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GAMES YOU'LL
WANT |
ADVENTURE: Ask
anyone who's played this... it's hip to be
square! It may be primitive in comparison to
today's RPGs, but it's much easier to pick
up and play.
CRYSTAL
CASTLES: Who knew the 2600 was
capable of such a faithful port of such a cutting
edge arcade game? Luckily, someone at Atari
did.
MIDNIGHT MAGIC:
This is a quantum leap ahead of Video Pinball,
with faster gameplay, more realistic physics, and
a vividly colored
playfield.
MEGAMANIA: It
may be tough to take the enemies seriously, but
when it comes to fast, challenging gameplay,
Megamania doesn't fool around.
MS.
PAC-MAN: They say that behind every
man, there's a strong woman. Well, when it
comes to Pac-Man games on the 2600, the woman's
way ahead.
(THE) OFFICIAL
FROGGER: Forget the Parker
Bros. version! The only way to play
Frogger on your 2600 is with the Supercharger tape
recorder
interface.
REACTOR: When
I say this game rocks, I mean that
literally. It's got a wild thrash metal
soundtrack to go with its unique and addictive
gameplay.
SOLARIS: It's
the toughest challenge you'll ever love!
This exceptional shooter overwhelms the player
with awesome graphics and demanding
gameplay.
SOLAR FOX:
You'll need the speed and cunning of a fox to
survive this viciously intense action game.
Would you believe that it's better than the
arcade version?
WINTER
GAMES: You'll be proud to carry the
torch in this simulation of eight exciting
Olympic events, including the always crowd
pleasin' ski
jump. | | |
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GAMES YOU
WON'T |
ACID
DROP: Me thinks someone
was dropping a little acid of their own when they
designed this unbelievably blocky 2600 version of
the puzzle game Columns.
CHUCK NORRIS
SUPERKICKS: It's a sluggish,
frustrating fighter starring the world's most
conceited and pathetic martial
artist. No, not Dan
Hibiki.
DOUBLE DRAGON:
Wait a minute, there's a version of Double
Dragon... for the 2600? You're kidding,
right? Please tell me you're kidding.
Oh crap, you're
not.
INFILTRATE: The
title may be synonymous with breaking and
entering, but you'll be much more tempted to break
this cartridge than put it into your
2600.
KARATE: It's all
the fun and excitement of a martial arts
tournament. No, wait... scratch that.
It's all the fun and excitement of a senior
citizens' yoga class.
MINES OF
MINOS: It's not hard to dig up a
maze game on the 2600 that's more enjoyable than
this. Even the flawed VCS version of Pac-Man
is better.
PANDA CHASE:
If this is what life is really like for pandas,
it's no wonder they're on the brink of
extinction. Imagine E.T. with double the
pits (and frustration!).
SCUBA
DIVER: Twenty thousand leagues
under the sea isn't far enough away from this
one. You spend more time diving into sharks'
mouths than the
ocean.
SPRINGER: Here's
my question for the makers of this dud... what's
the point in making a platform game where you
can't reach any of the
platforms?!
SSSNAKE:
Take Centipede. Now, give it awkward
control, then make the centipede completely
invulnerable to attack. Sound like
fun? It's
not. | | |
REVIEWS
Before I begin, I'd like to
apologize for waiting so long to cover homebrew games like QB in The
Gameroom Blitz. In the last five years, video game fans have
designed, programmed, and published dozens of software titles for
older systems like the ColecoVision, Vectrex, and of course, the
2600. This takes a whole lot of hard work, because they not
only have to program in machine code on a console with a lot of
hardware limitations, they don't have access to the official
documentation and development systems the major game companies of
the early 80's were able to use. Despite this handicap, a lot
of these new games are surprisingly good... sometimes even better
than the games professional designers were PAID to create back in
1983.
I've played a lot of these user designed
games, and in my opinion, Andrew Davies' QB is the best of the
homebrews for the 2600. Sure, This Planet Sucks is more
colorful, and Oystron has better special effects, but QB's play
mechanics are more original... you don't see many puzzle games on
the 2600, and you don't see many puzzle games for ANY system that
aren't Tetris or Columns clones.
 As the name suggests, QB plays a little like
Gottlieb's Q*Bert, but there's a little inspiration from Locomotion
as well. Your character has to arrange tiles in a room to
match the pattern on the right hand side of the screen. Like
Q*Bert, he can leap from tile to tile, but QB can also slide tiles
around if there's no place for him to jump (a little like
Locomotion). You'll have to come up with the best combination
of sliding and jumping to finish the pattern, because if you're not
careful you could put a tile in the proper place, but isolate it
from the others which still need to be moved around. Also,
there's a time limit on each pattern... if you spend too much time
thinking and not enough moving, a new random pattern will be chosen,
spoiling your work (this can be very frustrating if you've got just
one tile to move into place, but can also help you if you can't
figure out how to finish the pattern).
