Fast Food

Copyright : Codemasters | Reviewed by : hiro

One of several Dizzy titles that took him out of his usual flick screen adventure series and into a range of cheap and cheerful arcade games, most likely to appeal to non-adventure gamers and make more money from their famous mascot. Some good and some bad. Fast Food has our lil eggy hero taking a cue from the all time classic Pacman, making his way around a maze avoiding the ghosts and collecting food and power ups.

Graphics

The graphics in Fast Food are nicely drawn and animated given the size of the sprites and the Mode 0 resolution. Seems strange that Dizzy is yellow in this, but then it makes a change from his usual (though strange to Dizzy gamers of other formats) greenish tint in his adventure titles though that green is present in both the surround image of the game and the title screen, both of which are also very done. All the power up icons and food are well drawn and easily identified. Whats better though is that after every few levels you're treated to a fun little cartoon short that amuses and also adds more incentive to getting through the next bunch of levels to see what else happens.

Sound

The sound effects are well chosen and there's even a speech sample that says 'Fast Food' at the beginning which leads into a very catchy theme tune. The in-game music is also of a high quality and I listen to Fast Food's CPC soundtrack on Deliplayer from time to time as I enjoy the tunes whether I'm playing the game or not.

Gameplay and Final Comments

The game plays well and can be addictive. It's a little slow at times (especially when you pick up the slow down 'power up') and can be frustrating but overall I found the game great value for the budget price I paid for it all those years ago and I still play it a lot both on CPC emulators and my CPC 464. I found the CPC version to be the best of the 8 bit formats and I felt it had more charm and playability (helped by the well done graphics and catchy tunes) than the 16 bit versions which I found sorta bland. Out of all of Dizzy's arcade games this was by far my personal favorite and I enjoy it these days just as much as when I was a kid though I know some people prefer other games in the range more such as Kwik Snax.