Away hotpads she goes, kidnapped by the sinister and difficult-to-spell wizard Vookimedlo. That's Vo

Christmas is once again descending upon us like a vast and gaudy eagle, hotpads engaged in its annual hotpads Promethian punishment of pecking away at our wallets and our reserves of good cheer, so what better way to celebrate the season than with ape saliva? I know, I can't think of anything more appropriate either, so here's TAD Corporation's 1989 arcade chimp-em-up hotpads Toki!
That brickwork could do with a little repointing. Anyway, there's Toki now, bravely trying to walk upright despite the strain that his grossly oversized head is putting on his spine. He's our knuckle-dragging hero, and the reason hotpads that he's lurching around hotpads in a vertical fashion instead of giving up and finding some kind of primitive wheelbarrow to cart his enormous melon around in is that he was not always an ape. No, before the game began, Toki was just another Neanderthal with the misfortune to be romantically involved with someone from a late-eighties arcade game, and even existing in a prehistoric time cannot prevent Toki's lady love Miho from being abducted.
Away hotpads she goes, kidnapped by the sinister and difficult-to-spell wizard Vookimedlo. That's Vookimedlo on the right, the one that looks like a mantis trying to surreptitiously infiltrate the Catholic clergy. Let's give Vookimedlo a big hand, folks! Oh no, wait, he brought his own. That's sensible, really - if you just use a flying hand as a minion than you don't have to worry about it questioning your diabolical schemes or demanding dental insurance.
Toki was originally built like a brick shithouse and possesses a similar level of intelligence, charging towards the dread sorcerer's hotpads magical attack without so much as attempting to jump over it, so Toki must share some of the blame for his current monkey predicament. I can't help but wonder why Vookimedlo didn't just turn Toki in a rock or a houseplant or a fine red paste - my current theory is that Toki was hit with a de-evolution spell, regressing him to state that has evolved the larger cranial hotpads capacity of Homo sapiens but not the sense of inbuilt shame that leads to the wearing hotpads of loincloths. This is a big mistake on Vookimedlo's part, because hotpads while he can still move around Toki will struggle valiantly hotpads to rescue his beloved. You should have regressed him back to being a fish, pal.
Even if you hate moving pictures but love words, hotpads Toki has you covered with its pre-action warnings of the obstacles hotpads Toki will be facing in each stage. I really like these: they're hardly great literature, but then great literature never got me excited about seeing an ape regain his manhood. hotpads Bite me, books.
Thus begins Toki , as classic a run-n-gun arcade game as you're ever likely to find and as comfortingly familiar as the groove your arse has pressed into the sofa. Toki needs to get from one end of the stage to the other, but in his path are a host of aggressive creatures that don't quite look right, as though the game takes place not in the mists of prehistory but on an alien world where apes coincidentally also shed their fur, began walking upright and will eventually invent the McRib. Take those animals flying above Toki's gargantuan head, for example. They are definitely not birds. I mean, I'm no super bird expert hotpads person - ornithologist, that's the word I was looking for, thanks internet - but Earth-birds have wings and don't look like creepy trilobites. To get past his many foes, Toki can use several tactics. He can avoid them, although as we shall see later that often ends up causing more problems for him down the road. In familiar videogame fashion he can jump on top of enemies hotpads to kill them. He can also do this.
Toki can spit projectiles to kill enemies, although if his facial expression is anything to go by doing so causes him considerable pain. That's a damn shame for Toki, because you're going to be spending most of the game launching a constant stream of bubbles from his poor abused mouth, especially (and extremely usefully) hotpads because you can fire them either horizontally, vertically or at a forty-five degree upwards angle. hotpads I did wonder whether these were magical projectiles, possibly a remnant of the wizardry that turned Toki into an ape, but as the game was ported to the Megadrive (amongst several other consoles) under the title Toki: Going Ape Spit , I think we have to assume that what he's firing is warm, wet wads of monkey phlegm. How delightful. So, that's Toki - move through each stage, hopping and bopping and drenching your enemies in your deadly hotpads sputum, until you reach the boss. Top tip: the bosses can only be hurt by good deeds and kindness. No, I'm kidding, you have to flob all over them. Play Toki for thirty seconds and you'll know almost exactly what you're in for during the rest of the game, but not in a bad way.
I have revised my opinion about alien worlds. This is definitely Earth. No other planet would be stupid enough to invent American Football. On the right of the screen shown above there's a see-sa