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GAMES YOU'LL
WANT |
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ANTARCTIC
ADVENTURE: Konami proves that a penguin is the
perfect all-terrain vehicle for the rough roads of the
Antarctic. The graphics are
sensational!
FRENZY: This is twice
the game that Berzerk was, even without the famous voice
samples. The added variety and memorable
music more than make up for
them.
GALAXIAN: It's an almost
flawless conversion of the arcade game. It makes
you wish the ColecoVision was around long enough to get
a conversion of Galaga!
GATEWAY TO
APSHAI: When I call this a deep role-playing
game, I'm not kidding... there are over ninety-nine
levels in Apshai, plus dozens of enemies and
items.
MATT PATROL: Matt Patrol,
Moon Patrol... whatever! The only real difference
between Irem's coin-op and this ColecoVision game are
the deadly bras flying overhead.
MR. DO!'S
CASTLE: Everybody loves a clown... as long as
it's this one. Mr. Do!'s Castle is a bit like Lode
Runner, only it's faster and more
exciting.
SPACE INVADERS COLLECTION:
After disasters like Omega Race and Gorf, it's
refreshing to play a complete conversion of a great
arcade game on the ColecoVision.
SPY
HUNTER: If you hated the cumbersome manual
shifting in the arcade version, you'll be happy to hear
that it's been removed in this fantastic ColecoVision
port.
TURBO: It looks a little rough
in comparison to the arcade version, but it's just as
engrossing. You'll find yourself spending hours
with this great racing
title.
WARGAMES: After playing this
complex action/strategy game, you'll wonder how you ever
got by with Missile Command. You won't believe the
quality of the artwork! | |
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GAMES YOU
WON'T |
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CHUCK
NORRIS SUPERKICKS: If you thought Walker: Texas
Ranger was the worst thing Chuck Norris ever starred in,
brother are you in for a nasty
surprise!
(THE) DAM BUSTERS: I
wasn't expecting great 3D from the ColecoVision, but I
have to believe that it can do better than anything
this weak flight sim has to offer.
FRANTIC FREDDY:
Spectravideo must have been really desperate for a
mascot to settle for this one. He looks like the
offspring of a fire extinguisher and Steve
Urkel.
GUST BUSTER: "When you're
havin' fun... but 'ya don't want none... whatcha gonna
play? GUST BUSTER!!!" You'd have to be
possessed to want to play this crap.
IT'S
ONLY ROCK 'N ROLL: Keith Richards would roll
around in his grave if he saw this poor
text-based band management sim. Wait, he's
not dead? Are you sure?
LEARNING
WITH LEEPER: So let me get this straight... you
want the monster who swallowed space ships whole in
Lunar Leeper to teach little kids to
count?
MOUNTAIN KING: Even
devoted ColecoVision fans would be much better
off swallowing their pride and picking up the 5200
version of this game
instead.
ROLLOVERTURE: It's sort of
like Donkey Kong with a musical theme.
Unfortunately, you'll only get sour notes from this
painful, confusing mess.
SIR
LANCELOT: It's less painful to lance a boil
than to play this miserable Joust clone, chock full of
frustrating gameplay and braindead
enemies.
SLURPY: You'll never step
foot in a 7-11 again after playing this totally
unlikable game, starring the world's most ambiguous hero
and a cast of ugly
monsters. | |
REVIEWS
If it looks like a 2600 game, sounds like
a 2600 game, and smells like a 2600 game, chances are it's... this.
Frogger II: Threedeep! plays well enough, but audiovisually, it's a
giant step back from the first game, with blocky, monocolored
sprites, a tiny title character, and this incredibly crude and
annoying siren which blares when you're almost out of time. And come
to think of it, forget what I said about it playing well, too. The
control's OK, but the CPU often puts you in terribly frustrating
no-win situations which force you to decide between leaping into the
briney deep (in which case you'd be whisked back to the first rou nd
of the game with less time and therefore be at a greater risk of
having to endure the above mentioned siren) or the gaping jaws of
one of the game's many unsavory critters. Frogger II does have its
strong points... there are three rounds of play (including a totally
cool sky scene in which Frogger must leapfrog [!] pelicans and a
pterodactyl on his way to Cloud 9 [or 8 in the later levels...]) and
a cute 1UP in the form of a baby frog (obviously the result of those
encounters with that pink toad in the first game... nice going,
Frogger! :) which you can snatch from a friendly stork as it flies
past. Despite all this, however, Parker Bros. could have done
better. They had a perfectly good opportunity to make this a worthy
sequal to the immensely popular Sega arcade game, but the
presentation just isn't there. If you're desperate for the unique
gameplay of Frogger, but need the variety and expanded play
mechanics that the original just can't offer you, Threedeep might
hold you until there's a grey market bootleg of the prototype Game
Gear version of Frogger.
