Head over Heels

Copyright : Ocean Software | Reviewed by : Safetyboy

Four worlds have been enslaved by an evil Emperor who controls them from his domain on the planet of Blacktooth. These four worlds are Penitentiary, Egyptus, Book World and Safari, citizens from planets close by have been growing concerned about the territories under the Emperors command.

Enter our heroes Head and Heels, two spies from the planet Freedom (yes, the names are a little lame) to see whatâ??s going down. Head and Heels each have their own unique ability with Heads being the jumper/shooter and Heels being the runner/bagman, each of these characteristics will be used to their full potential throughout the adventure.

Their mission is to retrieve the stolen crowns of these planets and restore morale for their people to fight back at the evil Warlord. Oh yeah, and youâ??ve managed to get yourself captured, everyone is aware of your presence so youâ??ve got to escape too.

Graphics

Superbly drawn characters for the most part, with nice animation and detail. Mode 1 is used in this game so there is a limited colour palette available but itâ??s been used better here than in Batman (Classic) for example and also allows for nice detail. The owls with the ski-goggles on are a particular favourite of mine.

Sound

Head over Heels features an impressive collection of effects with nearly every action being given its own sound, the jump sound is a little annoying though. There are a few ditties scattered around that play when certain actions are performed or when one of the characters loses a life and also a quirky cartoon-ish intro track. There may be some music at the end of the game but I never got there.

Gameplay

The major problem I have with this game is that itâ??s actually too tough. For starters there are 300+ screens to play through and the game quickly gets tricky, you are led into the first couple of puzzles nicely but itâ??s not long before youâ??ve got the whole game open to you with multiple routes available and it quickly becomes a case of trial and error. It would have been even more daunting if you had to start from scratch whenever you loaded up a new game, there was no save game function available so whenever you switched off your computer it was back to square one next time. No emulator snapshots back then.

The game is, however, jam-packed with inventiveness and the ability to combine/split the characters adds a further dimension to the game-play, this game was so impressive upon release that it deserves its 9 rating even today.