Buggy Boy (Commodore Amiga)

Buggy Boy must be the most requested game there is for MAME. Everyone seems to want to see it emulated, and I'm not sure why. I doubt it was one of their favourite arcade games... I only ever saw it once, I think. Maybe it's because they didn't get to play the arcade game. But there were decent versions available on the home systems. I know - I must have played the Commodore 64 version to death. But I'd never played the Amiga version... until now.

It has to be said that Buggy Boy on the Amiga looks fantastic. Everything is big, bold and bright, with vibrant and colourful flags and a huge buggy wobbling about in the middle of the screen. It really does wobble, though... any driver of that would be throwing up after less than half a lap!


The construction barrier I get, but who the hell puts fences in the middle of the road?

Buggy Boy is a race against the clock. You rarely see another buggy on any of the tracks... it's all about getting to the checkpoint before you run out of time. It's a tricky task, which can be made only slightly easier by picking up up to three time bonus flags per section. Even so, you're likely to coast to a stop with the checkpoint in sight.

In the Commodore 64 version, this was a big tease. In the Amiga version, it's more of a frustration, at least for me. See, the game moves at a real clip... possibly even too much of a clip to play it properly. You'll often find yourself crashing or missing something just because the game was moving too quickly. Either that, or my reflexes are really dulling in my old age.

After playing for over an hour, I came to the conclusion that although this version looks tremendous, I prefer playing the Commodore 64 version. That game is very testing but completely fair. The Amiga version was just that little bit too annoying to keep me at it.