Its sparse title screen simply reads "Frisky Tom" (with no copyright), so I was surprised to discover this is actually a fully functional game! The game screen is an elaborate maze of blue pipes crawling with rats. These rats chew off elbow joints which inexplicably cause the pipes to back up. Shouldn't it cause the pipes to burst? Anyway your job is to collect the parts that fall to the bottom of the screen and climb the pipes to reinsert them. Upon restoring a joint it's neat to watch the water resume cascading through the pipes. You can knock off roving brown rats for points, but steer clear of red rats which are deadly to touch.

The idea of climbing a maze of pipes is a unique concept but the controls are suspect. Tom can only move in four directions and it's remarkably slippery when moving side-to-side. Upon completing a round you're rewarded with a brief image of a woman taking a bath in a red bikini! Maybe this game should have been Peeping Tom? In later rounds the red rats drop on you like heat-seeking missiles and the collision detection is brutal. The game eventually locked up on me. Frisky Tom is a marginal title but it's actually one of the more playable prototypes for the 5200. © Copyright 2016 The Video Game Critic.

This is a perfect example of a simple arcade game crippled by the Atari 5200 controllers. The object is to navigate a street of criss-crossing traffic before crossing a stream of logs and crocodiles. The graphics are very close to the arcade, with multi-colored vehicles, a brick median strip, and foliage surrounding the five landing spots on the far side of the river. Likewise you get all the melodic musical interludes.

Your frog looks a bit like a spider when facing sideways, and I noticed you can explore the lower part of the screen where you score resides. Due to the unorthodox controller, hopping around is more complicated than it needs to be. On most systems, to hop left you just press the joystick left. But due to the non-centering Atari 5200 joystick, you need to first hold the joystick left to get him to "face" the right direction. Then you press the red button to execute a hop. This two-step process feels clunky.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the mushy button is not the most responsive. Since it's hard to change direction on a dime, you really have to "plan" several moves ahead. I find it best to jump several spots in succession in the same direction, but often can result in an inadvertent hop into the water. And as we all know, frogs have an aversion to water.

The difficulty is pretty steep for two reasons. First, a certain set of turtles tends to dive about two seconds after surfacing. Keep an eye out for those, and avoid them. Also, carrying the lady frog is worth 200 points, but she does not want to give you the time of day. Unless you jump directly on top of her (not just overlapping), you're not getting in those pants. And frankly, she's not all that.

Though it's mostly faithful to the arcade in terms of presentation, I'm forced to give Frogger a below-average grade simply because of the controls. The game does contain a slow mode, perhaps to help compensate for the unwieldy controls. I wouldn't say Frogger is unplayable for the 5200, but it's more enjoyable on other systems. Note: I discovered this game does support keypad controls, but I found them awkward and overly-sensitive. © Copyright 2026 The Video Game Critic.

This is such an ingenious sequel. Frogger II is a lot more complicated than the original, but also a lot more interesting. Instead of crossing a street and pond, this game will take your frog from the bottom of the sea all the way up into the clouds of the sky! This is one ambitious amphibian.

I know what you're thinking. How could I heap such high praise on this sequel after dogging the controls of the original. Well, you still need to "aim" with the stick and press the button to hop, but it feels more natural. Maybe the controls are more responsive. It also helps that the jumps here tend to be less "twitch" and more strategic in nature.

The action takes place over three unique screens. The underwater scene has layers of fish and crocodiles, with a helpful sea turtle that will taxi you past danger. You'll also need to battle the water currents, which can be quite strong. There are three logs with landing spots carved out of them. If you land on the edge of the log, you're transported to the river surface.

The river screen has lily pads, duck, whales, and hippos to hop between. A tugboat pulling liferings is your destination this time. Hopping on the sea gull will transport you to the sky screen.

When in the sky you find yourself bouncing on a layer of clouds. Above you are rows of birds, dragons, planes, and pterodactyls flying across. The idea is to reach the upper clouds. When you fill in the landing spots on all three screens, you progress to the next level.

I like this game because there's so much going on and every animal is so colorful and finely-detailed. Each screen plays differently and offers its own little strategies. If you don't want to use the joystick, there's a keypad option that lets you use the numbers to jump. It works pretty well actually. Not even the Atari 5200 controller can prevent Frogger II from touching the heavens. © Copyright 2026 The Video Game Critic.

