Original and imaginative retro fun
This is the follow-up to the classic shooter Wizball, published by Ocean and developed by Sensible Software, who are perhaps best known for Sensible Soccer and the Cannon Fodder series. This game continues the story of the first game's wizard and his cat, but changes the style to something more like an arcade adventure with puzzle elements, which makes for a curious game but one which is well worth investigating. After Wiz and the cat Nifta saved the world in the previous game, an evil mouse wizard has come along and kidnapped them both, along with several kittens, so it now falls to the wizard's son to save them, which is where the player comes in. There are nine levels here, each themed differently and which include a graveyard, a circus and a giant turtle's back, and the player controls the Wizkid's disembodied head with the basic aim of knocking the various objects which litter the screen onto the enemies which are wandering around. Once the enemies have been dispatched, you have a limited time to collect the coins they drop before play moves onto the next section. Throw into the mix some rather bizarre and humorous puzzle-oriented levels which see you distracting angry dogs and other such random activities and you have all the makings of an intriguing and highly original game. Wizkid might not be the most complex game in the world, but it certainly is enjoyable in a mad, 1980s kind of way and this should appeal to fans of Nebulus, Solomon's Key and other such quirky retro gems. The graphics are nice and vibrant with some good variety in the imaginatively designed levels and while it isn't overly difficult, there is a lot of fun to be had here so this is definitely worth checking out.
