Toy Bizarre Review

As we get closer to Christmas, this year I’ve found myself going through my library, and replaying old games. Part of this is due to nostalgia. The years of childhood Christmas memories. Gaming with friends, and family. It’s great being able to experience some of this old stuff in my collection, and it’s also great being able to share those experiences with others. Seeing how we are in the holiday season, we’re looking at a holiday themed game.

PROS: Frantic, and enjoyable.

CONS: Long load times.

NEAR EXCLUSIVE: Only saw release on two computer platforms.

Toy Bizarre lives up to its namesake. It centers around toys, and it’s bizarre. The game takes place in a toy factory where the automation has gone awry, creating killer toys. If the box art is any indication, it also happens to be Santa’s workshop. So Toy Bizarre also appears to have a bit of Silent Night Deadly Night embedded inside.

Each level of the factory is a single screen affair, and right away you’ll notice the gameplay is a little bit reminiscent of Nintendo’s Mario Bros. But only slightly so. In Mario Bros. You would punch floors from below creatures to knock them upside down so you could then bump them off the screen for points. Here, you’ll have floor layouts, and entrances similar to the ones in Nintendo’s platformer, and there’s some bumping things off-screen for points. But there’s a lot more going on than that.

One major thing you’ll find are little valves throughout the level. If left unattended they eventually inflate balloons. If you don’t pop the balloons in time they will float to the top of the screen, and pop. If you let the balloons pop on their own the explosion will summon different kinds of toys. Touching these toys is fatal. In order to remedy that you have to get them to land on specific surfaces. While they’re on these surfaces, you can quickly jump to a switch that will temporarily deactivate the toys, so you can destroy them. Each level has a certain number of balloons to be destroyed while the punch clock winds down. The faster you can do this, the more time you have left at the end, which also gives you more points.

One strategy a lot of people will also go for on their quest for a high score is to shut off valves. This is an excellent strategy to employ. However there is yet another hurdle the factory throws at you. Remember those cheap wind up walker toys we’ve all had at one time or another as children? You know the type. They have a key or knob sticking out of their back, you twist it as far to the right as it can go, then set it down. The toy then walks around until it either falls off of a table, or collapses on itself.

Well imagine if there were a giant, life-sized, killer toy android that worked that way. Because apparently, Santa Claus invested in one of them in his toy factory. This automation has also gotten the HAL 9000 virus, and decided that you need to die for it to complete its mission. Not only do you have to avoid this thing at all costs, The android will turn on any valves you’ve previously shut off, allowing for more balloons, more killer toys, and less time on the clock. There are even bonus stages called Safety Checks where you have to shut off all of the valves before the android can turn them back on. And the android will manage to get a couple of then on. In later safety checks you’ll sometimes contend with multiple androids.

If all of that sounds confusing, fear not. It becomes easy to understand once you’ve played the game for a few minutes. Once you understand it, you have yourself a very addictive, and entertaining holiday puzzle-platformer. But it gets better! Because every stage has a different layout from the last. Where in Mario Bros. the only deviation were new enemies to figure out how to defeat, in Toy Bizarre you have to also learn maps.

One saving grace are power ups called Coffee Breaks, where you literally grab a cup of coffee, and everything stops. During the coffee break you’re basically invincible, and you have a few quick seconds to clear everything before the balloons, toys, and evil androids get back to work. If you’re good enough at Toy Bizarre you can start to loop stages. Again, being an arcade puzzle-platformer you’re not in pursuit of an ending, but a high score.

The game was designed by Mark Turmell who did a number of computer games for Activision. One of the best being Fast Tracks, which I’ll have to get around to doing a review for. But Toy Bizarre is another Activision game from the era, that isn’t as fondly remembered as the heavy hitters they put out on the Atari 2600, and other platforms of the time. Which is a shame, because almost everything about the game is spot on. It holds up in almost every way. The hit detection is great. You’ll rarely have a moment where you hit an enemy, and can’t believe it was a possibility. Due to the kind of game it is, later stages do tend to put in more, and more obstacles that the majority of players find difficult to overcome. But it doesn’t feel like your deaths are cheap.

And while visually one could argue it doesn’t look as nice as Mario Bros., one can’t deny it is a cut above what one would find on average back then. It still looks nice enough. It does a lot with the simplicity. Factor in the ominous song that plays between rounds, and you’ve got some eerie atmosphere going on in a soulless toy factory. The only major problem with Toy Bizarre are the load times. Activision released the game on three formats for the Commodore 64. Datasette Cassette tape, 5.25″ Floppy Disk, and Cartridge. The cassette version by far has the worst of the load times. Most tape games can take several minutes to load into memory, but this game is insufferably long on tape. The Floppy Disk version is nowhere near as bad, but still takes longer than a lot of other games on disk. Which is weird considering just how small the game is, even for the time. The cartridge version is obviously preferred in this regard. But keep in mind that cartridge versions of C64 games can be harder to find since most users had a Datasette drive or a Floppy drive. That doesn’t necessarily make them rare, but they can be uncommon. As such expect the cartridge version to set you back more than the other formats.