As you'd expect, the game's got both
items to collect and enemies to avoid, and there's a good variety of
both. Fruit will hatch out of the eggs that magically appear
on the playfield (whoa, surreal!), and if you get the right
combination, you'll earn an extra life. Beware, though... the
eggs may also contain bad guys who serve the dual purpose of hunting
you down and moving the tiles. The timid bunnies are no
problem, but the squid's a bit more tricky, and that bloodthirsty
flame is more aggressive than the first two combined. All
three can be sprung off the playfield with the fire button, but you
have to get in close to use it, and it does devour your points
pretty quickly.
 With regards to the game's overall quality, I
think QB compares favorably to the better 2600 games released in
1983, although I wouldn't go nuts and pit it against the truly
incredible titles released for the VCS in the late 80's (heck, some
NES games weren't as good as Solaris and Midnight
Magic!). The graphics are alternately functional and
fantastic... the tiles are, well, flat colored squares, but the
fruit looks tempting (which is saying a lot from a guy who doesn't
eat much fruit) and the main character, whatever he is, is very well
detailed and animated... he'll even blink from time to time if he's
standing still. As for sound, well, there isn't much in the
game, but that's probably a wise decision on Mr. Davies' part... I
don't know how well the 2600's raw, harsh sound output would have
worked with a cute game like this. Finally, there's the
gameplay, which is entirely on target... except for attacking
enemies. You have to aim for the hostile hopper with the
joystick while pressing fire, meaning that you'll leap right at
him. Usually, the bad guy is tossed off the board, but if
not...
The most exciting part about QB is that I
had some (small) influence on the project... I tried the betas and
sent Andrew Davies a letter about what I thought could have been
improved (in early versions of the game enemies could be thrown from
the board even if you were nowhere near them, and extra lives were
too easy to earn). Instead of ignoring me, Andrew actually
replied to my letter and considered some of my suggestions!
Andrew had already made QB great, but his responding to peoples'
constructive criticism without being hostile makes him great
as well.
How do I hate thee? Let me count
the ways...
1) BAD START
The first screen requires that you jump
into the water and harpoon the three fish swimming about. The
problem? You can't control the diver for a couple seconds, so
even though it may have LOOKED safe to jump in, it won't be by the
time you get your control back. Plan on dying a lot, unless
you're smart enough to turn the game off right away and play
something better (may I recommend Adventure?).
2) BAD COLLISION DETECTION
Okay, let's say that by some stroke of
fate you survived your jump into the water. Now you've got to
harpoon some fish. Don't think that's going to be easy!
You see, you can be pretty far from a fish, but it's close enough to
register as a death. Okay, so dodging isn't going to
work. Try shooting quickly. Well, that's not going to
work either, because to make up for the bad collision detection one
way, they make it almost impossible to hit the fish. Although
you'll die if you merely swim in the wake around the fish, a harpoon
to the fin will have no effect other than make sure you get eaten
before you can reload. But I have found one way to avoid the
bad collision detection -- turn the game off and play something good
instead (may I recommend Taz?).
3) BAD IDEA OF A CHALLENGE
On the off chance you stuck with the game
enough to start harpooning fish, you'll notice a couple
things. First, you have to actually reel the damn things in,
and since you have to clear all three out before you can progress to
the second screen, you'll really hate when more fish reappear before
you can even get to the next one. You'll hate missing, since
another fish will kill you before you can move or fire again.
You'll hate the way the shark will chase you into a corner or
another fish while trying to get set up so as NOT to miss. You
really can't fulfill your goal very easily. Unless of course
your goal is to play a good game, in which case you simply need to
take Scuba Diver out and put a decent game in (may I recommend
Quadrun?).
4) BAD PORTING
At least with the Sancho version, which
is PAL format and therefore has 100 more scanlines and so a deeper
screen, you can move around a LITTLE to avoid the fish. Not so
in the NTSC versions by Panda & Froggo -- to get the same game
screen to fit the smaller NTSC screen, they just hacked out some of
the vertical depth, which means you can't get away from the fish,
unless of course you play something more worthwhile instead (may I
recommend Tapper?).
5) BAD IDEA
Okay, let's assume you were stubborn
enough or stupid enough to keep playing until you were able to
harpoon all three fish, and get into the galleon at the
bottom. Now you get to play the second screen. It's a
simple maze, and again you get three creatures, only this time you
must avoid them, as they can't be harpooned. You need to dodge
them and work through the maze to pick up three treasures, then go
back to the top to go out the galleon and swim up to your
boat. But, the maze is "sticky", and you can get stuck against
the walls while your oxygen supply (oh, I didn't mention that
before? that's because you rarely live long enough that it
matters) runs down. Who thought this was a good idea? If
there was ANY fun whatsoever in this game, it disappears at this
point. And on the off chance you didn't get stuck, managed to
avoid the monsters, and got the treasures, rest assured that the
fish are back to prevent you from ever reaching your boat.
Now, if you've gotten this far by yourself, nothing I can say will
matter, and perhaps you're actually enjoying it, but I really think
there are better ways to spend your time (may I recommend a
psychiatrist?).
