Wizball (Ocean, 1987)

Written by Jon Hare, Chris Yates and Martin Galway for the Commodore 64. Converted by Steve Watson, Paul Owens, Peter Clarke and Mark R. Jones for the ZX Spectrum. Converted by Steve Lamb and Alison Jeftha for the Amstrad CPC. Converted by Nick Sheard, Shaun Ridings and Roger Fenton for the DOS. Converted by Peter Johnson for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. Additional sounds for the Amiga by Ian McLaughlin.

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GAME STATUS

Wizball appears to be one of those games that will always divide the audience, depending on whether you can learn it or not. I've read from a lot of forums people saying that the game is overrated, because they either never understood the hype or couldn't get a grip on the controls or whatever. Sure, it's a very fantastical idea and doesn't involve much real world physics or anything, but isn't that one of the basic ideas behind gaming? Interacting with your dreams.

Regardless of it being called overrated, Wizball is placed at #34 with 242 voters having rated it 8.51 at Lemon64's Top 100 list. At World of Spectrum, the game has a score of 8.06 from 51 votes, which isn't bad at all, although it doesn't reach the top 100. Atarimania has the ST version rated 7.6 with only 13 votes, and the Amiga version takes the low end with only 5.9 from 58 LemonAmiga voters. Although proven slightly less trustworthy in their opinions in some of their reviews, the folks at CPC Game Reviews have given it a whopping 9 out of 10. The DOS version was the most difficult for finding any reviews and ratings, but at least the good old Home of the Underdogs has a Top Dog mark on it. So, let's see how the ball rolls, shall we?

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