The game also came out for the ZX Spectrum in Europe. I don’t have either the computer or that version of Toy Bizarre, so I really can’t compare the versions. Though the game was published by Mastertronic in some territories outside of North America. No matter how you slice it though, aside from terrible load times, Toy Bizarre is one of the best Santa themed games to be experienced. If you have a working C64, track down a copy. The only other way to find it, is if you can track down the Activision Commodore 64 15 pack collection for Windows 95. Which can be a hassle to get running on a modern PC.

Final Score: 8 out of 10.

Energy Warrior Review

Well, after RetroWorldExpo, I was thrust back into a lot of back-breaking labor. A coworker had taken time off just as I was getting back in from the fun, and excitement. The good news: I picked up a bunch of hours to cover them. The bad news: I am completely wiped after doing so. The worse news: The game I found at the convention wasn’t too good. But to be fair, I wasn’t expecting it to set the world on fire.

Mastertronic was a pioneer in games in a number of respects. They were a really big deal in the UK for a while where they were founded. They even helped distribute the Sega Master System in Europe toward the end of their days. They were so successful in doing so, that the Master System dethroned the NES. Sega ended up buying their business. But before distributing consoles, they were known for publishing budget games for home computers. A lot of publishers were in this market. Notably, Firebird, and Cosmi (which is still around today.) Mastertronic eventually published games in the US, as well as in Europe.

PROS: Box art. Nice graphics.

CONS: Uninspired. Monotonous.

BOX ART: Where can I see that movie?

Most of Mastertronic’s titles were hit or miss. Some of their games were really fun, others not so much. Unfortunately Energy Warrior is one of their misses. That isn’t to say there isn’t anything good here. There is, but it ends up being banal in spite of those things. First off, I love the cover art. A soldier with a plasma rifle grimacing, as three menacing ships fly in from the background. Oh sure, there is definitely a B movie feel to the art, but it’s a great example of how important box art used to be in gaining interest. When you fire up the game, you’ll see some pretty nice visuals, and some excellent music.

Then you start playing, and well, there isn’t much to say. Energy Warrior is one part Defender, one part Sinistar, neither of which is a part that is really executed well. Visually it looks closer to something like R-Type or Turrican. But if you go into it expecting any of those games you’re going to be disappointed. The game splits up things into zones, each with ten areas. The areas basically look the same but with a few minor background changes, and different color layouts. You can go left or right for around 20 seconds before hitting an invisible wall, and being forced to go back.

During this process, an arbitrary number of enemies appear, and you have to shoot them. Eventually, a boss character will show up, and if you kill it, a tile is left in its place. The tile will have a bunch of symbols cycling on it. Some of them restore energy to your ship’s health meter. Some give you more smart bombs which kill everything on-screen, But most importantly is a key. Getting a key moves you to the next zone area. As you move between zones the enemies become fiercer, and the game adds a little bit more variety to their designs. Sometimes you may see a mothership zip by, but shooting one down inexplicably does nothing for you. Really you’ll just want to kill the grunts, and bosses.

If you do manage to get through all of the areas, and consequentially, the zones the game just starts over. There is no ending whatsoever. While this may sound okay, the game becomes really boring pretty quickly. Which is a shame. There are plenty of vintage arcade games that have you do the same thing over, and over. But they have something to grasp players, and keep them pumping in quarters. Space Invaders, in all of its simplicity, is an engaging game. Defender can become a pretty addicting shmup as well, because it juggles the archaic shooting with rescuing humans from becoming abducted. Even with their rudimentary graphics, those games have iconic characters, and they have smooth control.

Energy Warrior may have wonderful backgrounds. But none of the enemies are inspired at all. You shoot at skulls, clusters of circles, an eyeball, some individual circles, a diamond, and one cool looking fighter. That’s it, other than the bosses, which are usually dragons composed of circles, and a head. The enemy sprites aren’t even designed in a way that seems to fit with the rest of the game. Except for perhaps the mother ships that again, give you no points for taking them down. Moreover, while things may look fast, it can also feel sluggish at times, making it brutally hard to out run a huge cluster of enemies. Even if this had been purely about scoring points rather than a goal, it falls horribly short when you compare it to any version of any high score focused shmup. Gyruss, Defender, Galaxian, Galaga, and Phoenix all beckon you. The fact the game gives you a goal of going through 34 levels means you’re going into it with something to shoot for, like an ending. This game also came out at a time when Home Computer, and Console games were doing just that. In 1987 The Commodore 64 had seen some really great original games, as well as excellent ports of games like R-type, and Life Force. All with a goal of reaching an end, or deep experiences in other genres like adventure games, and RPGs. Which also explains why some budget publishers eventually had trouble. Some of those excellent games saw eventual price drops that made things like Energy Warrior less appealing.

That isn’t to say Energy Warrior is the worst game you can find for your Commodore or other 8-bit computer format. Or that there is no fun to be had. There are plenty worse games you can find. But the fun that is here wears off really quickly. If you’re a collector who simply must have every retail game ever published for the Commodore 64 then pick this up. If you’re like me, someone who buys old games to actually play what you missed, then put the money toward a different title. That box art sure is cool though.

Final Score: 5 out of 10