"I've been waiting a long, long
time for a ColecoVision version of Moon Patrol. I can't wait to pop
this puppy into my system and... What? Matt Patrol? By Selma? Who's
that? And Billiams? Irata!? Oh my gourd, with parodied names like
this, it must be..."
FLYING BRASSIERS!!!
And that it is! As you may or may not
know, FB is the Midnight Special edition of AtariSoft's Moon Patrol
that was altered slightly and passed around the Atari labs as a
geeky programmer's joke. It's really no different from the original
aside from the altered title screen and enemies- the latter range
from Mayan temples to UFOs (Underwear Floating Overhead)- but hey, I
don't own the prototype that Atari intended to release, so I've
gotta review this version.
Well, where do I begin? I was
understandably worried that the ColecoVision couldn't handle a game
like Moon Patrol, since its play mechanics revolve so heavily around
scrolling and this has never been the system's strong point (Time
Pilot, Spy Hunter... need I go on?). Oddly enough, this isn't a
problem in Matt Patrol- not only do the backgrounds scroll smoothly,
but they move in layers just as they did in the 5200 and arcade
versions. They lack the definition and variety of the artwork in
those games, but they're still not bad by CV standards. The sound is
passable... all the music from the Irem coin-op was left intact
(although the orchestration is a little bland in comparison to the
funkier 5200 tunes), and most of the unique sound effects make an
appearance as well.
In respects to gameplay, well, Matt
Patrol is just as frustrating as you remember it (or Moon Patrol,
rather)... there are a lot of tricky jumps to be navigated, and the
bras are as deadly as they are goofy, since they rain down bullets
which can not only make moon dust out of your buggy but blast
inconvenient holes in the oncoming terrain as well. There are some
play elements missing (like those really cool volcanos nestled in
some craters near the end of the beginner's course), and others have
been altered (George Jetson is now behind the wheel of the vehicle
which sneaks up behind you in the championship course), but aside
from those small details and the hostile lingerie fans of Moon
Patrol should be satisfied with this slightly askew version of the
game.
If you loved Konami's Amidar but couldn't
stomach Parker Bros.' weak 2600 translation, this is your game.
Actually, as similar as it is to Amidar, Pepper II is an arcade
translation in itself, based on an elusive Exidy coin-op. In it,
you're a dumpy-looking angel who must zip up territory while
avoiding evil eyes and the especially dangerous Zipper Ripper, a
deadly green head who's faster than your other foes and can unzip
partially secured areas. Luckily, there are objects which can help
defend you... simply zip around a box with a pitchfork inside it and
you become a hungry little demon which can wipe out eyes for bonus
points. Do likewise to a small green diamond and you're similarly
rewarded, although it also acts as a Zipper Ripper repellant which
forces your greatest foe off the screen for a brief period of time.
If things get too hot to handle in one quadrant of the maze, you can
(and must, once you finish a quadrant) skip to another by taking the
exits situated at the four edges of the screen. Finish all four
quadrants and you're given a super bonus as well as a new, more
difficult maze. Rinse, lather, repeat.
If you're into fast, intense action,
you're going to go nuts for Pepper II. A lot of ColecoVision games
start out slowly and pick up as you complete rounds... Pepper II
burns rubber right from the beginning and doesn't let up until you
lose your last life. Because of this, I strongly recommend that you
play the game with a Sega Arcade Pad. It may be a little too
responsive for this particular game, but it's much preferred to
struggling with the standard ColecoVision joyknob. As far as
graphics go, the sprites are all very small, and some of the fill
patterns for areas are a bit noxious, but the layout of the maze is
fairly attractive, and the zippers around the boxes really do look
like zippers. The music and sound effects are more than passable,
though. There's a really neat rendition of the Alfred Hitchcock
theme at the beginning of each game, and there are plenty of weird
noises which make the gameplay even more intense.
If you're a fan of Pac-Man, Amidar, or
even Qix, you'll find a lot to like about Pepper II. Its graphics
won't blow you away, as they don't compare favorably to the artwork
in Konami's two ColecoVision games and aren't even as sharp as the
Exidy original's, but once you start playing it, great graphics will
be the least of your concerns.
