Atari 2600 Reviews Sa-Se

Yet another ill-fated 2600 project shelved in the mid 80's, Saboteur was consequently "lost" for many years. But thanks to the good people at AtariAge, you can now purchase this interesting shooter in its finished form. Saboteur has engaging gameplay and is quite sophisticated as well. You play the role of a robot attempting to stop an evil race from constructing a missile.

The first screen is divided into six layers, with your robot situated in the center. Various "slave" robots and Yar flies (!) scurry above and below, systematically building a huge missile on the right side of the screen. You can fire in eight directions, but try not to shoot the yellow birds, since they actually slow the missile construction.

The second screen is wide open, with a wandering "master robot" (which looks like a mask from Crash Bandicoot) and a conveyor belt along the bottom. By deflecting laser blasts off the master robot, you can indirectly destroy missile parts on the conveyor belt below. Should you not destroy all the parts in time, the third screen gives you a final chance to destroy the warhead as it's being launched.

Saboteur features nice graphics, original gameplay, and five levels of challenge. But despite having so much going for it, the game as a whole lacks excitement and comes off as somewhat flat. Maybe that's why it was never released in the first place. Still, Atari 2600 collectors should be grateful that this old gem has finally seen the light of day. © Copyright 2004 The Video Game Critic.

Although released for the first time during the 2002 Classic Gaming Expo, Save The Whales is actually an old, unreleased Fox title from 1983. To be honest, it looks and plays like a bargain bin title with its simple graphics and shallow gameplay. You guide a sub around the middle of the screen, just above a school of colored whales. As a tanker on the ocean surface drops nets from above, you must destroy them in order to protect the whales.

The graphics are pretty standard, although the black puffs of smoke emitted from the tanker's smokestack really caught my eye. There are four speed settings and two-player modes that let a friend control the tanker. Setting the difficulty to 'A' changes the nets to harpoons, which are supposed to be harder to shoot, but I did not find that to be the case. Save The Whales is fast moving and difficult, and positioning your sub is key.

The worst part of the game has to be the "radioactive flotsam" that comb the screen between rounds. Although meant to add variety, these blobs are easy to shoot and just plain annoying. Overall, Save The Whales is a mildly amusing little game. I wouldn't call it a lost treasure, but 2600 fans should appreciate this little piece of the past. Personally, I would have given this a more imaginative title, like "Save The Whales - For Me!!" © Copyright 2002 The Video Game Critic.

Scuba Diver introduces itself with a cringey tune that sounds like an off-key nursery rhyme. It tends to undermine the sense of thrill and excitement one gets when about to embark on a harrowing deep sea adventure. Scuba Diver's graphics would have Jacques Cousteau spinning in his grave. That ridiculous pink "fish" is going to give Atari 2600 graphics a bad name! Umm... moreso... In fairness, I could tell the stingray was a stingray.

Playing Scuba Diver is an exercise in aggravation. You begin in a boat on the top of the screen and can leap off either side. The thing is, you have zero control until you've sunk like a rock more than half-way down the screen. That's a problem because the fish are fatal to touch and their movements are unpredictable. Trying to thread this needle is frustratingly difficult. You'll lose most of your lives by brushing up against a pixelated fish on the way down.

Should you manage to regain control of your diver, your goal is to shoot the three fish with your harpoon gun. When you fire that thing you had better hit your target right in the nose or it will just sail right past. Since you're incapacitated while the harpoon is in flight, you're basically chum at this point. When you do hit a fish dead-on, it looks like the harpoon is burrowing into its skull!

Kill all three fish and you're granted entrance in that a green pixelated "ship" at the bottom of the screen. This takes you to a separate maze screen with treasure along the bottom, mostly embedded in walls. This screen is patrolled by some jellyfish "monsters". The tight constraints of the maze combined with bad controls ensure your death will be swift and unfair. Then it's back to the first screen.

Scuba Diver is about as pleasant as a case of the bends. Even when you know exactly what to do the controls let you down again and again. I think the scoring is broken too; whenever my game ends it always says zero at the bottom. Maybe it's just trying to indicate how much this game is really worth. Ouch! Note: This game was also released by Froggo under the name Sea Hunt. © Copyright 2023 The Video Game Critic.

