Captain's Blog: Games that remind me of my childhood Number 11 : Head Over Heels (Commodore 64)

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Games that remind me of my childhood Number 11 : Head Over Heels (Commodore 64)

Wow, it’s been well over a month since my last post here at the Captain’s Blog, and even longer since my last “Games that remind me of my childhood”. Most of my time has been spent working at the school, making sure everything was ready for the start of the new term in September. I’ve been too tired to do anything else, hence why there have not been any updates for several weeks. Oh, that and playing through Uncharted 3 : Drakes Deception again on the PS3

Anyway, I'm back, so on with the next GTRMOMC.

One of my favourite Commodore 64 games of all time was infact one of the very first games I ever bought.

Head Over Heels was released way back in 1987 by Ocean Software. I got it along with 7 other games in the “Magnificent Seven” compilation box (including Cobra, Short Circuit, Frankie : The Game, Arkanoid, Wizball, The Great Escape, and Yie Ar Kung Fu) which I bought from Software Plus in Basildon with money given to me on my 11^th birthday in January 1988. Yay!

Its best not to dwell on the story of this game too much – infact, the original creator is quoted as saying “I made the whole game up and then added the bullshit in the last ten minutes”.

You play two characters – one called “Head” and the other called “Heels”, both having unique abilities which gives each character advantages and disadvanges. Head can jump high, and glide in the air, but walks really slowly. Heels on the other hand can run very fast, but can not jump high, neither can he glide. The game world is displayed in an isometric view and the aim of the game is to locate a crown from each of the five game worlds available to you to explore.

You start the game in two separate cells (which both conveniently have teleporters inside them to enable you escape – security is pretty poor it seems!) You can only play one character at a time, but by Pressing F5 on the C64 you can toggle between Head and Heels. The first 20 screens or so has you both negotiating some easy rooms and puzzles in Castle Blacktooth before finally meeting up in the market area. This is where Head and Heels can combine to become one and you can control both at the same time, enabling their unique abilities to work together.

There are six worlds to explore, 5 of which have a crown to collect. Penitentiary, Sarari, Bookworld, Egyptus, Blacktooth and the Moonbase.

To help you complete the game, Head can pick up a gun which you can use to fire doughnuts (!) at the baddies, and Heels can collect a bag which enables him to carry objects – useful for standing on to reach doors/levels which are out of reach for Heels.

I’d hate to guess how many hours I spent playing this game. I did finish it – once! It took me ages to do, but was very satisfying. A game which is worth downloading and playing. It was available on pretty much every major computer system in the late 80s, and several fantastic remakes have been made which you can play on modern PCs. My sister and I played it quite alot (much to the annoyance of my Mum and Dad, who couldn't stand it!)