The Voice in My Head (Oscar the Balloonist Flies into Mountains (PC))

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	Oscar the Balloonist Flies into Mountains (PC)
Date:	19/06/04 (189 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very fun and well designed, Good graphics and sound features, My first game

Disadvantages: Unbelievable similarity to 'Trolls', Some noticable features lacking

(A mobile classroom in Cheshire, circa 1993)

“Thanks everybody!”

What was that? Oh, must have been my mind. That was a bit strange, ha ha. Oh well, on with my work on the Anglo Saxons or whatever it was I did in year three.

“Bonus letter!”

That had to be a person that time… no, everyone’s just doing their work on the Anglo Saxons, as I mentioned just then. I’ll just carry on colouring in this longboat and stuff.

“Find the clapperboard”

Oh no, there’s no hiding it any more: I’m going strange. I’m hearing voices from a computer game in my eight-year-old head, I am losing it. It’s a slippery slope from here: I’ll eventually get into Star Trek for a few years, then discover that I quite like watching the degrading but ultimately bland soft core pornography of Channel 5 on Thursday nights. Then I’ll complete my physical development, and end up writing about old computer games and Iron Maiden on an internet-based consumer website for three pence a read.

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Eleven years of my life in a paragraph there. Produced by Flair Design, Oscar was another attempt by a video game manufacturer to entice younger players through the use of an attitude-possessing animal, although to be fair there were many original ideas; for a start the character was not particularly likeable and was reasonably grotesque, but this gave him a distinct character as he was played through different genres of film (and television) in a large cinema complex. There was nothing inherently special about Oscar, but as it was the first computer game I ever played it will always hold a special place in my mind (not my heart, that’s just veiny muscle).


STYLE & GAMEPLAY


Oscar was an Amiga and PC platform game, and as such shared a common control method and layout with most other platform games of the time. The joystick, or keyboard if you were desperate, could move Oscar left and right, the forward ‘up’ position making him jump and the back ‘down’ position causing him to duck. The fire button performed tasks such as starting the game and selecting ‘OK,’ but during play it could only control Oscar’s weapon, the yo-yo, when it was collected. The layout of the levels was clearly given a lot of attention as there is a fair degree of variety between the different stages, which was perhaps one of the reasons that this game was offered in several promotional packs for the Amiga 1200 and CD32.

On each level, Oscar’s goal was to collect all of the small Oscar trophies and then proceed to the clapperboard where a director would announce ‘Cut!’ (ha ha). The enemies were fairly repetitive and based on very similar principles in each stage – a mixture of flying menaces and larger, wandering beasts, all of which would move in a very basic, set path. Variety was added through the bonuses and power-ups that Oscar could collect from the many film canisters; although these mostly contained simple ‘treasure,’ ‘food’ and ‘points’ that were added up after the end of the level, a number of special items could be found on each stage. Picking one up would cancel out any currently being used, but many simply wore off quite quickly in any case and as such some strategic thinking could be required. Not too much though obviously, it was only ‘Oscar’:

Yo-yo – Oscar’s weapon of choice, this could be swung at enemies or used to swing across platforms to provide access to areas otherwise unreachable. It could also smash obvious blocks, and was the only use of the ‘fire’ button during gameplay.

Wings – These allowed Oscar to float upwards and across to any destination for about thirty to sixty seconds.

Shield – Invincibility for a limited time, although pitfalls such as drowning and literal pit falls were still lethal.

Invisibility – With a vocal comment of “I’m invisible,” Oscar would become undetectable for a brief period. Note that this is a useless and avoidable item, considering every enemy is on a pre-programmed path and thus it only causes frustration when trying to jump over gaps.

Springy shoes – A much higher and nicer feeling jump that would soon wear off.

Bonus / Bogus letters – On most levels, the individual letters B, O, N, U, S and G could be collected. Spelling ‘BONUS’ would lead the player to a bonus level after that stage, while accidentally collecting the ‘G’ and the ‘BOUS’ letters and failing to replace it with an ‘N’ would lead to the bogus level where the player dies if they don’t reach the end in time. It looked nicer though.


