Atari 2600 Reviews C

So many classic systems feature a game with clowns bouncing on a teeter-totter, and scientists have never been able to determine why. Circus Atari brings back a lot of old memories. I recall talking my mom into driving me to the local discount store so I buy this for $22, mainly because I wanted a game to play with my paddle controllers. The idea is to vault two clowns high enough to pop three rows of balloons moving quickly across the top of the screen. The paddles provide precision control, and the fire button can be used to flip the teeter-totter at any time. The higher balloons are worth more points, and clearing the top row will earn you an extra life. Those square balloons look pretty awful, by the way. Of the eight variations, several incorporate moving barriers. While these barriers often deflect your clown directly back, they also tend to keep him bouncing around up top longer, so I guess it's a wash. You have to feel a little sorry for the clowns in this game. Clearly they had no idea what they had signed up for. I'm sure they were happy just to get a job, but they failed to inquire about the very real possibility of death-by-concrete. I notice the clowns get a little nervous when they see me drinking a few beers and my response times are a little off. It's a hard-knock life, but people find it hilarious when a clown splatters on the ground, legs still kicking. It's like a low-definition fatality! I enjoy the frantic nature of the game, but have you noticed how the action always tends to gravitate towards the right side of the screen? I don't like that. Few would consider Circus Atari a great game, but its fast action puts your reflexes to the test. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

Shallow but fun, Coconuts is one of those simple pleasures of the Atari 2600 not unlike Kaboom! (Activision, 1981). You simply move left and right while avoiding a monkey dropping brown objects from the trees above. Are we really supposed to believe those are coconuts? Digested coconuts maybe! Between rounds the monkey appears to be vigorously rubbing something in the leaves of the palm trees. An incontinent monkey is one thing, but incontinent and horny? I'm not having it. You control a dorky guy who is one of the larger characters I've seen in an Atari 2600 game. He's not the most masculine dude prancing around in his yellow hat, blue shorts, brown shoes, and umbrella. The first sustained hit removes his umbrella, followed by his hat, and then his pants. Just kidding - the game ends on the third hit. His movements are choppy and that flashing "leg" is hardly a convincing "walking" animation. The monkey is meticulously rendered with a smiling face, moving tail, and even a belly button. Heck, you can even see the whites of his eyes! I'm pretty sure this monkey is demonic, and frankly, I'm getting a little tired of taking his crap! You'll sleepwalk through first few waves, but once things pick up steam the action gets frantic. The monkey's timing is erratic and objects don't always fall directly from above. During later rounds I'm convinced luck plays more of a role than skill. Considering this is basically Kaboom in reverse, I'm surprised the game doesn't support paddle controllers. Coconuts may be the simplest game I've ever played (including Pong), but its manual is still better than Call of Duty Ghosts, Assassin's Creed 4, or any other modern game I've played as of late! © Copyright 2014 The Video Game Critic.

With its sloppy animation, minimal variations, and Xerox-quality instruction manual, you can tell Activision was just going through the motions with this one. Commando is a one-man-army game in the same vein as Ikari Warriors (NES, 1986) and Rambo: First Blood Part 2 (Sega Master System, 1986). This game is playable but far less thrilling than the aforementioned titles. As your commando forges up a vertically-scrolling screen, he engages enemies while advancing on a fortress. Commando's graphics aren't bad, with well-defined soldiers and scattered palm trees. Your character is easy enough to control, and beside normal shots, you can hold down the fire button to lob grenades. While detonated grenades make an audible "boom", the lack of a visual explosion is disappointing. The shoot-outs are mediocre as well, often playing out like mini games of cat and mouse. Bullets only travel a fixed distance (about half the screen) and you can actually outrun them! Please kids, don't try this at home! Enemy bullets also have the strange characteristic of not being able to travel in a straight line! The collision detection is suspect as well. I can only assume that the shot that passed through my head missed all vital organs. I hate the way enemies soldiers materialize out of nowhere, often right next to you! In advanced stages you must avoid trucks that cross the screen, but the execution is so sloppy that it looks like an afterthought. Once you finally infiltrate the fortress at the end of each stage, it appears to explode just as you enter, and it's unintentionally hilarious! Commando's audio features a little marching ditty that repeats over and over. I usually like this style of game, but Commando feels like a half-hearted effort. © Copyright 2006 The Video Game Critic.