<><>) BAD THINGS BE
UPON YOU...
Hopefully the gods have already punished
those responsible...
PLAYING TIPS:
Don't go near this atrocity. Life's
too fucking short. Dammit Jess, why did you make me play this
horrible game again?
I feel so dirty...
(Ed: Geez, Russ, aren't you being a
little melodramatic? Let me play Scuba Diver for a while
and... wait a minute, you're right! I got dibs on the shower
after you're done.)
You don't usually think of 2600 games as
being intense, but this one... oh, man. Give it a few rounds
and you'll be sweating bullets, desperately fighting to stay alive
against an endless assault of aliens, bullets, and
meteors. Beamrider plays a little like Tempest, but the
enemies are a whole lot smarter, dancing around your shots and
pelting you with their own before quickly retreating back to the
horizon. Don't take that breath just yet, though. There
are plenty of other obstacles raining down on
you which block your fire and restrict your movement,
making a tough game even more demanding. Beamrider on the 2600
may not look as polished as the other versions of the game, but
that's to be expected... they were all released for more powerful
systems. What's important is that the gameplay is just as
good- and intense!- on the 2600 as it is anywhere else.
If you're tired of blasting birds in
those other gun games, give this one a shot. Crack'ed lets you
play mother hen to several nests filled with rare eggs. Those
nests won't stay full for long, though... the rare eggs also happen
to be quite delicious, and all different kinds of animals will do
whatever it takes to feast on them. You're better off blasting
the critters before they reach the nests, but if one sneaks past you
and carries away an egg, you can get it back by picking off the
thief and catching their cargo before it falls to the ground.
Crack'ed may not look as pretty as most NES light gun
games (and you can't even play it with a light gun!), but it does
have the advantage of being more complex, and the graphics are
pretty detailed by 2600 standards.
When even the notoriously underachieving
20th Century Fox refuses to release a game, you know it's got to be
awful. Turn Space Invaders upsidedown, shake it vigorously so
that all the fun falls out, then put the player on the side of the
aliens, and you've got a pretty good idea of what Save the Whales is
like. You've got to protect a pod of whales from a ship armed
with nets... nets that somehow cause the grinning cetaceans to
explode on contact. The graphics are good enough, but the rest
of the game is not... the nets launched at the whales always manage
to reach their targets while slipping past your
bullets. It won't be long before you're up to your neck
in ambergris, and there's not a thing you can do to prevent
it. Actually, there is one thing you can do to prevent
the senseless slaughter of these majestic creatures... just play
something else, and they'll all be fine.
Before Joe Millionaire and Mr.
Personality, there was Pick Up. Oh wait, no there
wasn't! 20th Century Fox still had some of its dignity left in
the early 80's and decided to pass on releasing this viscivious
video game. In Pick Up, you aim to satisfy your
manly urges by collecting what a girl wants (by shooting at it...?),
then luring the nearest comely lass to a hotel. You can guess
what comes next... in fact, you'll have to, because Fox draws the
curtains in the love shack shortly after you and your girlfriend
walk in, leaving the encounter to your imagination. The
biggest letdown of all is that Pick Up is only marginally more
entertaining than other sexually suggestive 2600 games. Your
targets become frustrating obstacles after you've fired at them...
nick them again with a bullet and you'll lose a life. You
can't take your time to fire, either, because specific items will
start to flash, once again costing you a life if you take too long
to line up a shot. You're a lot better off playing
Megamania... it may not give you the opportunity to nail pretty
women, but it's much more satisfying... and you've got to
admit, it features a really phallic ship.
Get those bad Sean Connery accents ready,
folks, 'cuz it's time to take a trip to the bottom of the ocean
in a high powered, constantly hunted submarine. It's your
job to keep the sub seaworthy amidst a swarm of slow moving,
bomb dropping airplanes. Knock them out of the sky and a
faster, smarter jet arrives, diving around your shots and
unleashing deadly accurate guided missiles. If this
intense battle ends in your favor, you'll then navigate through an
underwater passageway strangely reminescent of the mesas in Raiders
of the Lost Ark, blasting neon colored mines on your way to the next
confrontation. You'll be surprised at how well all this turned
out on the 2600... the ships are a little chunky and the sound
effects are pretty irritating, but the gameplay's smooth and
responsive, and the whole nuclear-powered package is more complex
than your average 2600 shooter.
You have to wonder why this game was
released instead of its far superior ColecoVision
counterpart. Sure, the rounds and the basic gameplay are the
same, but the gap in quality is even wider than the enormous
pond the main character has to pole vault across to reach the greasy
spoon he intends to blow up. The only advantage the 2600 game
has is that this round is a lot easier than it is in the
ColecoVision prototype... however, the three remaining rounds are
much, much harder, with ladders that are almost impossible to climb
when you need them most and rampaging enemies that are
guaranteed to break, or should I say brick, your balls. It's
understandable that the graphics and sound in the ColecoVision game
are light years ahead ahead of Porky's on the 2600, but why on Earth
does the GAMEPLAY in the 2600 version have to be so
awful?
