Kwik Snax

The Good
The Soundtrack (on 128k) is just one banging track after another with the wonderful synced up intro screen. The gameplay is challenging but not too challenging so if you concentrate you can get through it in 40 minutes pretty easy. But you can still go for flashing fruit for a higher score. The Graphics are great, in the cutscenes at the start and in the game generally.

The Bad
There is none, except maybe it's not hard enough for some.

The Bottom Line
It's a classic game and one that makes the ZX Spectrum 128k shine!

The Good
The game has rather nice graphics (just like all Dizzy games in their versions for DOS, Amiga, Atari ST and some consoles). The characters, "walls" and collectables are rather simple, but the background is much more detailed. Plus - when you complete the game, another image appears and it's drawn in a yet different style with very bright colors.
The music isn't great, but it also isn't annoying. Just a background tune - far from beautiful melodies in Dizzy games such as "Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy" or "Prince of the Yolkfolk", but better than for example "Fantasy World Dizzy", which doesn't have music at all...
The game can be hard, but after you get used to it, it's completely "completeable". Probably every player knows games with a maniacally exaggerated difficulty level, so a reasonable challenge deserves a praise.
The bonus levels are a very interesting addition because they are much more puzzle-like than arcade-like.

The Bad
One of the bonus levels (see below) can't be completed - it's impossible to collect all the fruit (of course you move on to the next level, but without the points you get for gathering all pieces). It could have been changed by adding just a single block... I'm not sure why is it this way - maybe it's meant as a message saying "You can't always have everything"... but more likely it's just lousy testing.

The Bottom Line
Besides the adventure-arcade games, the Dizzy series also included a few pure arcades such as "Fast Food Dizzy", "Bubble Dizzy" (the concept was also used as a minigame in "Fantastic Adventures", but - rather surprisingly in such a lovely game - with much worse graphics) and this game. The background story isn't much more complicated than in the adventure games, though - original Dizzy games were never famous for sophisticated stories. You simply have to save four of your family and friends, so pretty much the same as in "Magicland Dizzy"... only in "Magicland" Dizzy did it by solving object puzzles and here he does it by going on and on, collecting fruit and avoiding hazards.
The game design is very simple and clear. In the "regular" levels (odd numbers) there are four types of objects: the baddies, blocks (solid and moveable ones), collectables and power-ups (however, maybe it's not the best word since some of them rather act as an impediment - for example the blue potion which makes some blocks disappear, exposing Dizzy to the baddies). You move on to the next level after gathering all collectables. The bonus levels (even numbers) have only solid blocks and collectables and require some quick thinking - in these levels Dizzy will move in the selected direction until he hits a wall (and, since he can pass screen borders, he can keep going until the bonus ends if he starts walking along a row or column with no blocks - more precisely, unless the last pieces he has to collect are in this row or column). You can end a bonus level either by collecting all fruit, running out of time or starting running up in circles in such a row or column with no blocks despite not having collected everything - that's what happens in the abovementioned "uncompleteable bonus level". Each section has ten levels and the types of enemies and collectables vary between levels so that the game doesn't get too boring.