STAGES


Accessed from the cinema lobby, there are seven levels each comprising three stages each. Unlike some similar games there are no ‘boss’ enemies, although bonus levels can be played after completion of each area.

Sci-Fi

An obvious but necessary choice, this level is perhaps the most difficult. Influenced heavily by films such as ‘Alien’ and ‘Forbidden Planet’ rather than something like Star Trek or Doctor Who. Oscar is kitted out in ‘cyberpunk’ gear, I expect, which consist of sunglasses (sorry, I mean shades) and a sparkly trench-coat thing.

Horror

One of the most visually appealing and diverse levels, this features large castles that can be wandered into and explored as well as a lot of underwater sections that have nice backgrounds. Oscar is dressed as Dracula or something, but the enemies are all very fun – there’s even a Frankingstein.

Cartoon

A little irritating and featuring the most annoying enemies in the form of rapid and very small wasps, this sees Oscar retaining his T-shirt, shorts and cap from the foyer.

Western

The first level I completed, this level has been designed very well and never gets tiresome considering it’s mainly deserts and saloons and things. Some unexpected underwater bits as well; I feel like playing this now actually.

War

Interesting but also dull due to the decision of making this a black-and-white level, although this is contrasted with Oscar and the nice backdrops (which are in full colour). A bit depressing and with too many falling platforms to be that entertaining, this is still quite good.

Game Show

Personally I can’t see myself going to a cinema to watch a game show, but Flair Design obviously see things differently. Or they just ran out of film genres. This is my least favourite level as the red and blue colour scheme gets very dull, as do the ever-present signs and game show motifs.

Prehistoric

Owing more to the Flintstones than Jurassic Park, this is nonetheless a fun outdoor level after the claustrophobic previous ones. It also has the silliness of the cartoon level, which is nice.


THE ‘TROLLS’ FACTOR


As much as I thoroughly enjoyed (and still occasionally play) ‘Oscar,’ there is a large factor that unfortunately counts against it in terms of unoriginality: it is an almost direct rip-off of Flair’s own, slightly earlier game ‘Trolls,’ starring those purple-haired monstrous dolls that girls used to have in their rooms for some weird reason. The graphics and sound are almost identical, the only changes being in the more three dimensional rendering of Oscar’s platforms and backgrounds and the sound effects of Oscar’s voice – the principle earlier referred to as ‘bung-bung-BOING!’ to dispatch enemies is exactly the same, as are the Big Red Elephants used as save points, although a Pig Stop was used in place of a clapperboard.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any less original, even the collectables in terms of mundane food, treasure and point items and the special bonuses were exactly the same (right down to the yo-yo) and a number of baby Trolls needed to be collected instead of miniature Oscars. Essentially it was the exact same game, only a little less enjoyable and more of a cash-in to whoever thought it was clever to bring out Troll dolls.


VERDICT


As it was released in 1992, this game obviously can’t compare to modern releases in terms of graphics or versatility, but it’s still very enjoyable and rivals most of the platform games of the time, except perhaps the more popular Sonic and Mario series. The first game I really got into in a big way, to the extent of hearing the lead character’s voice in my addled mind even when several miles away from the Amiga, Oscar will always be a special and particularly enjoyable game for me to play, but the fact that Flair have basically brought out a re-working of their ‘Trolls’ game does invalidate it a little.

The only flaws in the game were that it could occasionally be far too hard to pass specific objects – I spent several frustrated days trying to work a way around a spike section in the horror level, and it took months before I could even get onto the second stage of Sci-Fi – and the game took a very, very long time to load from the floppy disks, mainly due to the high quality of the graphics. The lack of any bosses at the end of levels provided something of an anticlimax, but Oscar was a straightforward game that I am happy to have enjoyed. And anyway, it beat the pathetic cash-in game of the film ‘Dennis’ that also came with my Amiga 1200 Desktop Dynamite pack.

Thankfully I no longer hear Oscar’s voice inside my head, although I do still hear the whimpers of the McCrae children every night as I fall to sleep. It’s almost as if they don’t appreciate being locked up in the fun cupboard being intravenously fed and laughed at. Excessive playing of computer games in childhood officially has no permanent mental side-effects.

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