Magicland Dizzy

"Rediscover life as an ovum in stunning style with an extraordinarily detailed trip down Trippy Lane."

Eggs are good. Most life-forms emerge from them at the start of their life cycle and they taste really great with bacon. As well as these exciting egg purposes, there is also a lesser known use for eggs though. Eggs sometimes come with faces and go around saving their eggy friends by collecting useful items and jumping from cloud to cloud high in the sky. Yes, eggs are heroes! And what better celebration of heroic eggs could there be than Dizzy: Magic Land?

Dizzy the character is a Humpty-Dumpty-esque giant walking egg. Unlike his nursery rhyme counterpart, who you may recall ended up serving himself up as a generous portion of omelette for "all the King's horses and all the King's men", Dizzy is capable of getting himself off walls and across vast chasmic gaps in the floor via his enviable power of "jumping". This simple task formed much of the game play, being as this is a platform game, but it is separated from other members of the platform genre by its superb attention to detail and genius inclusion of adventure elements. An egg might sound like a lame form for the main character of a game to take, but actually Codemasters have done themselves proud here. See, eggs by nature behave in certain ways - they roll around on uneven surfaces, and if you drop them, they smash. These facts have actually been incorporated into the game - jumping causes Dizzy to roll before coming to a stop, and if he falls from too high a height, he does indeed die (although smashing graphics are sadly lacking!).

In this particular installment of Dizzy, there is a magic theme (predictably). Incidental characters are of the ilk of witches and such, and necessary objects and items for proceeding in the game are numerous and relevant to the game environment, including such details as spell ingredients to give to a witch and an "Alice In Wonderland" style eat-me cake. The scope of the game is simply huge for its generation, with a full day's play easily required to complete the game so long as you're experienced with it - although there is no significant learning curve here, the mechanics of play make it necessary to keep trying for days or weeks before an ending other than the "Game Over" screen is achievable. To get there, you'll have to use platform, puzzle-solving and exploratory skills as you find your way around and unlock new areas, all whilst maintaining the necessary control over Dizzy himself. A few frustrating moments marr the game a little - such as a particular sequence of jumping from cloud to cloud by crossing seemingly impossible distances - but never really to the point of wanting to throw the game through the window. I know I could do it when I was nine!! Sixteen years later, I seem to be having trouble though.

The difficulty lies in working out what to do to solve the puzzles included in the game as well as requiring skill at handling the character and dealing with the platform elements. At times, Dizzy is difficult to control - the fact that he rolls upon landing from every jump is something you have to get used to and allow for to get beyond even the first screen, and can be frustrating when trying to work out
where to jump from. In fact, this can require you to be very precise when moving around particular at height, as in the aforementioned cloud-jumping scene, where a sequence of clouds in the sky provide you with only a limited time to jump from one to the other before slowly falling through them and plummeting to your doom. The items included each have their own individual role, and part of the fun of playing is to discover what each one is used for. There are so many around
that you will also have to face the difficulty of deciding which to carry, as you will inevitably come across more items than you have free slots (you only have three spaces).

Pursuing with the difficult game play is definitely worthwhile, as the game itself is absolutely beautiful. All the game elements fit together in a very meticulous and detailed way - so rare to find this. Nothing fails to make sense - or everything fails to make sense but in a logical way - there are no "What the heck is THAT?!" moments at all, other than the game structure in its entirety! There is as much detail as is necessary to make everything fit and add a few points of interest, and no unnecessary filler. The sheer number of included nursery rhyme elements is dazzling, but it always works and always adds to the game experience - for instance, a troll complete with goat guards a bridge to prevent you from getting further than the game wants you to without working out what to do, providing a charming nursery rhyme moment and incorporated perfectly into the mechanics of the game by giving the scene relevance and purpose.

Graphics are standard retro 2D platform game fare, with my feeling being that it's really unfair to rate from a modern perspective, but they stand up well against other games of the era. Backgrounds are clearly defined and detail is added in such a way that adds to the game play experience - items genuinely look like what they're supposed to look like (the cake being a bit of an exception - it looks more like a basket!), and come in different colours to help things along. Background details are added so that water looks different than lava and so on, to prevent any nasty accidents occurring! Sound is virtually non-existent.

All in all, this is a difficult but stunning creation that has served its creators well in terms of where their careers went after its release. A real genius creation of the 1980s, this is one game that never deserves to be forgotten, and never deserves to be stopped playing.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/16/04