Fiendish Freddy's big top'o'fun (1990) review for MS-DOS, Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga

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Fiendish Freddy's big top'o'fun
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This game sports one the strangest names I have seen in a game. Apparently a big top 'o' fun is another name for a circus but I had never heard of it before I ran into this game many years ago. The intro shows a stretched limo driving up to the announcer of the circus and showing him a contract which states that he has to pay 10.000 dollar tonight or the big top will be tore down. Now it's a matter for all the employees to do their very best and try and collect the cash before they are out of a job. If things were only this easy though because fiendish Freddy wants the land and he'll do anything to sabotage you and stop you from making the money.

You can play the game with a total of five players each taking turns or you can select to practice one event out of the six in total. After each event you will be judged bij five clowns and you can see by their reactions how well you did. You will get money equal to your performance so if you do not complete the entire event you will not get the maximum amount of money and thus have a more difficult time getting the entire 10.000. Here is an overview of the events:

Showdiving: you have to dive from four different heights into progressively smaller objects. While diving you have to do all sorts of strange positions which are requested to earn more money. Freddy will try and push you out of the center so you will fall on the ground.
Juggling: juggle a certain amount of items for a period of time. You have to go through this four times with each turn you must juggle more items at once for a longer period. You can drop up to five items but each time you do Freddy gets an opportunity to throw a bomb at you which you must either throw back at him or juggle it till time runs out. Get extra points by juggling the baby into his carriage!
Trapeze: you must swing and fly through the air whilsts navigating obstacles like hoops and burning rings on three levels. If you fall you will get a second chance but that's it. If you wait to long when you are swinging Freddy will come and cut the rope.
Knife toss: Pop balloons on the spinning wheel but don't hit your assistant who is tied to the wheel as well. You must do this four times with more balloons to hit each time and you only get 25 knives each level. Freddy bombs the screen constantly to impair your vision.
Tightrope: Walk across the tightrope three times and maintain your balance. Freddy will try and remove you from the rope with flying discs he throws but you can deflect them. Don't take too long because he will shoot a cannon at you!
Human canonball: shoot yourself from a canon and land safely on a target. Your assistant fills the canon with a random amount of gunpowder and you have to judge where to place the target. Freddy will put a cork in the canon if you wait too long.

All the events are very different from each other and as such the game is quite varied. It's no picknick even without Freddy raising havoc all the time. For each event the maximum for a highly succesfull round is around the 2000 dollar mark so with six events in total you won't have to be perfect each time around but make to many mistakes and it's the end for the big top. The graphics have a cartoon look to them and they are really nice. There are also plenty of fun tunes that fit the game and the events very well. Too bad that once you finish the game there is little replay value but while it lasts it a lot of fun.

Overal rating: 7.5/10

Erde Kaiser

Fiendish Freddy's big top'o'fun was released for three different systems here are some notes:

Amiga	Released in 1990. Game has been tested and completed with winUAE v0.9.91. Graphically and musically excellent.
C64	Released in 1990. Game has been tested and completed with CCS64 V2.0 win. Graphics are quite good for what this system is capable of. The rest of the game is pretty much equal to the Amiga.
DOS	Released in 1990. Game has been tested and completed on a DOS PC. Graphics are equal to the Amiga but onfortunately only supports pc-beeper sound and it is truly awfull. Luckily you can turn it off/on using the F1 button.