Reviews

Why did this game make the Top 100 games list from Your Sinclair readers? It's terribly impossible because of the dreadful jumping. Getting out of the first screen is a task in itself. A disaster.

A very glitchy jump key and an absurd means of attacking the player whilst on a ladder turn this nicely presented 6 screen budget platformer into a dire experience. Its hard to know whether the awful jump and ladder attack were last minute amends to make this otherwise short game last longer.
As YOR comments, the inclusion of Mr Freeze in the YS top 100 all time reader poll is nigh on unfathomable. You have to assume the voting system was as glitchy as this game.
A passable 5.92 at time of writing, by WoS voters also mystified me to the point where I started blaming the sticky jump button on the emulator (Spin) but its just as bad in other emus...

There are many great platformers on the spectrum. This isn't one of them. The gameplay is awkward and not helped by unresponsive controls. There is a level of consistency running through this game as the graphics and sound are also crap.

Cute and charming retro-platformer , but nothing out of the ordinary ... ! ! !

1,5 / 5 .

It could have been better, I suppose.

Mr Freeze.
Firebird 1984

You’ve put it off for long enough, it’s time to defrost the freezer. You don your protective gear and rue the day you bought the thing. It was an easy mistake to make, go to Currys, choose a model and instead of listening to the after sale options you found your attention diverted by a ripe pustule on the shop assistant’s forehead. As a result the cold store you cram into the car boot comes replete with armed sentries, a motion sensitive death ray and marauding grapefruit. Still, at least it came with a flame thrower.

Single screen platformer, avoid the nasties, touch the de-ice button on each of 6 screens.

Mr Freeze has a nice smooth sprite that is well animated, assuming the limp is intentional, the sounds are simple but adequate and the graphics are average for 1984. One annoyance is the fact the sprite is coloured BRIGHT while the background is not, giving a beaming blue box around the player. Maybe it didn’t show up so badly on CRTs, or it’s meant to be his warm aura. The game mechanics can be frustrating, poor key response and sometimes unfair collision especially, but I’m happy to consider the quirky jump as one of the game’s rules that you just need to learn. Who wants every platform game to have the same perfect jump arc? Not me.

A lot of thought has gone into the level design, largely based around outsmarting the death ray that homes in on you when you use a ladder. Deciding which ladder to climb first, or pretend to climb, adds a bit of a puzzle to the action.

The intentional features and unintentional quirks of Mr Freeze make it very challenging, actually I’ll say HARD, but at 6 screens long completion always feels within reach. De-icing just one screen feels like a big achievement, so the game is not without its rewards. At the time of writing I can de-ice 2, nearly 3 screens. It’s very addictive, almost there…

Rating: Porridge with some lumps, but you’re very hungry. 3/5.

A quirky and taxing platform game set into a giant fridge. Additional dangers like the freezing ray, that you must avoid while on the ladders, require a great deal of coordination. I had good fun with it back in the day and although it has not aged very well, I still regard it with some nostalgia.

1984 Firebird Software (UK)
by David Clark

Ít's no wonder this game was released at a budget price. It's not well written, with unresponsive keys and below average graphics and sound and by then better platform games were already available. To be honest I kind of enjoy our characters look and the overall platform idea, but with clumsy programming it's hard to enjoy it anyway.
It's too hard to complete, because of the aforementioned bad key response and with some unusual choices for enemies, the ray being the most annoying one. With a bit of patience and lots of try and error, a player can get the pass the first levels, but I seriously doubt the game can be completed without extra help from the Tipshop.