Previous Next

Let me tell you a little story. Once upon a time there was a character in a game who looked like an egg and was called Dizzy. The games he appeared in were for one thing budget titles and, for another, very, very good. In fact the rounded little fellow enjoyed enormous success, especially on the C64.

After a short rest, much to everyone's rejoicing, he returned in a new game. This is that game. Is it hugely playable like its forerunners? Not really, no. In a phrase, and a very descriptive one to my mind, its a huge steaming bin liner full of centuries-old horse muck.

The gameplay is like a poor mixture of Tetris and Klax. There are four descending funnels along the top of the screen which release blocks of different shapes and colours. Along the bottom of the screen is a bar with holes that correspond to these shapes and colours. What you have to do is move the bar left and right with the joystick to enable the shapes to fall into their relevant holes.

At first only one shape at a time falls. But as you get further into the game several are released at once.

The ultimate aim is to meet your shape quota, as shown at the top of the screen. On level one there are only 50 shapes to collect - easy enough. If, however, you drop one of the shapes through the wrong hole, the funnels descend faster.

When the funnels reach the sliding bar at the bottom, it's game over. This is all very well on level one but as you get to higher levels the shape quota increases by a ridiculous amount. For example, level five's quota is 250 while level ten requires 500 correctly-placed shapes. Not only does this lead to a very long and tedious game but it's also, as far as I can see, impossible to complete.

Come on guys, you hit a successful formula with the other Dizzy games. Either stick to this formula and let Dizzy die a graceful, if overworked, death, or not bother at all. People would rather they never heard from the egghead ever again than risk buying absolute trash like this.

A disastrous attempt to keep the Dizzy name going that's nothing more than a dull Klax look-alike.