TI-99/4A Reviews A-Z

Generic maze games were standard issue for systems of the late 70s/early 80s. These included Maze (Channel F, 1977), Amazing Maze (Astrocade, 1978), and Maze Craze: A Game of Cops 'n Robbers (Atari 2600, 1978), just to name a few. Maze generation algorithms were pretty well-known so banging out random mazes on the fly was no big deal. Writing programs to navigate them however was considered "artificial intelligence".

A-Maze-ing arrived on the scene a little late, so to compensate it offers you an endless number of ways to configure each game. One or two players? Escape maze or cheese hunt? Simple or complex maze? Visible walls? Obstacles? Fast or slow mice? Cats or no cats? Smart or dumb cats? Sudz compared setting up a single game to filing a damn tax return!

Once the action is underway the game plays well. You control a tiny mouse head that moves at a moderate pace, but definitely slower than Maze Craze. The "complex mazes" are optimal in that you can't tell just by a glance what the correct path is. The sound effects can be a little annoying. Where is that high-pitched squealing coming from?

One thing I hate about TI-99 games in general is how after each game the menus prompt you to hit keys like "proc'd", "redo" and "back" which don't appear anywhere on the keyboard! Only through some research did I learn these functions are mapped to function+6, function+8, and function+9. How would you know that?

A-Maze-ing is a decent little "create-your-own-game" game. Try the variation with two fast cats in a complex maze, but make sure they are "dumb" so they can't easily home in on your position. That way, when on the run, you can duck into a nook and hope they pass by. When you escape the maze your best time is displayed. There's nothing amazing about this but the game can be fun if you make the proper selections. Just be sure you run it by your accountant first! © Copyright 2025 The Video Game Critic.

Playing Parsec rekindled long-dormant memories from the early 1980s. When I was a kid, my neighbors had acquired a TI-99 computer with all the trimmings. One day my friend Andy invited me over to sample the games in his basement. He gave me a whirlwind tour of their collection, but only two cartridges really stand out in my memory. One was Alpiner and the other was Parsec.

Parsec was clearly inspired by Defender (Atari XE, 1982), a wildly popular side-scrolling, rapid-fire shooter. This game looks similar but its gameplay is more simplistic. Your ship is situated over a planet surface on the left side of the screen. Alien craft swoop down from the right, moving into your line of fire before attempting to ram you.

The voice synthesis module is utilized in this game, featuring a disinterested female reading lines like "alien craft approaching" and "nice shot". At least her voice is very smooth and clear. Most voice synthesizers of the time tended to sound stilted and robotic.

You can tell the Parsec programmers had some fun with rendering the planet surface. There's all sorts of futuristic structures including radar dishes and giant robots. There's even a Texas Instrument logo carved into a mountain. I also noticed letters spelling PARSEC and JED-URB. I'm sure that means something to someone.

The waves offer a bit of variety, but Parsec's gameplay is sloppy. The controls are awful. When you move up and down it feels very stiff and delayed. Even with a rapid-fire laser it's remarkably hard to hit incoming ships. You also have the ability to move slightly right or left, but I have no idea why you would want to do that. If you fire too often your ship explodes due to overheating.

Andy wasn't a fan of Parsec. In fact, I clearly remember him dismissing the game as "stupid" while yanking it out of the system and moving on to the next game. He may have been a bit harsh, but not totally out of line. The TI 99/4A had some impressive arcade conversions, but this was not one of them. © Copyright 2025 The Video Game Critic.

I fully expected the TI-99/4A to have an obligatory Space Invaders (Atari 2600, 1980) clone, but I didn't think it would be this good. Sudz deemed it indistinguishable from the arcade game, but I think it's far better. There are two skill levels: "merely aggressive" and "downright nasty". Since I'm an old pro I felt obligated to choose the latter, and the difficulty felt just right.

The descending alien armada consists of three types of mutants, and they tend to change as the waves progress. The animation is so smooth and the colors really pop. A large mothership periodically crosses the top of the screen which is pretty easy to hit. I like how its point value appears right there on the screen.

Enemy bombs drop rapidly, but your cannon is small and nimble enough to dodge the bombardment. Your shots travel up the screen quickly and often cancel-out the bombs. I appreciate how holding in the button allows for continuous fire. When your cannon is destroyed, it's hauled to a little "junkyard" on the bottom right.

Especially when playing on the "nasty" skill level you'll want to take cover behind the four white barriers. You can poke holes in them, keeping in mind that will also allow bombs to pass through. As any experienced Space Invaders player will tell you, it's best to take out the columns on each end of the armada to slow their descent.

One area where TI Invaders rings hollow is in the audio department. When you hit an invader, it makes a static sound instead of a boom. I was however caught completely off-guard with the bonus stages between waves. It lets you take a series of shots at a low-flying mother ship, a la the "shoot the bear" stage in Carnival (Colecovision, 1982). Suffice to say this arcade adaptation goes well beyond the call of duty. © Copyright 2025 The Video Game Critic.