Dizzy Games

Hey man, never heard of Dizzy? Dizzy was a popular videogame series for computer in Europe back in the late '80s. The gameplay is pretty unique: it's a platforming game with point-and-lick elements. There are a lot of enemies that can damage you, but you can't harm them. There are items to pick up and use to solve puzzles all over a big world to explore. Developed by the Oliver Twins for Codemaster (the same who brought you the Game Genie), it was so acclaimed it generated 8 games (plus a 9 one which is just a short 3.1 version) and a few spin-offs (which were pretty different from the classic gameplay).

All those games were released for Commodore 64, Amiga and DOS (except the first one) and a few for the NES too. The third game in the series, Fantasy World Dizzy, got some popularity recently after a Zero Punctuation review when Yahtzee called it the best game ever. That's obliviously arguable, but all the 8 games in the series (they're not all made by the Oliver Twins, but the ones they didn't developed were approved by them anyway) are really good and also pretty difficult. It's not just for the hard jumping and puzzles, but you can't also take with you more than X items (the number changed over the time) and you really have just a few lives. Today the franchise is pretty much dead (tought the Oliver Twins are still alive, they said they're interested about working on the series again and they approved fan-made games), but those games are still today very enjoyable. Awesome gameplay, great difficult and good music. This is not the only franchise that deserve more attention but fuck it, let's have a page for motherfucking Dizzy.

You can play all the games in the series (except the first one) with Amiga or DOS, which have better graphic and sound than the Commodore 64 versions. In case you use Windows Vista/7, you have to use DOSBOX to play the DOS version. If you want to play the Amiga version use WINUAE, an awesome Amiga emulator. In both case, you'll have to google a bit.

Spin offs
1987
 * Fast Food (pac-man with Dizzy)

1990
 * Kwik Snax (good maze game, at least for his time)
 * Dizzy Panic! (boring puzzle game with Dizzy's girlfriend yawning on the screen)
 * Bubble Dizzy (puzzle/platforming, good graphic and music)

1991
 * Dizzy Down the Rapids (boring shit, it became a minigame in later Dizzy's main games)

1993
 * Go! Dizzy Go! (pretty much Kwik Snax's sequel, but awesome music)

Compilations
There are three compilations of Dizzy games that came out in '92,'93 and '94. Nothing new, just main titles and spin-off together. Too bad there isn't a complete collection.

1992 -Dizzy's Excellent Adventures
 * Kwik Snax
 * Dizzy Panic
 * Dizzy Down The Rapids
 * Dizzy: Prince Of The Yolkfolk
 * Spellbound Dizzy

1993 -The Excellent Dizzy Collection
 * Go! Dizzy Go! (Previously unreleased)
 * Dizzy the Adventurer (A renamed conversion of Dizzy: Prince Of The Yolkfolk)
 * Panic Dizzy (A renamed conversion of Dizzy Panic)

1994 -The Big 6
 * Dizzy: Prince of the Yolkfolk
 * Crystal Kingdom Dizzy
 * Fantastic Dizzy (in an enhanced AGA version)
 * Treasure Island Dizzy
 * Spellbound Dizzy
 * Magicland Dizzy

Wibble World Giddy
Wibble World Giddy is a Dizzy spoof. A good one, actually, so it's worth to check it out. There are also two sequels.