Entry posted by SpiceWare
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Cat Trax, Funky Fish, Pleiades Bundle, by UA Ltd.
2/5
Cat Trax 2/5, Funky Fish 2/5 and Pleiades 4/5. See individual game reviews(found under Reproductions, not Homebrews) for more detail.
Unless you're aiming for a 100% collection, just pick up Pleiades and use the rest of your money for some other homebrews.
Cat Trax
2/5
You're a cat on the town trying to find some food and the occasional bundle of catnip. Sadly, the local dogs won't leave you alone. However; if you happen upon a mysterious bottle labeled "L'eau de Dog Warden", you can turn the tables on the mutts and send them to the pound!
When you power it up you get a nice looking eat-the-dots maze game. Unlike Pac Man, there's real dots instead of wafers, intelligent flickering of the dog sprites and the maze has an interesting, non repetitive layout. It even has a real basic attract mode. Two scores are displayed, so I initially thought it supported two players. Turns out to be a one player game, with current score on the left and high score on the right.
There's no game variations, just start the game with your fire button. RESET returns you to attract mode. SELECT can be used to change the maze color(purplish-blue or green), even while playing the game. The TV TYPE switch is used to pause the game. The difficulty switches are not used.
When you start playing it the initial positive reaction quickly fades. Controls are crappy, changes to joystick direction have a delayed reaction - you'd expect more responsiveness considering you're a cat. Collision detection is poor - you'll often be caught even though nothing is touching you. As if that wasn't enough, the dogs are rather dumb - they'll often bounce back and forth between two maze intersection points, even when you're chasing them - boring.
Sound effects are adequate, though it would have been nice to be able to turn off the background siren noise with one of the unused difficulty switches.
Comes with a nice box and an OK manual, with graphics by David Exton w/Dale Crum.
To sum it up, it's a Pac Man knock off with better graphics but sloppy controls and poor collision detection. With a little bit of polish this could have been a fun game.
Funky Fish
2/5
Sea monsters and their minions have invaded your neighborhood. Even though you're the MOST laid-back fish, it's up to you to save the day!
At first glance it looks like an underwater version of Defender, complete with radar screen showing the positions of the four monsters you need to take out. It appears there's a massive algae bloom going on as the water's green. Like the other UA Ltd. games, there's two scores displayed, one of which is the high score. There's also an attract mode, though it doesn't show any game play as Funky Fish just swims all the way left, then all the way right while shooting.
Use your fire button to start the game. RESET returns you to the main menu. The TV TYPE switch is used to pause the game. SELECT and the difficulty switches are not used.
When you start playing the game you realize your character really is "the MOST laid-back fish", I don't recall ever playing a game that moved so slowly. This might be OK if it were a kids game, but I found it extremely annoying. Even worse, the ocean doesn't wrap around and you start in the middle - this means that once you've killed off 2 monsters you have a long boring swim all the way back the way you came just to get to the other 2. When you finally make it to a monster the minions start to come out. To eliminate the minions you must shoot them to change them into cherries, then eat the cherries before they revert back into a minion. Once you've killed all the minions the monster will self-destruct, but before that happens you need to absorb some energy from it to make it to the next monster.
While the minions have interesting looking graphics, the monsters are just squares(to be fair, the monsters in the arcade version are just a floating eyeball). Other graphics are well done with some nice looking wave action and plants swaying in the currents. Sound effects are adequate.
Comes with a nice box and an OK manual, with graphics by David Exton w/Dale Crum.
Has potential - if the fish swam faster, like in the arcade version, it would be more fun.
Pleiades
4/5
You thought you defeated them in Phoenix - but the invaders from Pleiades are back with a vengeance! Hop into your ship to defend the base. Take off once the threat is cleared and attack the mothership in orbit. After that, land back at the base to prepare for the next assault!
Start the game with RESET or joystick fire button. SELECT chooses 1 of 4 game variations. Variations are to play the full game(all 3 waves) or to only play a specific wave. Set left difficulty to A for practice mode (infinite lives). The TV TYPE switch is used to pause the game.
Wave 1: Invasion. In the first wave the aliens are attacking your base. The base has buildings, a rocket, a couple radar towers and some hills in the distance. Unlike the arcade version, the base does not take damage during the assault. While that was visually impressive at the arcade, it's loss does not affect the game. The aliens attack in a variety of patterns, but they don't move smoothly - instead they jump from position to position, reminding me a lot of LCD games. The aliens will periodically lay down a shield which you must take out in order to hit the aliens. There's also a simple background tune played during wave 1.
Wave 2: Mothership Assault. In the arcade, wave 1 was followed by an attack of birds, somewhat like the attacks in Phoenix. Once that was done, you'd attack the mothership and her defenders. In the home version these waves were combined - the mothership's defenders are the the Phoenix ships. In the arcade you had to target the 5 engines to destroy the mothership. That was probably too complicated for the Atari, so instead you have to destroy the mothership's command module as it periodically appears behind open exhaust vents. While it does get harder on the later levels, it's still the easiest of the 3 waves.
Wave 3: Landing. Once you've destroyed the mothership, you have to land back at the base in order to defend it against the next invasion wave. In order to land safely, you must avoid the debris from ships damaged during the last attack. There's a couple flags on the landing strip, they're worth some bonus points if you pick them up. This wave is the most difficult of the 3, but with practice you can do it! Hint - use GAME 4 with Left Difficulty = A to practice.
Has the best graphics of the 3 UA Ltd. games. There's an attract Mode that shows off all three waves, and some fairly nice sound effects.
Comes with a nice box and an OK manual, with graphics by David Exton w/Dale Crum.
Next up, Krokodile Cartridge
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