You are not Hardcore until you have played this platforming classic.
Right from the start, you know there is a certain magic about the game. The Commodore 64 (or Amiga, or combination, or whatever system your uncle built for you at the time) was never a reliable system for our collection of games, and Bubble Bobble was no exception. Often it would take five boot attempts before the game would actually load. Perhaps our C64 was the wrong version, or perhaps we had a bad disk, but when it did finally work (a relief to the point where you had to mop your forehead with a snot-rag - booting five times meant ten disk changes for Kickstart) it was the best thing around.
The title screen lets you select either Bub or Bob as your character. No difference except for their colour. You start the game popping out of a bubble that floats into the screen from above, along with an assortment of enemies, always the same for that given level. The levels are numbered from 1 to 100, progressively getting harder and harder as you go. The goal is to eliminate all the enemies from the level. Once you do, the level automatically scrolls vertically to the next. Rinse and repeat.
The controls are simply directions left and right to move around, up to jump, and the fire button blows a bubble a short distance.
What's that, I hear you say? A bubble?
The basic premise is simple: Enemy is approaching you. Enemy gets within firing range. Fire a bubble (or a bobble?). Bubble hits enemy, enemy is imprisoned, and helpless, and likely floating away to the top of the screen, turning little somersaults as he goes. You chase down your bubble and pop it. Dead enemy remains fly out of the bubble, bounce off walls, then land, turning into a convenient bunch of bananas. You do know dinosaurs like bananas, right?
Well, it turns out they like all sorts of fruit. Which is good because you will see a lot of it in 100 levels. If you get that far.
Bubbles can be popped in all manner of ways, but some will give you more difficulty than others. Being a dinosaur (or a dragon, I'm not entirely sure which), you have some pretty mean spikes on your head. So naturally jumping up beneath bubbles is a guaranteed enemy killer. But landing on them and pushing them into walls works well too. If the currents are right, sometimes you can just face the other way and have the bubbles waltz right into your back spikes too. But always be aware enemies will not stay imprisoned forever - and once your bubbles fail (which they will do rather quickly), the enemy that pops out will be majorly ticked off, and will always zoom around at twice it's normal speed.
By popping a large number of bubbles at once, you can get points bonuses, in addition to a veritable fruit bowl of goodness - each additional bubble popped in the same pop as the first will net a better piece of fruit, and more points. More points means getting more lives (eventually) - so by golly, get what points you can. You'll need them.
And occasionally, if you're very lucky, an extremely large fruit will fall from the heavens. The first time I saw this I nearly fell out of my chair. There was laughter too, I'm sure of it. The points from these babies are almost enough for an extra life all on their own! And any extra bubbles you have floating around when you nab the last enemy also turn into mini versions of the giant one! Fruit, fruit everywhere! Unfortunately, sometimes the automatic level advance will beat you to all the remaining goodies though, so get what you can.
Each level consists of various platforms for you to jump to, some have holes in the bottom, where if you fall in you re-enter the screen from the top. Other, harder levels require you to have some skill with bouncing on your bubbles (something I could never get used to) to reach a particular area before it pops, or you accidentally fall through it and destroy it.
Don't think it's all fun and games though, with the little walking defenceless enemies, and the pretty, flying, slow enemies that look like care bears. Once touch is all it takes to lose a life. And when you get a few levels under your belt, out come the enemies with weapons. If that wasn't enough, you have a time limit, of sorts. While there is no timer per se, after a while you will be told to "Hurry up!", and enemies will all be given double speed, as if they just escaped from bubbles. After a short time of this panic attack, in comes the enemy I like to call the Shark. It looks a bit like the blue flying foes, but it's as white as a ghost, has evil red glowing eyes and a nasty grin. You could call him the Joker too if you like. It just appears on the screen after a short evil audio cue. And doesn't move.
After a short time thinking "Wtf? Is that a glitch?" after watching the uber-fast minions run around for a bit, suddenly it'll move. Uber-quick, but a short distance, maybe a quarter of the game screen, but in a straight line - only up, down, left or right. But he's so quick you could blink and miss it. It'll also go right through any terrain, even the edge of the screen to come in the other side. Whatever the shortest distance is between you. It'll only stop for a short time too before it'll move again. Then you'll really start to panic, trying to get that bubble fired so you can jump on it and get that last annoying enemy.
But the option of playing two player makes it even more interesting, as there are a number of "continues" available. These are available in single player as well, but are not easy to activate. Alternatively, you could have two joysticks plugged in, and alternate between the two dinosaurs just before the one you were just playing as dies. On your own, you stand little chance of getting to the really hard levels, or even just beyond level 50.
There is one other thing to help you though. Each level has two random items that magically appear on timers. These range from the hardly-worth-waiting-for additional citrus supplements, to the extremely handy, such as fire-breath, speed shoes, full-screen slaughter nukes (or nuke equivalents), umbrellas (that warp you forward 3, 5 or 7 levels), or even something like speed-bubbling is enough to save your crispy green bacon.
The game is truly fun. But being able to play it with your brother, or the insanity that is enemies hastened, and the Shark lurking between the edges of the screen, this game could well have you in fits of laughter. If you love challenging platformers then you'll love Bubble Bobble.