Back when I first started (re)collecting Atari games in the late 90's, I noticed Froggo was regarded as kind of a joke. The company was known for publishing low-quality shovelware that other companies wouldn't bother with. Now that I'm doing re-reviews however, I'll try to set aside the stigma and judge these games on their own merits.

Sea Hawk puts you in control of a fighter jet flying over open water, attempting to destroy as many helicopters and battleships as possible. Enemies can fire back, and the helicopters move in schizophrenic patterns similar to Chopper Command (Activision, 1982)

Sea Hawk is almost good. It checks off a lot of boxes with its shimmering blue water, a bright blue sky, pink horizon, and flicker-free graphics. Your plane can either fire forward at enemy helicopters or drop bombs on enemy ships. To fire missiles you need to hold the joystick forward while pressing the button, which is awkward. As you repeatedly shoot at fluttering copters you're slowly gravitating towards them. Eventually you're looking at either colliding with them or retreating to give yourself more room. Either prospect is not good!

The bombing is more interesting, but you can only do it near the bottom of the screen. When skimming the water you can drop them rapidly, allowing you to basically carpet-bomb enemy ships. Just be careful not to bomb your own ships (the red ones). Incidentally it's also possible to "bomb" enemy helicopters if they are slightly below you.

When you get shot down, a little parachute appears, and should you guide your pilot to a friendly boat, you won't lose a life. Not that lives are so hard to come by, considering you begin with eight. Other than that clever twist, this is a fairly repetitive, by-the-numbers shooter. Note: Originally released by Panda in 1983. © Copyright 2025 The Video Game Critic.

Sea Hunt begins with a guy in a boat at the top of the screen. The water below is teeming with colorful, pixelated fish and even a manta ray. On the seafloor lies a blocky wreck just waiting to be plundered. Turtles stroll by and seaweed sways in the current. This game is perfect for the summer, but is it any good?

Sea Hunt kicks off with a cringey tune that sounds like a twisted nursery rhyme. The first thing you must do is jump into the water without dying. It sounds simple enough, but believe me when I tell you it's the hardest thing in the world. You can jump off the left or right side, but you'll want to make absolutely certain there's nothing swimming in the vicinity. You can't control your diver during his descent, and any contact spells instant death.

Most of the time you'll die because the fish are large and move erratically. Just when it looks like the coast is clear, one will turn on a dime and snag you. This game will have you slapping that reset switch like a pimp!

On the off-chance you survive, things get a little more interesting. You must clear out the fish with a harpoon gun before entering the wreck. It's tough because you need to nail each one dead in the nose to reel it in. You can't move when your harpoon is deployed, so if your shot is off by a pixel you're a sitting duck.

Entering the wreck takes you to a second screen. In this one you need to collect three treasures while avoiding roving crab monsters. It's nothing fancy but just the fact that the game has two screens gives it some street cred. Return the treasure back to your boat and you're finally awarded some points for your efforts. So many points in fact that I didn't think they would ever stop tallying!

Sea Hunt is one of those sketchy games that can still be addictive when approached on its own terms. It's extremely rough around the edges but its deceptively simple gameplay is monumentally hard to resist. Note: This game was also released by Panda under the name Scuba Diver. © Copyright 2025 The Video Game Critic.

Yet another expertly-programmed Activision game, Seaquest is a sight to behold. The bright blue water, red sunset, and crisp graphics are incredibly inviting. The game offers some engaging, albeit repetitive, rapid-fire submarine action. Manning a yellow sub, you must rescue lost divers being chased by sharks. The blue divers look funny as they kick frantically with jaw-snapping sharks on their heels. You'll also have to contend with gray submarines that fire torpedoes.

Your sub can carry up to five divers at a time, and considering they are nearly as large as your sub, you wonder how they can all fit in the thing! It's like the clown car of the ocean! Your oxygen is limited, but that's rarely a factor. What is a factor is the small, unassuming ship patrolling above. He looks friendly enough, but that son of a [expletive] will try to ram your ass when you surface! Bastard!!

I love Seaquest's bright visuals and crisp controls, but its gameplay gets old in a hurry, and not necessarily due to the difficulty level. No, it's the extra ships you get at every 10K that water down the challenge and drag things out. Still, Seaquest is an appealing title that gets by mainly on the strength of its good looks. © Copyright 2009 The Video Game Critic.

