Producer: Gremlin Graphics
Retail Price: £7.99 cassette, £12.99 disk
Author: Tim Miller, Kevin Bulmer and Jon Harrison
Freddy is showing off down town in a thoroughly posey bid to gain the coolest, trendiest reputation for street cred in town. Flaunting his designer roller skates and flashing his ultra-dark shades, he's all set to take the stage by storm.
This command performance takes place over four multi-loaded levels (played in any order) in one or two player mode. Set on a building site, underground, in a shopping centre and in the park, they are each divided into two parts. In both, Freddy attempts to acquire maximum street cred by picking up tools and valuables, throwing missiles, performing somersaults and jumping with the greatest of ease over 45' ramps.
The first stage sees Freddy negotiating a multi-directionally scrolling obstacle course. Nazards include uneven surfaces, broken bottles, moving cars, giant rats, live electric cables and patches of oil. Bonus points are awarded for avoiding these with flair; wobbly movements and awkward falls increase fatigue. Exhaustion forces Freddy to retire, while a slow and feeble performance eats away at his cred-o-meter. If it falls to zero, Freddy loses one of his three precious lives.
At the end of the course, four spectators pronounce judgement; fail to make the grade and you're forced to try again. Provide a sufficiently trendy performance, enhanced by plenty of bonus points, and you're rewarded with access either to the next level or the second stage…
In a timed race set against a horizontally scrolling background of platforms and ramps, Freddy attempts to complete the Skate Crazy Park Challenge. Gaps in the floor need to be avoided by judicious leaping and ducking. Falling teddy-bears, kites and kamikaze pilots attempt to hinder progress. A supply of well-thrown missiles fends these off, while picking up objects gains precious bonus points.
COMMENTS
Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: detailed objects on the first level, with numerous obstacles and colour on the horizontal
Sound: many smart spot effects
Another excellent game from Gremlin Graphics. The courses are carefully designed with plenty of obstacles to provide an action-packed challenge. Fearless Freddy, complete with peaked cap and shades is stylishly animated, and the gameplay itself features plenty of variation. With a catalogue of dashing somersaults, mind-boggling jumps and spins at your disposal there's no end of opportunities to show off. It's just a pity that the judges of the first part are such sticklers for style. Unless you perform an incredible series of amazing, breath-taking, astonishing and astounding feats they won't let you proceed to the next stage. You can complete the course and score up to 10000 potential points and the judges will still be too fussy to let you move on. Still - once you've mastered the technique you'll probably be too busy showing off your latest double axle, backwards spins extravaganzas to notice. Whether you're a cool dude or just an ordinary guy you'll find plenty to impress - so go crazy and splash out.
KATI [84%]
Wow! This is my sort of game. Trying to gain street-cred is my main pastime! Graphically Skate Crazy is OK but the monochrome colour does let it down a bit on Level One. Once you have mastered the controls and worked out some groovy somersaults you can attempt to impress the judges, but believe me, it takes some doing! On the first level your skater moves similarly to the bloke in 720° which means that when you try to stop he slides on (usually into a pile of tyres or something!). You can get some fun out of just jumping around the first couple of levels because it's doubtful that many people will get past these, Gremlin have made it so hard. Once you have completed the first few stages, you go on to a totally different game: the skater is seen side on here and you have to jump over objects and do acrobatics as before. Skate Crazy is great to begin with but the frustration of failing to qualifying for the umpteenth time on Level One diminishes its addictive qualities. Once you get further into the game, though, it does improve.
NICK [81%]
Skate Crazy is great fun - zooming round the courses jumping and somersaulting. The graphics in the first game are well-shaded and detailed; the flags even blow in the wind. It's really hard trying to stop your skater from sliding all over the place and crashing, especially with the various hazards on the track. The scrolling is very smooth and fast, and the skater moves very realistically, especially when he slides out of control. Unfortunately there's no tune but there are plenty of spot effects during play. The game is very challenging since the judges (who look like a load of criminals) mark low and time runs out fast. The second game has good, colourful graphics and is also difficult. The difficulty could put some people off but the game is very playable all the same; if you like a challenge just get your skates on!
PHIL [85%]
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