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Eek. There's only one game that
comes close to competing with The Yolk's On You for the uncoveted
title of Worst ColecoVision Cartridge Ever, and that would be this
miserably conceived piece of doo. From the pictures, you'd be led to
believe that Gust Buster is an exciting precursor to the GameBoy
sleeper Balloon Kid, but don't be fooled... you have no direct
control over Gust Buster's title character (but you can pump
up the balloons he holds! Whee!), and the gameplay is unforgivably
limited, not that it matters because you'll never be able to deliver
balloons to more than two crowds anyways thanks to the alleged
control. The sound effects are practically nonexistant, and there's
no attempt whatsoever by the designer to veil Gust Buster's many
crippling flaws with inspired or even tolerable graphics. So there
you have it. Gust Buster qualifies unequivocally for The Gameroom
Blitz's Beyond Redemption Award, and as such should be avoided like,
uh, a really bad ColecoVision game (thought I was gonna use a
cliche' there, didn't you? Guess I'm just full of surprises...).
As perverted as the title may seem, this
is just your basic pre-crash billiards sim with nine missing balls.
Despite this and the lack of nude centerfolds congratulating you
after every third round, Video Hustler is a darned good game for a
prototype. It plays fairly well (although I'm not particularly fond
of the method in which the player must align shots. A line coming
from the ball itself would have made a great deal more sense than
the dot that rotates around the edge of the pool table), and the
scoring mechanics are really cool... you get 100 points multiplied
by the number on the face of the ball you sink, times a multiplier
which doubles as you make shots in succession. While this may be a
turn-off to pool purists, it's far more consistant with video game
scoring than giving each player a single point for each successful
shot. Video Hustler doesn't squeeze every last drop of power out of
the ColecoVision as Konami's other two games had- the balls never
rotate (which is especially weird since they're numbered on the
front), and the playfield is pretty dull, but taken as it is (an
unfinished billiards game with some rough edges), Video Hustler is a
competant effort that's easily more fun than, say, Imagic's Trick
Shot. Still, if you're fond enough of the real thing to actually buy
a pool simulation, you're better off with something more advanced,
like Data East's Side Pocket for the NES or Genesis.
Oh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man. This
isn't just a game, it's an event. It's actually better than
the Bally/Midway coin-op which spawned it! I mean, sure, the
graphics aren't quite as polished (although they're very, very good
by ColecoVision standards), but have you tried playing Spy
Hunter with a steering wheel? It's pure hell. Playing an overhead
shooter with the steering column supplied with most Spy Hunter
cabinets makes as much sense as going for a spin in a Ferrari with a
Playstation controller. And the difficulty... ugh. No thanks. I'd
just assume whittle away the wee hours of the night at home with a
Super Controller clutched tightly in both hands and my eyes glued to
the screen while making a menace of myself in the midst of the
oncoming and extremely dangerous traffic. Oh, sure, I could do the
same thing on my NES, but why bother? The graphics are no better and
(like the arcade version) it's just no fun at all. Same goes for the
PC version that's been floating around the Internet. To be fair, it
IS really old, but so is the ColecoVision version, and I'd much
rather be playing the game in 16 colors than four.
As good as it is, however, even Coleco's
translation of Spy Hunter has its faults. First, you can't play it
with a Sega Arcade Pad, which is understandable since only one of
its buttons can be read by the ColecoVision and you've got to have
four to play it. Secondly, the game is still frustrating, though not
nearly as much so as the coin-op. You're almost guaranteed to lose a
life when you go for a whirl in the rivers placed strategically
along the course, since the rival boats place depth charges with
deadly precision, and head-on collisions seem to have random and
completely unreliable effects (the first may kill you while another
could prove completely harmless). And finally, the helicoptor is
nearly impossible to destroy, as it almost always manages to lock
itself into a position where your missiles fly harmlessly over it
(this is especially annoying since it in turn can easily bomb your
sorry butt into the ground from this vantage point). Still, it's as
much fun as anything the NES can dish out in this genre, and next to
Sunsoft's Super Spy Hunter (which is more of an evolved shooter,
with genuine power-ups and really cool special effects that make it
the Gunstar Heroes of NES games), Spy Hunter for the ColecoVision is
the best conversion of the arcade hit you're going to find anywhere.
