not to mention tying you in knots.

Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond's follow-up to Batman has been brilliantly converted by Colin Porch, with music and sound FX from those nice people at Red Rat. It's every bit as playable, difficult and downright cute as the previous versions.

The plot of Head Over Heels is a case of double your pleasure, double your puzzles, as you take control of not one but two heroes. Head and Heels are alien creatures bonded as a symbiotic pair - which means that if you can reunite them you can stand Head on Heels' shoulders to form a single, more powerful being.

Reuniting them isn't that easy though, because they're trapped in separate cells deep in Castle Blacktooth. Luckily each cell has a teleport, and if you get them into the maze of rooms there's a chance that they'll be able to collect the right objects and find ways past the deadly perils to meet up.

You then have a choice of sending them back to Freedom, which is the safe but unheroic option, or to take on the mighty Blacktooth Empire - a truly epic task. My guess is that you'll go for the latter, because Head Over Heels is packed with the sort of problems that just insist on being solved.

Everything about this conversion is excellent, ranging from the zingy spot effects and catchy tunes to the spot-on positioning of various leaps and the wildly imaginative graphics. It's been rated a classic in every other version, and all I can add is that XL and XE owners really must have this in their collection.