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 trash can 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.

I have good news and bad news. The good news is, Gorf for the Atari 5200 is pretty much a direct port of the excellent Atari computer version of Gorf (Atari XE, 1982). The bad news is, it's saddled with the most unholy control scheme ever devised, spawned directly from the ninth circle of Hell!

I had my friends take the Pepsi challenge with the XE Gorf on one TV and this 5200 version on the other. When Brian-the-new-guy tried to play the Atari 5200, he politely informed me that the controller I had handed him was broken. Oh, you precious, precious child! We had to explain to him that this was, in fact, how this ridiculous controller was designed.

Gorf was originally a classic arcade hit boasting five unique stages of space-shooting mayhem. That in of itself was mind-blowing in 1981! This version has four, and four out of five ain't bad. The first two are variations of Space Invaders and Galaxian, followed by a black hole stage and culminating with a flagship boss encounter.

These stages are faithful to the arcade and there are six skill levels. Unfortunately the developer decided to fully leverage the Atari 5200 controller's analog capability, subjecting players to the most touchy, awkward, and downright uncomfortable controls imaginable. Between incessantly pressing fire and constantly cranking your wrist, this game is downright debilitating!

Playing Gorf on the 5200 is like trying to play basketball on an ice rink. Your ship is positioned left-of-center on the lower half of the screen by default, and moving the joystick whips it clear across the screen. It's like trying to aim with a damn mouse pointer.

It may be easier to avoid fireballs in the black hole stage, but it's very easy to inadvertently slam into the vertical beams in the laser attack stage. Jittery control makes it hard to line up your shots, but since it's Gorf, you can always cancel an errant shot by firing another. That said, this game is murder on your hands.

I was surprised my friends actually defended this game to some degree. I suppose it's possible to get used to this weird, flaky control scheme over time. You could make the case that this Atari 5200 version provides a unique, faster-paced take on the classic shooter. But try telling that to Brian, currently undergoing weeks of intense physical therapy for what doctors have characterized as trivial wrist injuries. © Copyright 2023 The Video Game Critic.

Unlike the horrible Atari 2600 version, this Gremlins game is not only fun to play, but it conveys the spirit of the movie. The first thing I noticed was the ominous musical theme, which embodies the dark (yet playful) spirit of the film. At the start of each level, the screen is populated with Mogwai, Gremlins, food, and water puddles. If a Mogwai touches food or water, it transforms into a Gremlin. When a Gremlin touches water, it splits in two!

The idea is to grab all of the Mogwai and place them in a pen in the corner of the screen. Meanwhile you'll need to destroy the multiplying Gremlins using a sword. The gameplay is frantic and fun, with each level growing more intense. Walls and furniture begin to appear in the advanced levels, adding structure to the screen. The graphics are outstanding, featuring detailed, well-animated characters. Check out the gremlin tossing food out of the fridge! You can even select your starting level. Gremlins for the 5200 is a real gem, and one of the few original titles for the system. © Copyright 2000 The Video Game Critic.

Gyruss fans are always asking me to give this Atari 5200 translation another chance, but whenever I do I just find more things to complain about. In the arcades this was a truly original space shooter. Instead of aliens approaching from the top or sides of the screen, they emerge from the center with the help of some nifty scaling effects. Your ship moves in a circular pattern, shooting into the distance.

Gyruss borrows several elements from Galaga, including the "double-shot" power-up and the "chance" bonus stages. Realizing the 5200 controller offered 360 degrees of circular movement, the developers incorporated it into the control scheme. Well, just because you can do something doesn't mean it's a good idea! Moving your ship around is not the intuitive experience the developers envisioned. It tends to move in fits, stopping and starting unpredictably as you struggle with the joystick.

And bad controls aren't the only problem. Thanks to the super low resolution graphics, the aliens look like shapeless blobs. Their missiles blend in with them, making it almost impossible to see them coming. Unlike the arcade game, aggressive play is punished, not rewarded. The up-tempo musical score is terrific, but music by Bach is too good to be wasted on this sloppy effort. © Copyright 2013 The Video Game Critic.