Silly rabbit, sucking is for
Acclaim! This could actually have been a fun platformer in the
tradition of Donkey Kong if it hadn't been for the ghastly level
design. I'm totally convinced that the first level- the FIRST
level!- is impossible to complete because the platforms are spaced
too far apart. You can stand on the very edge of any given
platform, leap for the next, and still miss, even though the path
you tried to take was the only possible way to reach the top of the
screen. If the designers had bothered to make sure that the
rounds could actually be FINISHED, Springer would have been an
acceptable translation of the Orca coin-op, even with the lackluster
graphics. Since they didn't, it's better that you forget
about Springer and satisfy your furry platforming needs with a game
of Kangaroo instead.
I've listened to Digital Press (in
both its print and online forms) rant and rave about how
horrible this game was, so I just had to try it myself and find out
if it really was the worst thing to happen to happen to picnics
since spoiled mayonnaise. It really isn't, but after bouncing
a small army of flies into a flashing box for what seemed like an
eternity, I can understand why Joe Santulli and his staff
desperately wanted to see all their copies of Picnic carried away by
large, badly drawn insects. The game doesn't even make sense
at first, but once you know how to deal with the flies, it starts to
pick up... well, a little, anyway. It's cool that the
designers tried something different with this game, and I liked the
fact that there's a boss fly at the end of each round, but Picnic
just isn't complex enough to be truly enjoyable. If you could
actually interact with the flies somehow while they're bouncing
around the screen, that would have made Picnic a lot more fun and
exciting.
I've given Wizard of Wor a high rating
because it's a solid conversion of an excellent arcade title...
but to be perfectly honest, I have mixed feelings about this
particular version of the game. It's flickery beyond belief,
the characters are both dully colored and blocky, and all of the
text messages were removed. Even on the 2600, I have to
believe that a better translation of Wizard of Wor could have been
possible. On the plus side, the game plays really well and
gets just as intense as the better versions available on the 5200
and Bally Astrocade... and you can even play with a friend, a luxury
that many gamers had to do without when arcade titles
were converted to the more powerful NES.
Although I must admit that this is better
than any of Data Age's other releases, Frankenstein's Monster is
still lacking in several critical areas. With only one three story
screen, FM isn't nearly as varied as its obvious inspiration
Pitfall!, and the frustrating gameplay is a minus as well... spiders
drop from the ceiling of the basement floor without warning, often
ruining otherwise perfectly-timed jumps, and wading through the
hordes of bat-like creatures on your way to Frankenstein himself
becomes tiresome quickly. The graphics are fair (and appropriately
creepy) and the sound effects are tolerable (which is a miracle in
itself considering that this is a Data Age title), but I still
wouldn't recommend this over either of David Crane's Pitfall!
adventures.
You couldn't expect an arcade-perfect
translation of this complex isometric maze game on the 2600, but
you've got to give the designers credit for trying... This certainly
feels like the coin-op, and the title character (who scores
high on the cute meter, a big plus for me) scurries around almost as
if you're controlling him with a trackball. The mazes are blocky,
and there's a lot of flicker, but that's forgivable since there are
so many rounds and the characters are so nicely detailed (especially
the gem eaters! Wow!). The play mechanics are pretty complex for a
2600 game, too, which is always a plus. HIGHLY recommended.
Another terrific arcade translation, this
time by the folks at Sega. There's only two rounds, but both of them
are so well done that you probably won't miss Rhino Ridge (which was
incredibly frustrating on the ColecoVision anyways). And oh, the
second round's been changed to accommodate the 2600's limitations
(it's not isometric like the first round and plays a little more
like Frogger), but the programmers made up for this by making it
breathtakingly colorful. And did I mention the solid control and
cute end-of-level intermission that were both missing from the
ColecoVision version? Well, I did now. In any case, this is worth
having.
Unpleasant name aside, this is just your
ordinary, average eat the dots and don't run into your tail style of
game that was overdone on PCs in the early 80's. It's pretty weak in
comparison to games like it, with poor graphics and enemies that pop
out of nowhere and are nearly impossible to avoid, but at least
there are various fruits at the conclusion of each round (unlike a
certain crappy Pac-Man translation for the 2600 that I need not
mention here). Pretty unsatisfying and/or annoying otherwise.
It's an RPG... on the 2600!? Really.
There's hit points, magic, and sword-fighting all rolled into one
little package, but the problem is that it's anything but a
neat little package... in fact, it rarely makes any sense at
all. You just walk down a blocky 3-D corridor, fight off strange
creatures, and switch from one menu option to the other until you
reach a wall or the corridor you're in changes colors. Stranger
still, there are never any doors at the sides of the screen as is
the case with every other game of its kind, and you can only turn
180 degrees as a result of this. True, there's only so much a 2600
can do, but let's face it, an RPG without the all-important aspect
of exploration is like a refrigerator without freon coils. If you've
gotta have a relatively complex 2600 game with a Doom-like
perspective, buy a SuperCharger and Escape from the Mindmaster
instead.
