The Daily Click

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Author:	Matt Boothman
Added:	27/07/2007
Overall:
Average:	5/10

Let me first start off by saying that I have never played the original Dizzy, nor was even aware of it. Therefore I shall be meriting this game on how good it is as a stand-alone game rather than a fan-game or spin-off.

So, to the review proper. This game looks really good, to begin with. But this game is like an Easter egg, it's velvetty smooth shell only hides a hollow inside. To sum up, the graphics, music and presentation (all superb), are let down by infuriating, illogical gameplay.

You start the game and you think you are going to be in for a treat. The title screens, the cut sequences and the background music are all beautifully done - the graphics are simple and sweet, not overly flashy, pretty much how I would describe the music. No problems there then.

When you start to walk however, you come across the first problem of this game (I'm sorry, I wouldn't like to focus on the problems, but I feel I have to to review this properly). The egg-man-thing walks really slowly, god knows why. While excusable, you will soon get annoyed at Dizzy's sluggishness due to the massive number of times you'll die and have to restart. Another bad thing about the gameplay is the fact that you can only jump to the side if you are pressing left or right at the same moment you are pressing up. This means that if you are right on the edge of a platform (as you'll have to be), you'll sometimes just walk right off the edge. There's no give or take.

The blurb of the game boasts "logical thinking". This is a downright lie. For example, you find yourself in the trees and you know your objective is to find a key in the lake. So what you would do, logically? I guess your answer isn't "Jump randomly into the sky to find a baseball cap in the clouds, which you exchange for some flippers so you can swim across the lake, get an oxygen tank and dive into the lake to get the key". No, didn't think so. My first thought was "Go into lake", which resulted in death.

Other such "logical" thinking includes placing a metal cage next to a cliff to use as a platform. "Fair enough" you may think, but not when the cage doesn't work as a platform anywhere else. It's like it suddenly gains a new use when placed next to rock. Another illogical treat, probably my favourite, was the fact that you had to give the baseball cap to a random guy in the village, despite him not asking for it, or generally even saying it was lost. I guess the "logical thinking" there was that if a guy wears sunglasses, he obviously must have lost his hat.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. There are some lovely things about this game, the graphics, the music, the general "feel" of it. Unfortunately, trying to finish this game without hints is like trying to do a crossword without hints.