Excellent pub darts game with a quite bizarre off-the wall sense of humour where you play against opponents such as an axe-throwing barbarian and a laser-zapping alien to name but two. Quite hilarious too when projectiles get launched into innocent pub customers rather than the dart board.
Some people would probably disagree with me here, but for my money, this one is even better than '180'. For starters it is much more difficult when playing against the tougher opponents but the extra level of irreverent fun here just makes this one more appealing to me personally. I mean who could forget playing against the inebriated Jockey Pilsner? Graphics are excellent too, just very skilfully drawn. Can't believe it was only £2.99 at time of release, excellent value IMHO.
It's memorable for me also because when played under the primitive Atari ST emulator of the early nineties, the Z80 'H' flag wasn't emulated for speed reasons and so the finishing score you needed was always 6 more than it should've been due to use of BCD subtraction in calculating the scoreboard. That added an extra bit of difficulty and surrealism too!
Overall though the game is just great, and whilst nothing like playing real darts, the system of an awkwardly accelerating hand which the player has to wrestle control of is somehow completely playable. (Or perhaps that is exactly like darts, particularly if drunk). But it is a skill which can be really improved with plenty of practice and you'll find yourself eventually getting really into the championship mode. It can actually be quite tense and exciting to play when you get really far in the game, quite agonising when you miss a finishing double. These things certainly make a rather enjoyable and challenging game.
Unfortunately, being a Codemasters title, it's status denied at the time of writing.
Review by Raphie on 19 Jan 2010 (Rating: 5)
I absolutely loved this game, and I totally agree with Digital Prawn in that this is better than 180. 180 for me was a little too easy where as Wacky Darts require a lot of skill to master. Very well produced with a full tournament mode, highly colourful graphics, hilarious characters such as the drunk Jocky Pilsner and the manic Baza the War Machine and a sublime piece of music from Lyndon Sharp. Definately one of Codemasters's better games and the best work to come from Big Red Software.
Review by YOR on 29 Oct 2017 (Rating: 4)
I'm not really that massive on darts but I do like a good darts game, I actually had this game back in the day and I did quite like it. It looks superb and plays quite nicely too, even if the throwing seems a bit fussy at times and then I can win one match and then go no further most of the time. A lot of darts games here frankly look dong, but this one looks well enough to appeal to novice or even non-fans.