It can only be called ironic when the
game that everyone in this hobby desperately wants is considered to
be one of the worst 2600 titles ever released. Maybe it's because I
purchased my copy for a buck at a local pawn shop (when the current
asking rate among collectors is $200 or more! >:), but I don't
consider the game to be terrible. It's better than Todd Fry's
miserable translation of Pac-Man, with less flickery characters and
more attractive colors, although the graphics are far from the best
you'll find on the system. The orange checkers on the chuckwagon
flicker like mad (which is especially strange since it's a
stationary object), and although the title character is easily
recognizable as a dog (it looks more like Spuds MacKenzie than the
mutt in the Chuckwagon dog food ads, though), the persuing dog
catcher has all the detail of your average stick figure, and the
bouncing objects in the maze won't win any awards, either. And oh,
the gameplay is pretty simplistic, too... you just navigate mazes,
avoid anything that moves, reach the chuckwagon, and stop
psychadelic dishes of food next to your dog's feet in a cheesy bonus
round that kinda sorta breaks up the extreme monotony of the other
rounds. So, Chase the Chuckwagon is nothing special, but it's worth
picking up anyways... for obvious reasons.
Sorry, ladies, no George Clooney here.
That would be Revenge of the Killer Tomatoes... Anyways, all
you get here is a simplistic shooting contest in which you must
spray pesticides on evil tomatoes and build walls over
shrapnel-firing tomato plants. The game is incredibly cheap on the
harder levels, as tomatoes zip from side to side at such a speed
that they're almost impossible to dodge, and a real snooze in the
practice mode, which gives you infinite lives and no incentive for
continuing after the second round. The final nail in Beefsteak's
coffin is Fox's soulless presentation... the programming was done
without a hint of flair or personality, making this about as fun as
eating (tomato) paste.
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Ugh! As bad as Revenge of the Beefsteak
Tomatoes was, this is far, far worse. You take the controls of a
bow-legged robot which must locate and assemble the scattered pieces
of another equally ridiculous mech, all while avoiding or bombing
the hell out of a cast of unrelenting foes. It's ugly, slow, and
mind-numbingly boring, to say nothing of frustrating when the
enemies pick up speed and the maze fills with water. The fact that
eliminated foes are replaced with new, more deadly adversaries is
the ONLY redeeming aspect of this intolerable mess.
Call me a blasphemous heathen, but I
actually prefer this to Imagic's Demon Attack. Sure, Demon
Attack has flashier graphics, but blasting the same three aliens
over and over and over, as colorful as they may be, gets old fast.
The changing rounds of Pheonix force players to adopt new strategies
to win, and the enormous boss ship at the conclusion of each level
makes all the difference to me. This confrontation isn't as exciting
as the one in the arcade original, but what's important is that it's
there.
This kind of reminds me of an elevated
side-view version of Pitfall! on a skateboard. The big difference is
that the playfield is much larger (with a map that extends in four
directions as opposed to Pitfall!'s two) and instead of collecting
treasures, your character must perform stunts within the alloted
time. It's very difficult to do this- I've only been able to perform
twenty of the thirty stunts in the eight minutes given- and the
music is out of place (it sounds more like something from an early
60's sitcom than your typical shredder soundtrack from the late
80's) but Skateboardin' is still a pretty decent effort, considering
the limitations of the system.
This incredibly disappointing Activision
release is sort of a hybrid of Frogger and Q*Bert, and while it's
more attractive than either (well, the 2600 versions of either,
anyways), it's certainly no more enjoyable. As an Arctic explorer,
you must hop on rows of ice floes, changing the colors of each, to
build an igloo which will eventually protect you from the elements.
Canada geese, Alaskan King crabs, clams, and other things that would
taste great in a chowder patrol the freezing waters and threaten to
push your insipid, er, intrepid explorer into the deadly
drink. And wouldn't you know it, it's nearly impossible to avoid
being shoved into the ocean by these unassuming threats once you've
built your first igloo. Lovely. The artwork is pretty decent by 2600
standards (although not by Activision stardards) but that doesn't
change the fact that the game is unplayably frustrating.
The control is a little hard to get the
hang of (since you have to press up to jump, and the joystick button
does nothing), but once you adjust you'll find that Smurf is one of
Coleco's better 2600 titles. The graphics are blindingly colorful,
and there's a nice difficulty ramp for seasoned players (in fact, it
gets a little too hard after you've saved Smurfette twice...
the enemies all get a turbo boost, and you have to repeat each round
multiple times to move on to the next one). The tunes are a little
rough, but that's a minor complaint. In fact, rough music is better
than the usual 2600 alternative (no music at all)...
Following the lead of eating machines
like Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man, and Super
Pac-Man (oh, and we can't forget Super Pac-Mon, of course...
