Frantic Freddie

The Good
Frantic Freddie is a popular platform game from Commercial Data Systems, and it is similar to other games such as Apple Panic. Could it be a coincidence that the titular character is named after Freddie Mercury, one of the band members of Queen, whose C-64 rendition of “A Crazy Thing Called Love” can be heard on the title screen? I heard the song before, but I didn’t think that someone like Queen would have sung it. Freddie is portrayed as a telephone line engineer, so the things that separate the platforms are telegraph poles, not ladders. By the way, if you’re expecting to fix these poles while being chased by monsters, I’m sorry to disappoint you. If you’re into that sort of thing, go play Super Pipeline instead.

Freddy goes around collecting pots of gold while being hounded by the Greeblies. These monsters are a mixed bag. I like the way that the Greeblies fool you into thinking that you’ll only be dealing with one of them, by walking directly behind their leader only to go their separate ways. There are also bonus items that pass by, and collecting them will award you with a certain amount of points. Among them are a yacht, lollipops, ice creams, strawberries, a cup of coffee with Kris Hatlelid’s initials on it, music notes, the Canadian flag, a Christmas tree, and the Commodore logo. What’s strange about these items is that if a Greeblie comes into contact with one of these items, you get the points anyway. The scrolling messages at the top of the screen are amusing, and they are worth reading if you aren’t being chased.

The biggest challenge are the telegraph poles. They act the same as ladders, but they have two rungs instead of one, and you can’t pass through them. This means to reach the platform directly opposite you, you have to go up to the platform above you using the rungs on the right, then go back down via the left ones. This is quite an unusual mechanic I have not seen in any other platform game released around the same time, and CDS should be applauded for their bold attempts.

In true Pac-Man style, you get to watch an intermission every two levels. They are entertaining and give the player a break from his objective. These intermissions, combined, show Freddie being eaten by a Greeblie, but getting revenge by going after it in a tank. There are only two intermissions, and I wish there would be more.

People who grew up in the Seventies are in for a real treat. Besides the Queen song, you get to hear nice C64 renditions of hits such as “Boogie Fever” (The Slyvers), “Don’t Bring Me Down,” (Electric Light Orchestra) and “Kodachrome” (Paul Simon). Although there are hardly any sound effects in the game, the most satisfying one occurs when you come into contact with a Greeblie; it’s like a basketball being bounced on a ground in a sports center. After that sound effect, you see Freddie fly across the screen.

The game cover looks colorful and shows Freddie climbing a telegraph pole to get to a pot of gold, with two Greeblies behind him. Users of the tape version get to watch two animated PETSCII faces and read scrolling messages about upcoming CDS titles at the same time. There is a timer in the middle of the screen, but it counts up rather than down.

The Bad
The two rungs on the telegraph poles are too close together, so I accidentally go down the right rung when I meant to go down the left, and vice versa. The poles are missing on level seventeen, so you can’t get the pots of gold and are forced to turn the machine off and back on again.

The Bottom Line
Frantic Freddie is an excellent platform game that was only released for the Commodore 64. It provides a twist compared to the other platform games released at the time, in the way that there are telegraph poles, not ladders, and that players can't just walk across to the other side of the platforms. The graphics are very good, and there are nice renditions of classic Seventies songs coming out of the SID chip. There are intermissions that provide a bit of entertainment every two levels. The game was so popular that not only are there remakes of the game out there, but an unofficial sequel released for the same machine.