Incredible attention to detail (you can actually break the guard
rails on bridges by ramming cars into them!), a wonderful rendition
of the Peter Gunn theme (check out that crazy fade just before the
music loops!), solid control, quick gameplay... you just can't go
wrong with Spy Hunter. It ranks up there with Mr. Do!'s Castle and
Galaxian as one of my all-time favorite ColecoVision games, and is a
must have if you own the system, even if it's stuffed away in your
closet or baking in the hot sun awaiting a new home as the prize
item at your garage sale. Whatever's the case, break it out and pop
this puppy in. You'll be glad you did.
Hey, it's all the fun of the first Star
Trek without the bad acting, cheesy special effects, and William
Shatner's rampant libido! What more could you possibly ask for? But
seriously, folks, this is one neat l'il game. It's not nearly as
good as the Vectrex version of Star Trek, but that's forgivable
since that was after all a three-dimensional space battle that had
nothing to do with the Sega arcade game which inspired the other
home versions.
Anyways, I can't tell you if this
compares favorably to Sega's own translations of Star Trek for the
Atari 65XE, 130XE, 400, 800, 800XL, 2600, and 5200 (whew! Well,
actually, I can now that I've repaired the tape of 5200 game
footage I'd received from Digital Press. Don't worry, folks... the
ColecoVision version is far superior to the 5200 and Atari computer
Star Treks, with much better music and ship artwork, although I DID
notice a round in those games that's missing in the ColecoVision
version. That's especially strange since this game IS after all 32K,
twice the size of most carts on the system. But I digress), but what
I do know is that Coleco's own version is a fairly diverting
hybrid of Asteroids and the millions of Star Trek-inspired strategic
simulations that were popular in the early 80's. The interface in
particular is highly reminescent of those primitive text-based
games, with a view screen in the top right corner and the
Enterprise's current condition on the left, but thankfully, the
tedious task of entering paremeters has been replaced with real-time
battles which require quick thinking and reflexes. The Enterprise is
a bit on the sluggish side, yes, and the effect of inertia that made
Asteroids and Sinistar so eerily realistic is sorely missed here,
but hell, anything's an improvement over having to fill out a
freakin' questionnaire every time you want to move.
As for the play mechanics themselves,
they're nothing special, and surprisingly simplistic for a game with
the Star Trek license. You scoot around, pick off Klingons, dock
with space stations (which is anything but difficult, since your
ship stops on a dime and any direct contact with the station will
allow you to siphon its supply of shield and warp energy), and
confront the mine-laying maniac NOMAD at the end of each sector
until the Klingons get wise to you, turn on their patented Star Trek
(tm) brand cloaking devices, ram the hell out of your ship, and
saunter on home to Quo'oth with Captain Kirk's smoking toupee as a
reminder of their victory. As is the case with far too many
ColecoVision games, your death is guaranteed in the later rounds of
Star Trek since the enemies either triple in speed or quantity,
making the game literally impossible. Perhaps the programmers didn't
have enough memory to add a real difficulty ramp with smarter foes,
but it's still no excuse...
One thing Star Trek CAN do, however, is
paint a pretty picture. Beneath the view and status screens is a
wide window that acts as a Kirk's eye view of the action. Engage
with a Klingon warship and the Bird of Prey looms just ahead of you.
Move left or right and your view of the ship shifts accordingly.
Fire a few shots its way and the craft nearly goes supernova in an
explosion not unlike those in Japanese cartoons (y'know, the nuclear
explosions with two long ends and a very bright core? You'd have to
see it...). Ships that blow up real good are a very rare commodity
on the ColecoVision, so that feature in itself is almost enough to
give the game an extra point. But wait! That's not all! Although the
various sound effects range from pleasantly weird to mildly
annoying, the theme music that begins and ends each game is worth
the price of admission for die-hard Trekkies (yes, I said Trekkies.
Bite me. >:). It's surprisingly well orchestrated for a system
with dual sound channels, and includes the fourteen most memorable
notes from the beginning and conclusion of the theme from the Star
Trek television show. The entire tune would have raised my
rating by at least another point, but I'm more than satisfied with
what Coleco had included. After all, the designers could have went
overboard and added the insufferable music that accompanies the
Desilu and Paramount logos at the end of each show...