>:) is Mr. Mouth, the star of Fast Food. Mr. Mouth, a pair of
purple lips (or so the folks at Telesys would have us believe...),
resides in a diner where the food is delivered air mail.
Unfortunately, the diner also seems to be in poor standing with the
FDA as rotten pickles fill the air as well. In case you hadn't
already guessed, Mr. Mouth must dodge these undigestable threats
while gobbling up everything else that flies past. It's definitely
weird enough to pass as a video game concept, but the execution of
the game itself leaves much to be desired... Mr. Mouth looks
like a scrambled mess (could drawing a pair of lips be THAT
difficult on the 2600? I don't think so...), and the food is blocky
and sloppily drawn, which was a huge mistake on the parts of the
designers since with such a simple premise, good artwork was really
all Fast Food had going for it. To its credit, it's a pretty fast
game, but with so little to do you'll still get tired of it rather
quickly. The most fun you could possibly have with Fast Food is
sending it to Rosie O'Donnell in a box with Donnie Osmond's return
address on the front, since the game proudly announces "You're
Getting Fatter" at the end of each round...
If anything could be best described as a
side-view version of 'Adventure', this would be it. Superman has
that unmistakable Adventure feel despite the change in
perspective... the action is centered largely around dropping and
dragging objects, and the artwork (although slightly more detailed)
bears a resemblence to Warren Robinette's work in the first video
game RPG. The formula just isn't as successful here as it was in
Adventure, however... the background colors were poorly chosen, and
Superman's powers are somewhat underwhelming. Sure, he can fly, and
carries around everything from Lois Lane to helicoptors with the
greatest of ease, but he never actually gets into fights with the
numerous gun-toting thugs that populate Metropolis, and his X-ray
vision is limited to previewing screens directly adjacent to him.
And that aside, once you've beaten the game, there's no point in
playing it again except to beat your best times.
Missile Attack and Defense, eh? The title
pretty much says it all, although there are elements of Atlantis in
this sub-par shooter as well. In it, you must defend cities
(original, huh?) from an unending barrage of missiles and jets. The
attackers fly in a straight horizontal line, flash briefly, and (if
given the chance) fall to earth, destroying any cities they touch.
You, of course, must intercept the missiles by spraying them with
gunfire, which is easier said than done since the cannon used for
the job is awkward and difficult to aim. Because of this, your death
is guaranteed once the game speeds up and the screen literally fills
with enemies. This would be tolerable if the game had striking
graphics or bone-jarring explosions, but unfortunately, neither is
the case... the sound effects are actually pretty irritating, and
the character artwork is (putting it kindly) minimal, with
monocolored foes and a cannon that bears an uncanny resemblence to a
cow pie. Needless to say, I don't recommend this.
Zaxxon fans will be delighted to know
that Desert Falcon is much closer to Sega's arcade classic than
Coleco's own 2600 version of Zaxxon, and the sound is absolutely
astounding. Unfortunately, the gameplay is severely limited...
there's never more than one enemy onscreen for the majority of the
game, and there's no artificial intelligence to speak of: even the
mighty Sphinx is easily destroyed once you find his soft spot. The
graphics are pretty blocky, too (yes, even by 2600 standards!), but
that's offset somewhat by the excellent animation of the title
character (your falcon flaps its wings with admirable realism, and
when it hops along the ground to pick up items you're instantly
reminded of the crow from those old Warner Bros. cartoons) and the
smoothly scrolling backgrounds. Another point of note: this is one
of the few 2600 games with actual power ups! Pick up three
hieroglyphs in the correct sequence and you're rewarded with
everything from faster shots to invincibility to a smart bomb (not
that this comes in handy since there are never enough enemies
onscreen to warrant its use...). Each ability is mentioned briefly,
and if necessary, the game will actually instruct you to double
click your fire button to activate it! This feature is a real
lifesaver, especially when you don't have a copy of the
instructions... Anyways, Desert Falcon is worth the price of
admission, if just to hear your humble 2600 kick out some of the
funkiest Egyptian tunes since Raiders of the Lost Ark. I'd recommend
the 7800 version if you want actual gameplay to go with your great
music, though.
What? A competant Telesys game? No way!
Yes way. Believe it or not, Ram It, with its simple graphics and
disturbing title (as I'd mentioned in the opener, it makes you think
of something... well, something else), is much more entertaining
than Squeeze Box by U.S. Games (the company responsible for such
triumphs as Eggomania, Gopher, and the Cap 'n Crunch line of
cereals). In it, you're at the controls of a small turret strung on
a pole. To your left and right are colorful rows of bricks, which if
left unchecked will grow at an alarming rate and eventually
overwhelm you. You've got to clear the entire screen of bricks
within the time alloted to complete rounds, but things aren't always
that simple... sometimes, bricks will touch the pole, confining you
to one area of the screen when others desperately need your
attention. These bricks can be destroyed only if they're flashing,
and you can't always count on that to happen as this is a random and
unreliable occurance. Sure, Squeeze Box had all these elements as
well, but much of its functionality was sacrificed for eyecandy...
its title character was impractically large, ruining the game's
strategic element. Ram It is more of a player's game... the graphics
are simple (yet still attractive), but the gameplay is more intense,
and the control is sharper, allowing you to line up shots with
relative ease. In other words, Ram It is a fine game that unlike
Squeeze Box is worth the high price it commands.
