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S urprises don´t come much more extreme than the one you´ve just had. The other day you were trotting into hospital ready for your tonsil operation. Dead easy you thought. Just a couple of days with a sore throat. It came as a bit of a shock to wake up in a new body on a different planet.
Since you’re trapped, you decide you might as well sigh up with the Queen’s Cloned Highlanders troopers.
Your first mission involves you fighting your way through the multi-level enemy base, alone or with your partner (you need tow players if you want to win), to destroy the master computer. Pass codes and switch systems, open doorways and operate lifts.
By the way, the mission is said to be impossible. Nice thought, eh?

I reckon that a puzzle game should rely on devious and mind-boggling situations that require plenty of thought. Unfortunately, Captain Fizz lacks the necessary depth to keep you occupied, trying to rely on blasting action to make up for the simplicity of the puzzles. This would not be so bad if the blasting was fast and frenetic, but it isn’t – it’s just slow. It does get quite involved the more you get into it, but I can see a lot of players getting fed up long before then – especially when you really have to play it in pairs.


The intro piece to Captain Fizz is brilliant, with a very well drawn title screen backed with some amazing music. Unfortunately, the game fails to live up to the standard of the loader. The graphics are very weak, consisting of a few meagre sprites moving through boring mazes. I would not mind if the gameplay made up for the weak presentation, but it does not. It is dull. The shoot ’em up bits are not exciting enough and the puzzles are not mind taxing. I have come to expect more from Psyclapse than this.

Title Captain Fizz
Game Type Shoot-'em-up
Publisher Psygnosis, 1989
Players 1 or 2
HD Installable With WHDLoad Patch
Compatibility All with Patch
Submission Adrian Simpson Profiled Reviewer

Review
Playing Captain Fizz is like playing a cruder version of Alien Breed or
Cytron (like Captain Fizz, it is also by Psygnosis). All three games
feature a character running through metal mazes, seen from a top-down
viewpoint, blasting enemies and using keycards on doors. It's really a
space version of Gauntlet.

The screen doesn't scroll, but flicks to a new section each time you reach
the edge. The bad guys can fire from another screen onto yours, so often
you can get hit by a volley of shots from nowhere. You can do the same
to them though.

Doors are unlocked by keycards, which can be found lying on the ground.
The player can also pick up points, armour and extra firepower too.
Credits can be exchanged for more health at terminals. Sometimes areas are
sealed off with a forcefield, which can be disabled for a certain time by
pressing combinations of switches.

Like Gauntlet and Alien Breed, this is a multiplayer game. Unlike
Gauntlet, it only supports up to two players, but does have the split
screen mode. However, in one player the view is still only half the
screen, which seems a bit lazy. The multiplayer option livens the action
up somewhat, which is pretty common with Amiga games - two heads are
better than one.

Although the titlescreen is well crafted, the in-game graphics are
amateurish and the sound effects are pretty weedy. This gives the game an
unprofessional feel and makes you think that the programmer wasn't very
experienced on the Amiga. Another gripe is that it takes several shots to
destroy the weakest robots, so it makes you feel quite powerless in the
game.

While not a bad game, you can't help but feel that there are better games
of this genre around, such as Gauntlet and Alien Breed, as mentioned
before. Paradroid 90 is also much better.