In Seaweed Assault you guide a white "submarine" around a blue screen while shooting green blocks (seaweed) that appear at random. Since when do submarines have flippers? Touching a block of seaweed harms you (for reasons unknown) and if you linger in one place for too long a psychotic piece of seaweed will reach up from the bottom of the screen. Occasionally a jellyfish thing that looks like a crown moves down the screen, and you need to avoid that.

There's really not much to this game. The green blocks are likely to remind many of Worm War I. The controls are slippery, making it hard to aim with precision. Despite its shallow nature, there is some subtle strategy. If your missile passes through multiple blocks of seaweed, their subsequent point values increase.

It's actually a good idea to let the screen fill in a little bit, adding a risk-versus-reward element. Seaweed Assault needs a difficulty select in the worst way. I got tired of biding my time while waiting for the challenge to kick in. On a positive note, the programmer seems to know what he's doing so hopefully this is just a precursor of better things to come. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

If you're a retro gamer there's a good chance you already have a few titles like Seawolf in your collection. The screen layout features an ocean rendered in gradients of blue with the "deeper" blues at the bottom (naturally). Your ship moves along the lower edge firing torpedoes upward. Since your shots are slow you have to "lead" them past layers of mines and into the hulls of ships crossing above. Games like this tend to be sluggish and plodding but Seawolf is not.

For one thing, you can fire up to three shots at a time (!) which radically alters the complexion of the game. It lets you effectively "spray" your shots instead of having to aim with surgical precision. Running out of torpedoes costs you a ship but refill caches usually appear when you run low. Seawolf offers an excellent variety of targets including frigates, speedboats, destroyers, and subs that sink below the surface. There are even iron-hulled ships that deflect your shots back at you!

As the game progresses the tempo picks up with shots and explosions all over the place. Unfortunately the fun hits a wall around the 5K mark. At that point ships are moving so fast you lose the ability to aim, so you just fire randomly hoping they run into your torpedoes. Seawolf is an expertly-programmed title but I think its well-worn maritime formula has been pushed just about as far as it can possibly go. © Copyright 2020 The Video Game Critic.

Programmed by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Secret Quest pushes the 2600 to its limits. It's too bad this fine little adventure is a secret to most 2600 owners. Your mission is to blow up a series of space stations. To do this, you'll collect weapons and keys, fight monsters, maintain your oxygen and energy, discover a detonation code, detonate a bomb, and escape through a transporter. The space stations also include traps, teleporters, and 16 different types of monsters!

The characters are nicely animated and flicker-free. By flipping the black/white switch on the console you can consult a status screen which lets you know how you're doing. On top of all that, you are provided a symbolic "password" code that allows you to save and reload your game in progress! No question about it, there's a lot crammed into this cartridge. Three things detract from the fun. First, the rooms are all generic squares.

Next, the size of the stations in later stages are so large that you'll actually need to draw a map to keep track of your position in the maze. That kind of sucks. Finally, the detonation and save codes are displayed in fancy symbols that are difficult to remember (or even write down, for that matter). As a technical achievement, Secret Quest is outstanding, but as a gaming experience, it's only very good. © Copyright 1999 The Video Game Critic.

Here it is: the one and only lightgun game for the Atari 2600! It also happens to be one of the most repetitive, mind-numbing shooters I've ever had the displeasure to experience. I normally dig light gun games, but Sentinel is so uninspired and generic that it's practically disgusting. The uninspired graphics include a large "orb" floating above a sparse planet surface. Your job is to protect the orb by shooting approaching objects of various shapes.

Some enemies fire missiles, but you can shoot those down as well. "Smart" bombs (which destroy all enemies) are initiated by shooting the orb itself, which makes absolutely no sense. Bosses appear at the end of each level, but they all look the same and require little strategy to defeat. Sentinel requires the Atari XE light gun, which is fairly responsive but fires slightly to the right of where you're aiming.

The stages are excessively long and boring, and a skill level select is needed in the worst way. Sentinel becomes somewhat challenging by the third stage, but by then your trigger finger will be aching terribly. I actually had to switch hands just to soothe my cramping muscles. This game is awful. If not for the physical pain it inflicts upon you, Sentinel would be completely forgettable. © Copyright 2004 The Video Game Critic.