Never heard of it, eh? Doesn't surprise
me. What will surprise you is the fact that this is based on
a Nintendo coin-op, and one starring the gorilla who first pestered
Mario and later proved that uninspired Adventure Island rip-offs
could become best sellers if rehashed with purely superficial
computer rendered graphics (what, me bitter?). Donkey Kong doesn't
look much better in Sky Skipper than he did in his first two 2600
games, and sadly, the game itself isn't as enjoyable as Coleco's VCS
primitive translation of Donkey Kong. If you've played the biplane
games in Combat and Looping for the ColecoVision, you know what to
expect... Donkey Kong's stolen twelve animals and it's your job to
rescue them from his clutches. To do this, you must first fly over
the big ape and stun him with bombs. Once he's incapacitated, the
critters literally jump for joy, and that's when you swoop down and
collect them, taking care not to crash into the surrounding walls.
With that done, you must fly upwards (avoiding the clouds in levels
2 and above), take on Donkey Kong again, and catch six more animals
before your fuel supply is tapped out. Succeed and you're given a
new round, and so on and so forth. Pretty simple stuff, really,
which is especially depressing since the designers didn't try to
hide this fact with incredible graphics (which these days is
anything but a RARE occurance, so to speak). If you're into all
things Donkey Kong, this won't matter, but I doubt that Sky Skipper
will satisfy anyone else.
Don't get me wrong; I like weird games,
but this may be taking things a little too far. In Blueprint, you're
what appears to be a Vaudevillian performer who must assemble a
robot from pieces scattered throughout your suburban neighborhood in
an attempt to destroy what appears to be a disgruntled California
Raisin who's chasing after your girlfriend. Well, actually, the 5200
version has characters like that... on the 2600, you're a badly
animated stick figure, the robot is a cannon, and the disgruntled
California Raisin looks more like a plum. Either way, I had a hell
of a time trying to figure out why your character has an eighty year
old fashion sense, why he's allowed to break into everyone else's
homes to find the pieces of his cannon, why he sometimes finds
bombs in these homes, and most importantly, what your
girlfriend did to incense the plum who relentlessly chases her
(perhaps she's Barbara Mandrell?). Plot aside, the game is pretty
easy to understand... it's a little like Pac-Man but more cerebral,
since you have to remember the location of each cannon piece to
successfully complete rounds. It'd be a lot of fun too if not for
the lackluster graphics, grating sound effects, and frustrating game
play (you're barely given enough time to mentally store the
locations of the cannon pieces, and if you forget them, you're as
good as dead). It's still not bad by 2600 standards, but the 5200
and Atari computer Blueprints were far better executed. Buy them
instead if you have the choice.
Reactor is intense, unique, and
surprisingly complex, but the one thing about this game that truly
makes it memorable is its wild heavy metal soundtrack. It's the kind
of music that you'd imagine Beavis and Butthead playing air guitar
and thrashing their oversized heads to, which is especially ironic
since Reactor preceeds them by nearly a decade. But enough about
that. As the title suggests, you're inside a nuclear reactor that's
constantly bombarded with potentially deadly atomic particles. To
prevent a nuclear disaster, you must shove these particles into the
walls of the reactor with your atomic steamroller (nani...?) to
break them down into their component parts and eventually destroy
them. This all sounds pretty cut and dry, but unfortunately, the
particles are surprisingly feisty and can destroy you by forcing you
into the walls of the reactor as well. They're pretty easy to avoid
at first, but eliminating them without being shoved into the deadly
reactor walls takes finesse, and the core will eventually grow to
such a size that you'll be forced to confront the particles whether
you want to or not. However, you do have limited protection
in the form of radioactive decoys. Plant one of these (preferably
near a reactor wall) and the particles are attracted to it for the
remainder of its halflife, giving you precious time to reorient
yourself and take a breather. Also, there are pins at the sides of
the reactor wall... destroy a set of these by shoving particles into
them and the core shrinks considerably. And finally, the reactor has
pockets which can trap particles. These are tricky to use
effectively but once a proton or neutron is trapped inside a pocket,
it almost never escapes. You get the point. To put it succintly,
Reactor is the video game equivalent of a mosh pit... it ain't
pretty, the music's too loud, and you're going to get shoved around
a lot, but hey, you get to do a little shoving back.
Everyone who's played this has called it
a milestone in 2600 game design, and from a purely technological
point of view, I'd tend to agree... Pitfall 2 stretches the system
to its limits both visually and musically, and its incredibly
detailed backgrounds are arguably the best ever on the humble VCS.