Bottom line. Star Trek is head and
shoulders above other overhead space sims for the ColecoVision (like
Omega Race and Space Fury, just to name a few), but if you're not a
fan of the show, you won't like this much either. Anyone who's even
mildly interested in the series should at least consider a purchase,
however... it's great Star Trek memorabilia, and for those of you
who'll actually play it, you'll be happy to know that it's
much more fun than Playmates' pathetic Deep Space Nine: Crossroads
of Time for the Genesis.
To its credit, Jungle Hunt is a
reasonably close translation of the Taito sleeper formerly known as
Jungle King, with smoothly scrolling backdrops and acceptable
control, but in comparison to Coleco's own Tarzan, it falls flat in
several respects. First, while each of the game's four rounds is a
complete departure from one another, they're all pretty simplistic,
and your intrepid explorer can only defend himself in one of them
(whereas in Tarzan, you had freedom of movement and a mean left hook
which could be used anywhere, at any time). Next, the artwork is
inconsistant... some of the sprites (like the vines in the first
round) look a great deal like the coin-op originals, but the
backgrounds are either strangely colored, suffer greatly from color
bleed, lack detail, or just look incredibly silly (as was the case
with the surface of the water in the second round... egad! Is this
Jungle Hunt or the Beatles' Yellow Submarine!?). And finally, while
the translation is closer to the arcade version than the excellent
2600 version (there's a little 20th Century Fox-inspired tune that
plays between stages and the last round is much better, with two
onscreen cannibals and a rope which dangles your girlfriend over a
hot cauldron. Cool!), its diving round just isn't as fun, as it
lacks the solid control and neat point labels that pop up after a
crocodile's been stabbed. For these reasons, it's obvious why I
can't recommend this over Coleco's Tarzan, but if you were a fan of
the original and can find this fairly rare release at a garage sale,
it's worth the purchase.
Not a day goes by that I don't question
the collective intellect of the human race for ignoring this gem,
both in the arcades and when the home versions were released. I
liked the first game, Mr. Do!, but this... THIS is a true classic.
Sure, Mr. Do!'s Castle borrows play elements from a wide variety of
other titles, most notably Lode Runner and Donkey Kong, but it
brings them together in a way that no mere clone could, with
luscious graphics, a wonderful soundtrack, and gameplay that stays
fresh no matter how many times you've played it. It's on this note
that I'm proud to say that the ColecoVision version carries on this
tradition, with the great tunes intact and most of the crisp artwork
retained. Yeah, the graphics aren't quite as good as they were in
the arcade version, with monocolored unicorns and tiny sprites, but
by CV standards, they're pretty damned impressive. More importantly,
it's as fun as it was in the arcades... all the neat tricks from the
coin-op version work here as well, and the unicorns (long story...)
are similarly relentless. If you own a ColecoVision, your
collection's just not complete without a copy of Mr. Do!'s Castle.
I had no idea what to expect from
Spectron, and ordered it on my multi-cart (Sean Kelly sells these, by
the way. They're a VERY cheap way of building up a collection,
provided you're not a purist that objects to that kind of thing) in
the hopes that I'd wind up with an addictive shooter along the lines
of, say, Defender or Super Cobra. How disappointed I was to discover
that I was only partially correct in my assumption... Spectron is
definitely a shooter, but it's no Defender clone, and it sure as
hell isn't addictive. It's actually a pretty ho-hum cross between
Imagic's Demon Attack and Space Invaders, with a lot of annoying
flaws that make it pale in comparison to either game. For one,
what's the deal with the barriers? They blanket your line of fire,
and can only be destroyed by the enemies' rain of missiles, making
them a frustrating addition to a game that wasn't much fun to begin
with. The alien touchdowns are similarly annoying- there's no way to
rid yourself of the spawn your enemies leave behind, and in the
later rounds, you're almost guaranteed to be overwhelmed by them. In
short, if you already own Atarisoft's brilliant translation of
Galaxian, there's no reason to bother with this miserably uninspired
Demon Attack rip-off. Pass.
