Commodore 64 - Toy Bizarre

Toy Bizarre is a great game by Activision for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. Luckily, it can also be easily played on C64 emulators for different platforms. It came out around the same time as Mario Bros., and has a few features that are somewhat similar. Each level is a single non-scrolling screen where the left and right fields wrap around (so the player can move from one side of the screen to the other more easily), and features platforms and several different kinds of enemies.

Toy Bizarre

(Released in 1984 According To The Game Title)

The game is themed so that you're a worker at a toy factory that has gotten out of control. It's your job to stop the toys from taking over.  You start out on Monday, Hour 1, and work your way through the week. I've never reached the end, so I'm not quite sure if it winds around again or if it finished like Paperboy at the end of the week. The only wikipedia page I could find had to be translated from Italian.

(http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Bizarre&ei=RX1aTrL5BqmOmQXTsoy8DA&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dtoy%2Bbizarre%2Bwikipedia%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D666%26prmd%3Divns)

So the toys come in the 4 different helicopter types above, and start out as balloons that drift to the top of the screen from various points. You can pop the balloons before they burst by simply touching them.  When they do burst, the helicopters will come out. To defeat them, you can either jump over them to turn them flashing and then touch them, or you can jump on a specific block that that triggers another block to turn them flashing.

It Begins!

Monday - Hour 2

In the picture above, the block that the worker is standing on has triggered the block under the helicopters to pop-up, making them vulnerable to attack.  There's also an icon of a worker that's an extra life.  These icons are pretty liberal in the game, and also I believe you get an extra life for every 10,000 points.  

Valve Bonus

You can also get a bonus for turning the 4 valves off on the bottom of the screen.  The tricky part is that the caveman looking wind-up toy will turn them off while you play the level.  This toy can only be defeated by jumping on a block at the right moment to trigger another block as it passes over, launching it off the screen.  The valves can also be turned off after all the toys are defeated, but the caveman toy will still turn them off.  I've turned off all the valves sometimes without getting a bonus, so there might be a time limit involved or some other factor that I'm missing.

Safety Check

Every few levels, you get a chance to get some bonus points by turning off all 8 valves during a safety check.  The caveman toy will turn them off, and there will be 2 or 3 of them in the later checks, as well as an invisible stage.  The point values change depending on the speed, with 10,000 points being the highest score.

2 vs 1 in Safety Check 2

Perfect!!

Invisible Safety Check

Coffee Break

A nice bonus during the levels is the Coffee Break, where the player becomes invincible for a limited time.  During this time, the player can just touch the helicopters to defeat them, although the caveman enemy can be walked through but not destroyed.

Those Balloons Are Tricky

I'd give Toy Bizarre a 8.  This is graded based on the system of course, but it's still one of my favorite C64 games.  Even with it's simple graphics and basic gameplay, I still find that it's fun to play from time to time.  The music and sound effects are simple but nice, the game is challenging and fun, and the levels are each unique in their layouts.  One bit of frustration to the game comes from the way that the character kind of bounces as he moves, so it can be easy to run into the toys, and the spacing for high jumps versus long jumps can be difficult.  I would recommend this to anyone who remembers the glory days of Activision!