Atari 5200 Reviews F-L

Whenever one of my friends tries this, the first words out of their mouths is always "Dave, I can't play this - the controller's broken". We should be so lucky. In the arcade, Galaxian was an excellent Space Invaders-style shooter, but this Atari 5200 conversion is positively half-assed. The graphics look pretty nice with a multi-colored cannon at the bottom of the screen, and crisp, colorful aliens on top. Too bad the yellow "boss" ships look like the rest, instead of assuming the "Y" shape they have in the arcade. The explosions are meager, but keep an eye out for the mysterious "Atari" symbol that sometimes appears. The controls are fairly horrible. Your cannon slides continuously from side-to-side, so you end up spraying missiles in a desperate attempt to hit something. Thank God you can hold down the fire button to shoot continuously. As if to compensate for the lousy controls, aliens often fly sideways across the screen or even pause momentarily, making them sitting ducks. Galaxian also has its share of technical issues including rampant slow-down and fishy collision detection, although these often work to your advantage. The crude audio effects are another black eye. The rhythmic "cadence" sounds like a constipated robot, and the explosions sound like rubber bands and trashcan lids. Once you get on a roll, it sounds like you're beating up the black guy from the Police Academy movies! After my original disparaging review of this game, a thoughtful reader informed me that I should play this using the track-ball controller. I'm glad I did, because the track-ball provides a fine degree of precision that even surpasses the arcade game! In fact, if you own one of these massive controllers, you can safely bump up the grade by not one but two whole letter grades! On a side note, my friend Mike taught me an alternate way of playing Galaxian - by not shooting at all! That's right, this "boogie style" of play is done by touching the missile on the tip of your cannon to oncoming aliens. Now there's a challenge! © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

When the sun gets hot and the days grow long, a man's mind turns to thoughts of Gorf. This classic arcade hit features four stages of space-shooting mayhem. The first two are variations of Space Invaders and Galaxian, followed by a third "black hole" stage, and culminating with a boss encounter featuring a mother ship moving side-to-side as you blast its hull. There's plenty of game here, so stick the cartridge into your console, hit of the power button, and prepare to have all of your hopes and dreams shattered. Playing Gorf on the 5200 is like trying to play basketball in a hockey rink. I'm not sure who to blame for this abomination: Atari or CBS. On one hand, the wishy-washy Atari 5200 joystick is poorly suited to a shooter like this (or most other video games for that matter). On the other hand, CBS seemed to buy into the controller's weaknesses by giving the game the weirdest sort of analog control. When the stick is centered, your cannon sits in the center of the screen (more or less). Moving it slightly lets you meander around the center, and pushing the stick hard to either side moves it against the edge of the screen. Your movements tend to be fast and jittery, making it difficult to aim. Lacking any sort of precision, I often found myself slamming into enemy missiles or hugging the edge of the screen. Worst of all, this just doesn't feel like Gorf. The graphics aren't particularly impressive, and I noticed glitches related to both the visuals and collision detection. In the first stage, the shield disappears when you hold down the fire button, which is totally wrong. In the arcade, you poked holes in the shield. A lot of liberties were taken, and none for the better. And what happened to the trademark "My Name Is Gorf" voice synthesis? Where is that distinctive sound effect between the stages? By the time I was done with Gorf I don't know what hurt worse: my twisted, contorted hands or my broken heart. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

This game really fills a void in the Atari 5200 library, considering there aren't many adventures for the system (much less scary ones). Haunted House II 3D is an expanded version of the original Atari 2600 game. The graphics are better and the house is larger, but the basic premise remains the same. You control a pair of square eyes, trying to collect all the treasures in the house and get the heck out of there. You can light a candle by pressing a button, which will reveal any hidden objects lying around. As you wander through the house, you will encounter spiders, bats, skeletons, and ghosts. Their movements are unpredictable, but they don't pursue you from room to room. Sometimes one will appear from out of nowhere -- which is not fair at all. A sword is available for protection, but you can't collect items while holding it. So what is the "3D" all about? Actually, it's a bit of a stretch. Unlike the original Haunted House, each screen is a separate room (there's no scrolling) with psuedo-3D walls and doors in the background. But it's just eye candy - the gameplay is still completely 2D. As a matter of fact, the "rendered" rooms are more confusing than anything else. Haunted House II is challenging, but it's not polished enough to merit an average grade. Graphical break-up, hit-and-miss collision detection, and inconsistent speed all hamper the action. One minute you're flying around the screen, then suddenly you've slowed to a crawl. Sound effects include footsteps and thunder, but these are sloppy. Haunted House II 3D does deliver in terms of challenge. There are two houses to complete, and just trying to finish the first one kept me playing for quite a while. © Copyright 2002 The Video Game Critic.

