Ahh now Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O' Fun was a hilarious arcade game, no matter what system you played it on.
It originally appeared on the Atari ST, IBM PC and Commodore Amiga, before later being converted to 8-bit machines such as the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, and Amstrad CPC 464.
For the purposes of this I think the Amiga version is the best to look at - the machine had the qualities to create the right sort of cartoony and carnival atmoshpere. It's a real funny game...
Basically the game was pure slapstick from start to finish - and you had to perform six acts to perfection. The reason why was shown to you in a humorous opening scene that was straight out of Warner Bros Cartoons with the 'contract' shown and the speedy way the characters exited the screen.
The game was similar to many of the multi-event sports games of the time (such as Hypersports).
However, Fiendish Freddy differed not only by its surroundings (circus events) offering a comedy element, it also offered a loose plot and a clear goal of winning $10,000. Bring it on!
It's all slapstick action for each event. Watch your high-diver being blown off course by a giant hair dryer, check out your tight-rope walker as his fingers are removed from the rope one by one (even if you win you loose!), see the ridiculous items you have to juggle whilst riding a unicycle and so on.
The funniest thing for me in this classic game was the judges. Instead of giving accurate scores for each event they resort to poking each other in the eyes, punching each other, choking each other and flinging custard pies across the screen. Still, they are more sensible than Louis Walsh.
All in all this is the type of game the Commodore Amiga was built for; the graphics, sound effects and music are all spot on - and it ran even better on an A1200 with a hard-disk as the amount of disk swapping got a little annoying on a single drive machine.
Make sure you see the end of game sequence, it'll make you chortle.
Classic Game Action - Funny Stuff (Amiga Version):
Classic Games, Arcade Games and Funny Games
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