Still, the game itself is disappointing. Sure, there's a
wider variety of screens to explore, but Pitfall Harry has gained
only one skill since his last adventure- the ability to swim- and
many of the obstacles that made Pitfall! really live up to its name,
like the mud bogs and vines, are nowhere to be found here. Also,
although Harry is vulnerable to enemies, he can never really be
killed by them, effectively lessening the element of danger that
made the original so exciting. Despite all this, Pitfall II is still
a recommended purchase, thanks in large part to its jawdropping
graphics and vast, challenging playfield.
Yeesh. Another mediocre blastathon on the
2600. Just what I needed. What's most disappointing about this mess
is the fact that it was designed by Imagic, the company responsible
for such groundbreaking titles as Demon Attack and Atlantis. Solar
Storm has elements of both (the perspective is similar to Demon
Attack's, and you must protect your planet from enemies a'la
Atlantis), but the mixture of themes just doesn't work here. Does it
have something to do with the ho-hum graphics? The prefunctory bonus
round? The fact that there's no way to dodge the enemies' laser
blasts? Or Dennis Koble's insistance on making the game paddle
compatible? Well, whatever it is, the game's not much fun, so pass
it up.
Yes, it's based on the cornball Filmation
cartoon, but we won't hold that against it. In fact, the tie-in with
He-Man is part of this otherwise average shooter's charm... the game
greets you with a really neat morphing sequence loosely based on the
one in the cartoon, and if you're lucky enough to beat Skeletor in a
somewhat anticlimactic end of level confrontation, you're treated to
a huge picture of He-Man standing victorious with his sword held
high. If only the cake were as delicious as the icing... it's just
your basic side-scrolling shooter, similar to Fox's Mega Force but
with better, less flickery graphics. Once you reach Skeletor's
castle, the perspective changes, and you must now tag the fiend
while deflecting his energy bolts with your sword and squeezing
between the gaps in his twin force fields. Pretty basic stuff,
really, although to the author's credit it is fairly well
done. Bottom line: He-Man is definitely worth the purchase if you
can find it for a few bucks at a garage sale or pawn shop, but don't
bother with it if you have to order it from a game dealer or own an
Intellivision (as its version of He-Man is better).
How can I pay adequate tribute to a game
that is the definition of what a good pinball simulation should be?
Midnight Magic is absolutely incredible in so many ways... the
playfield, while somewhat simplistic, is brilliantly designed and
wonderfully drawn, the physics of the ball are amazingly realistic,
and the game's music and sound effects are so advanced that you'd
almost suspect that the programmer himself was a magician. That's
not to say that Midnight Magic is perfect... the ball is square
(just like the one in Atari's decrepit Video Pinball), there's no
tilt feature, and the game becomes incredibly frustrating in spots,
but when you stop and consider that it's much more fun than similar
games on the Intellivision, Odyssey2, Astrocade, and even the NES,
who cares? If you love pinball, and even if you can't stand it,
Midnight Magic is a must-have.
It's kind of hard to describe this game
without outlining the plot, so here goes... You're behind the
controls of a small solar-powered star ship from a planet tapped of
its natural resources. You've been floating aimlessly in space for
what seems like centuries and you're about to give up hope until
suddenly, you run across an enormous cache of energy pods. You close
in, only to be surrounded by heavily armed fighters which
mercilessly pelt you with photon blasts. They refuse to respond to
your communiques, and you can't fight back as what little energy
your ship uses is diverted solely to its impulse engines. Do you run
like hell and hope that you can make it home in one piece? No! You
stick around and steal as many energy pods as you can before you're
blown to bits, of course! And one thing's for sure, it ain't easy.
Remember those grade school games of Dodge Ball where you'd stand in
front of a wall and nearly everyone else in the school would
gleefully hurl rock-hard volleyballs at you? That's what it feels
like to play Solar Fox, except you don't wake up with welts and
bruises the next morning. If you can handle that kind of intensity,
by all means pick this up, but if not...
Ahhhh... this is the perfect way to relax
after fraying your nerves with a few games of Solar Fox. The title
pretty much says it all... you compete against a rival frog
(controlled by the player or, after fifteen seconds of nonuse, the
computer) for the flies which lazily flitter over a picturesque
swamp. With the difficulty switch set to novice, your frog always
jumps in a set arc and can catch nearby flies without your
intervention, but the expert setting (which gives you complete
control over your frog) is much more fun, especially with two
players. The setting is really cool, too... the scenery's blocky,
but it certainly sounds like you're hanging out at a swamp,
with plenty of chirps, croaks, and (some very realistic) splashes to
go around. The nightfall aspect of play is equally brilliant,
although it's a little disappointing that the game ends once the sky
becomes pitch black (I'm sure I'm not the only one to have
fantasized about eating the firefly that carries the Game Over
banner to the center of the screen, right?). Anyways, Frogs 'n Flies
is the game for you if you're not particularly interested in saving
the world from aliens for the 17,347th time. |