Despite the campy title, Communist Mutants From Space is a first-rate shooter. It was originally one of several cassette-based titles designed to be loaded via the "Supercharger" device. Fortunately, you can now conveniently find them all on the "Stella Gets A New Brain CD" (highly recommended). Communist Mutant's graphics are exceptional, with animated aliens that assume a variety of shapes, and a large, hideous mother alien. The game resembles Galaxian, with its formation of alien "eggs" lined across the top of the screen, and a mother (who resembles a centipede) constantly replenishing them. As you might guess, it's a good idea to destroy her as soon as possible. Although the eggs look like simple squares, they transform into full-grown aliens that swoop down and drop bombs. The onslaught can become fairly intense, but you have two defense mechanisms at your disposal. Pushing forward on the joystick activates the innovative "time warp", which slows the alien assault to a crawl without affecting your movements. Pulling back on the joystick activates a temporary shield, making you temporarily invincible. These are recharged each wave, and you can even use them in conjunction, so apply them liberally. But the most impressive feature of Communist Mutants is its rich options menu - very unusual for a 2600 game! Here you can select the number of players (1-4 alternating) and difficulty level (1-9), as well as toggling the shields, time warp, guided missiles, and penetrating fire options. Space Invader's and its 112 game variations have nothing on Communist Mutants From Space! The game even displays the high scores! Mutant's single blemish is the excessive number of lives you're allotted. You begin with five, and then receive an extra life after each wave. Why didn't they make that adjustable? This proliferation of lives waters down the challenge, but overall this game is no joke. © Copyright 2006 The Video Game Critic.

The original version of Conquest of Mars was a slick homebrew with an Achilles heel. Specifically its "laser gates" stage was practically insurmountable, ruining an otherwise impressive effort. The author advised me that the issue was quickly rectified in this "version 2". Atari veterans will recognize Conquest as a remake of Caverns of Mars (Atari XE, 1981), and they would be right. In the first stage you blast fuel tanks and rockets while descending through craggy red passages. I find it interesting how video games let you gain fuel by blowing up fuel depots. Since when did this make any sense? I certainly wouldn't blow up the local Shell station when I need a tank of gas, and I'm not going to torch a nearby 7-11 when I want a Big Bite hot dog. The second stage puts you on the defensive as you dodge a barrage of rockets flying up the screen. This stage is hard as balls, but if you keep shooting you'll have a chance. In the third stage you need to dodge laser gates which turn on in timed intervals. Unlike the original version I reviewed, the gate locations are marked by rock indentations, which makes all the difference. The stage is still tough but hardly impossible. In the next stage you plant a bomb and thrust up the caverns to escape as time counts down. The graphics are blocky but well-defined and smoothly animated. The collision detection and controls are dead on. You fire parallel shots and can effectively strafe the ledges. Your ship's speed is determined by how close it is to the top or bottom of the screen. Conquest of Mars contains a lot of extra features lacking in Caverns of Mars, including different cave layouts, additional sounds, bonuses, continues, and an ending. I was never a big fan of Caverns, but this remake has a lot going for it. © Copyright 2014 The Video Game Critic.