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You're probably not going to see a
review of Yolk's in too many other sites, mainly because 1. It's an
unreleased Fox Games prototype that's available only on Sean Kelly's
multi-carts (so call now and you'll get these fabulous steak knives
at no extra charge! No, that's not right...), and 2. Nobody in their
right minds would bother with this claptrap even if it HAD made it
to store shelves. Mediocre games were always a Fox trademark (and
still are- look at what they did to The Tick on his way to the
Genesis and SNES! But, as usual, I digress...), so you can only
imagine just how bad Yolk's, a game even THEY couldn't release,
really is. The objective is mind-numbingly simple- as a rooster,
roll eggs into a barn and around obstacles like snakes and gopher
holes, all while foxes (I see a pun here) and buzzards try to put
the bite on your Colonel Sanders-approved drumsticks. Unattended
eggs will hatch, and the chicks that emerge will make a break for
the bottom of the screen, making your task that much harder. And...
well, that's it. You get an unlimited number of roosters, and the
game won't end until all the eggs have been rescued or broken, so
there's no incentive in playing it more than once. The graphics and
audio don't help matters much: the barnyard artwork is well done,
but every character except the rooster is monocolored, and the
game's two (yes, two!) sound effects become grating fast. If you're
a collector, this is a fab find, but from a player's point of view,
The Yolk's On You is as nauseating as a full-blown case of
salmonella. Avoid it at all costs.
Perhaps the weirdest Pac-Man derivitive
available for the system, Oil's Well puts you behind the controls of
a munching drill bit which must suck up eight rounds worth of crude
oil deposits (represented by- surprise! Suspiciously familar white
pellets!). There are bonus prizes and deadly monsters a'la Pac-Man
as well, but unlike Namco's game, the latter can be dispatched at
any time with the voracious mouth of your drill bit... however, the
hose that connects that bit to the surface must remain intact. If a
monster severs it, the whole refinery goes up in smoke and you lose
a life. Your unseen nemesis from a rival oil refinery also shuttles
land mines through the tunnels, and if the tip of the bit takes a
bite out of one of these, you lose a life as well. This all seems
simple enough, but there's just one problem... the hose itself works
against you as well. It blocks off paths you've already used, and
the more you move, the greater a risk you take of its being severed,
so what do you do? Retract it, of course! This has got to be by far
the coolest part of Oil's Well... simply hold down a button and your
drill bit zips back to the top of the screen in the blink of an eye.
This makes avoiding enemies a cinch, or it would, if it weren't for
the fact that so many monsters patrol the tunnels, and that there's
a timer. You just can't sit around waiting for an empty corridor-
you've got to take risks, and lots of them, to ensure success. It's
definately a challenge, although the imprecise control contributes
to the game's difficulty- the drill bit has a nasty habit of
overshooting one tunnel and heading into another when two are close
by, and this often proves fatal in the later rounds. Still, if
you're a ColecoVision fan who's dying for a unique Pac-Man clone,
Oil's Well is a worthy purchase (me, I'd go for the redone IBM
version, if just for its cute Petrosaur intermissions...).
The boys at Parker Bros. really knew how
to crank out the hits, didn't they? If only that were still the
case... Anyways, this is arguably the best home version of Frogger
available. It's much better than the Intellivision and 2600
adaptations of Sega's smash hit, and to this day outperforms lame-o
shareware clones like Kurt Dekker's Revenge of Frogger. That's not
to say that the game is a carbon copy of the coin-op... there are a
lot of missing soundtracks (which Starpath's Official Frogger for
the 2600 and Supercharger add-on retained, surprisingly enough), and
the game description screen is gone, but as far as play mechanics
go, everything from the otters to the cars which pick up speed as
the round progresses seems intact. Plus, the control is dead on with
a Sega Arcade Pad (no knobby hellsticks for me, thanks...), making
this Frogger the penultimate version for true fans of the coin-op.
I said it once (about Coleco's lazy
coversion of Gorf... a conversion disorder would have been less
painful) and I'll say it again... arcade translation, my ass! After
having played this miserable excuse for Omega Race I just have to
wonder if the programmers even came within twenty miles of the
actual arcade games before designing Gorf and this mess. "Well, what
did you expect, man!? 'Omega Race' was a coin-op with vector
graphics, and the ColecoVision raster scans its artwork... you do
the math!" Ah, my friend, if only it were so simple. You see,
Commodore released a version of Omega Race for its VIC-20 computer,
a machine with a meager 5K of RAM, and somehow, their translation
mirrored the coin-op in every respect and even improved upon it with
user-definable color schemes and two controller options. The
ColecoVision version, however, had 16K to work with but offers none
of these features. The programmers didn't even TRY to duplicate the
line-based artwork of the arcade version of Omega Race, and MAN,
does it show... the game looks like you're blasting bacteria on a
pool table! The sound effects have lost the menace that made the
original so intense, too... they've got that Coleco brand high pitch
to them that ruins any hope of evoking a sense of urgency from the
player, and the music that plays during Droid Force Eliminated
notices is so silly it's guaranteed to make Omega Race purists
retch. And don't even bring up the control- sixteen directions in
which your ship can fire? Thrusting inertia straight out of a
feature film on MST3K? What the hell is THAT all about!? Suffice it
to say that this is as translations go the least faithful I've
played on just about any home console... hell, I thought Tiger did a
better job capturing the feel of Double Dragon 2 on those crappy
handhelds it sells than Coleco did with this and Gorf! Geez.