When I frequented my local arcades in 1982 I pumped a lot of quarters into a game called Jungle King. This home version was renamed Jungle Hunt and Tarzan was replaced by a dorky explorer decked out in a yellow outfit. The game features four unique screens, beginning with a vine-swinging section. The vines swing back and forth at varying rates, but it's not hard to leap between them if you take your time. After the last vine there's a nifty animation of your man diving into a river. The second screen is the most impressive-looking as you swim in a crocodile-infested river with a pink coral seabed. You're armed with a knife and when you stab it sounds like a friggin' shotgun blast! The hit detection is suspect however so it's wise to avoid confrontation. I really hate those pink "bubbles" that immobilize you for several seconds. According to the manual they are "mysterious murk". In other words, even the manual writer didn't know what the [expletive] they were! Your next challenge is to run up an inclined plane while jumping over small boulders and ducking under large ones. Ducking requires more skill yet only earns you half as many points. Use the joystick in conjunction with the button to increase the height of your jumps. It's pretty methodical until you encounter two boulders at once, which really throws off your timing. On the final screen you must leap over a pair of politically-incorrect, spear-toting tribesmen with your captive girlfriend suspended over a boiling cauldron. You'll need to make contact with her on your second jump to save her, even if it means burying your head in her crotch. Then the stages restart but you get a new color scheme and now have to contend with a monkey on the vine stage. The imprecise 5200 joysticks controls don't do you any favors in a twitch game like this, but Jungle Hunt is still a fun romp thanks to its bright arcade graphics and sheer variety. © Copyright 2014 The Video Game Critic.

It's clearly inspired by Donkey Kong yet Kangaroo has a certain charm of its own. You are a mother Kangaroo attempting to save her kid at the top of the screen. The platforms are formed by tree branches, and these trees happen to be inhabited by apple-hurling monkeys. But get this: you can punch the monkeys in the face! Yes, your kangaroo is armed with a boxing glove and I love how it gets extra large when you unleash your fury. It reminds me of Battletoads (NES, 1991). Climbing the trees isn't easy due to apple crossfire and the fact that falling any distance will kill you. You collect fruit along the way for points and ringing a bell causes more valuable fruit to appear. The arcade-style graphics look sharp but the audio is lousy. The nursery rhyme-style music will make you cringe and the high-pitched sound effects are just grating. And since this is on the Atari 5200 it almost goes without saying that the control sucks. You push up on the stick to jump, and since it doesn't auto-center you end up hopping several extra times. Leaping between platforms requires a precision these controllers lack. The spaces between branches are small but your timing needs to be exact or you'll plunge to your death. Your toe literally needs to be just over the edge before you initiate that jump! My first instinct was to dial down the difficulty, but there are only two skill levels: novice and advanced! I guess it's that challenge that keeps me coming back for more. Kangaroo follows a familiar formula but has enough twists to keep things interesting. © Copyright 2014 The Video Game Critic.

Available from Atari Age, this 5200 homebrew cartridge is highly original. You control a yellow fire-fighting helicopter named Koffi, and your main adversary is a storm cloud by the name of "Pyro". Pyro likes to set forest fires with his lightning bolts, but can be defeated simply by bumping into him a number of times. Be warned; you'll need to time your attacks carefully to avoid his bolts. Koffi must also collect raindrops to fill up his water tank, allowing him to douse the flames below. Rescuing animals in the forest earns you bonus points. Koffi's graphics are colorful and appealing. Lightning bolts shoot from the side of Pyro to form actual words like "BURN!" - a nice touch. The three forest screens are colorful and attractive, and I especially like the one with the evergreen trees and snow. There are ten different animals you can save, and each is nicely rendered in multiple colors. I found it amusing how this group includes a blue whale and kalamari. The fourth screen is a "boss" confrontation with Pyro's mother -- a cloud stretched across the top of the screen with two huge eyes. The game has a few technical issues. First, you must fly at just the right height above the fire in order to release your water, and it took me a while to figure this out. Also, the clumsy 5200 controller will cause Koffi to "slide" into the fire if you're not careful. Rescuing the animals is fun - too bad it's not more integral to the game. Finally, the whole "bumping into clouds" business does get repetitive after a while. Koffi is an acquired taste, but it's fun once you get the hang of it. Five skill levels are provided, so there's ample challenge. Koffi Yellow Copter is a fresh addition to the 5200 library that should appeal to arcade fans of all ages. © Copyright 2004 The Video Game Critic.