Some claim that Cosmic Ark was the first console video game sequel. If you've ever played Imagic's Atlantis, you'll recall how a flying saucer escapes the doomed city at the end of each game. Well, Cosmic Ark picks up where that game left off, chronicling the subsequent space adventures of those Atlantis survivors. The game alternates between two screens. In the first, your mothership is situated in the center, and you shoot meteors approaching from all sides by moving the joystick up, down, left, or right. As a kid, I remember thinking this screen looked so lame. Not only do the meteors always approach from perfect 90 degree angles, but they slow down just before hitting your ship (to make the game easier no doubt). After shooting about a dozen meteors, your ship descends on an alien planet with two small "beasties" scurrying along the surface. There are different sets of creatures on each planet, and despite their tiny size, they are exceptionally well-animated and imaginative in design. Your mother ship on the upper part of the screen deploys a small saucer (yep - the one from Atlantis) to pick up these strange creatures. To perform the abduction, you hover over each one and hold down the fire button to engage your "tractor beam". It looks cool as they're lifted from the surface, but keep an eye out for lasers that shoot horizontally across the screen. You have a fixed amount of time to perform your mission before returning to the mother ship. Cosmic Ark suffers from uneven difficulty. In the standard mode, it's far too easy and you can play almost indefinitely. On the other hand, the "advanced" mode is nearly impossible. You'll need the reflexes of a cat to fend off the incoming meteors, and the laser beams on the planet surface require pure luck to avoid. I do find it amusing how when the game ends, the flying saucer once again manages to escape, just in case a third game was necessary (it wasn't). © Copyright 2004 The Video Game Critic.

I first heard about this hard-to-find game through a magazine called Atari Age in the early 80's. Crazy Climber was an "exclusive" title available to Atari Age members only, although you still had to shell out 30 bucks for the friggin' thing! Allegedly based on a "hit" arcade game I had never heard of, the magazine gave it a glowing review (no surprise there). Crazy Climber involves methodically scaling a series of buildings while avoiding various hazards. The game's control scheme is quite innovative, as you push up on the joystick to reach for the next ledge, and then pull back to pull yourself up. You'll want to use a nice arcade-style joystick since the constant rocking motion can tire your arm. The buildings have rows of windows that open and close randomly. If they shut on your fingers you'll fall, but you won't actually lose any progress. Besides the windows, you'll need to keep an eye out for falling flower pots, girders, egg-dropping condors, and neon lights with electrical shorts. Reach the top of the building and you're picked up by a helicopter and awarded bonus points. Crazy Climber sounds better than it plays. To avoid costly mistakes you need to be patient and proceed slowly and cautiously. Four buildings are included, but except for the colors they all look pretty much alike. Your climber is large and nicely animated so you can always see where his hands are, but that green and pink outfit has got to go. It never lived up to the hype, but Crazy Climber is still a solid, well-programmed game. It was never widely distributed, and as a result it's now very rare and highly sought after by collectors. © Copyright 2004 The Video Game Critic.

I used to believe that even a primitive first-person dungeon crawler could still be enjoyable if you had enough patience and tolerance for "abstract" (read: bad) graphics. But Crypts of Chaos has disproven my theory. I tried to give it a fair chance, but I just couldn't get into this. Back in the early 80's, being able to freely explore 3D dungeons while fighting monsters and plundering treasure was a gamer's dream. Fox probably did the best it could with the technology available, but that doesn't make Crypts of Chaos any less painful to play. As you slowly crawl down blocky hallways, the intersections, dead-ends, and stairs are represented by unintuitive colors and confusing screen designs. According to the instructions, there are 16 floors and four different maze configurations, but I never really had any idea where I was. The manual recommends "mapping" as you go along, which in of itself practically justifies a failing grade! Periodically a tiny monster emerges as a pixel in the distance - even when you're facing at a dead end, oddly enough. The creature eventually materializes into a small, blocky creature that doesn't appear to be more than a foot in height. How small does a dragon have to be before it's just considered a lizard? Then there's the awkward user interface that uses the same joystick to move AND select icons. For weapons, you can arm your sword (short line), wand (long line), or ring (smart bomb). Three other icons let you choose between grabbing treasure, turning away a monster, and making a U-turn. There was a time when I might have given Crypts of Chaos the benefit of the doubt, but those days have passed. This is practically unbearable. © Copyright 2005 The Video Game Critic.