Anyways, below is a picture of the REAL Omega Race... savor it, 'cuz
ColecoVision owners will never get a chance to enjoy the game as
Midway intended...
Yup, it's yet another in a long, long
line of Micro-Fun carts with kooky box art that's more entertaining
than the game itself. From the drawing on the front of this
particular title, you'd expect to control a dashing museum thief
with a thick British accent and a cleft chin that puts the Tick's to
shame, but nooo... in an act of pure malevolence, designer Mike
Livesay pulled the old bait and switch and replaced him with some
schmo who bears a striking resemblence to Jim Varney from those
Ernest films. Whoever he is, you've got to guide him through an art
gallery filled to the brim with ugly paintings (modern art,
perhaps?). Steal 'em all within the alloted time and you ride an
elevator to a new, more menacing round with more security robots and
deadly laser walls (hell, if I owned pictures that looked like the
ones in this game, I'd pay the guy to TAKE them instead of wasting
all my money on nifty theft deterrant gadgets. But again, I
digress...). Pretty simple as far as concepts go, but there's a
little more to The Heist than most games for the ColecoVision.
You've got to hunt down keys for doors, ride escalators and
elevators, and use the keys you've collected in the most logical
order to progress, which would be great if it weren't for the fact
that none of it is much fun for more than five minutes. I dunno- if
you're tired of blasting the same clich'ed aliens, jumping the same
tired barrels, and munching the same bland fruits the ColecoVision
has to offer, this may appeal, but if it's all the same to you, I'd
just assume stick with the similar but more involving Montezuma's
Revenge.
The Cabbage Patch Kids were definately an
80's icon, perhaps more so than the mighty ColecoVision (Say it
ain't so! I wish I could...), so it's no surprise that Coleco would
combine the two for the ultimate merchandising gimmick. I mean,
think about it! The Cabbage Patch Kids and ColecoVision go together
like oil spills and the Exxon Valdez! Like whipped cream and hot
dogs! Like Peter Gabriel and the Chinese government! Like... Like,
hand me one of those slices of pizza, Scoob! Ry, rure Raggy! OK, I'm
done trying to be funny (and not succeeding). It actually sounds
like a stupid combination, but thanks to the efforts of everyone's
favorite Japanese game design firm of the 80's, it came together
rather nicely. Imagine Hudson's Adventure Island without the axes,
bosses, or scrolling screens (OK, imagine Pitfall! with much better
graphics) and that's Cabbage Patch Kids: Adventures in the Park. The
graphics are up to Konami's typically excellent standards (good),
and are accompanied by a fair rendition of the children's tune Three
Little Indians (not so good. I mean, they orchestrated it well, but
when it plays over and over and over and over and over again until
your ears bleed and you climb a bell tower with a shotgun screaming,
"Die, little Indians! DIE!!! MOO HOO HA HA HA!!!!", you know they
should have diversified the soundtrack just a teensy weensy bit more
than they did. Actually, the Three Little Indians tune plays
between rounds... the game's theme music is more generic but
almost as annoying after it loops for the 22nd time. Sorry 'bout the
confusion...). Of course, the gameplay is tops as well... the title
character is as easy to manipulate as your parents were in 1983 when
they spent weeks hunting down one of those blasted dolls for your
whiny kid sister. So, you're no doubt asking by now, what's the deal
with the turbo edition label at the beginning of your review? That's
there for two reasons: one, this is a review of Konami's prototype
version (don't worry... besides a name change from nothing to Anna
[Nicole Smith? Tomic?] Lee for the title character, it's really no
different from the production copy), and two, the game really DOES
have the capacity for turbo speed. Buy a ColecoVision Super
Controller and while you play, thumb the roller dial as quickly as
you can. You'll notice that the gameplay picks up accordingly. And
oh yeah, this works on Antarctic Adventure and the unreleased Video
Hustler as well... >:) |
