Homebreviews - part 23
Entry posted by Nathan Strum
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Here are some of the latest releases from the AtariAge store... but are they some of the greatest?
Bee•Ball
4/5
Bee•Ball is reminiscent of one of the first-ever computer games - Tennis for Two - but with bees. You control one of two bees (either against an opponent or the computer), and must fly around using a racquet to hit a ball over a net. You can bounce the ball up off your paddle, head-butt it, or spike it. But don't hit the ball out-of-bounds or let it touch the ground on your side, or you'll be sent back to the hive in disgrace. First bee to 10 points wins the game.
Bee•Ball is a fun game both in gameplay and appearance. The bees' movements are appropriately floaty, and the sprites are wonderfully designed and animated. There's even a judge bee that watches the action from the top of the screen, and tosses out the ball for serves. There's not a great deal of audio, but what's there is well-suited for the game. The computer opponent manages to put up a pretty-good challenge, although after awhile you can learn to exploit some of its weaknesses. The two-player option takes care of that little problem, but only if the other player is as practiced-up as you are - so you may want to give them some time with the one-player game before going head-to-head. The only glitch I noticed is that occasionally the ball will pass right through your bee, but that may be more of a matter of timing the swing right, than anything inherently wrong with the game.
Bee•Ball is a simple game, but it has great gameplay and excellent replay value. Add to that the delightful graphics, and you have a real winner. The programmer also drew the whimsical illustrations for the manual, and with this being only his first 2600 game, I'm eagerly looking forward to what he comes up with next.
Colony 7
5/5
Colony 7 is a port of a somewhat-obscure arcade game that was likely the inspiration for Imagic's Atlantis. You control a pair of rapid-firing cannons, and must defend a colony from attacking spacecraft. Each enemy ship has a unique role - strafing, bombing, calling up reinforcements, or guiding the attack. They'll chip away at your shields and take out your buildings, or worse - your cannons. But you have another weapon at your disposal - a Mega Blaster which will wipe out all attacking enemies in one fell swoop. Your Mega Blaster supply is limited though, and once all of your colonies have been destroyed, your game is over.
Colony 7 is another excellent game from Manuel Rotschkar. The action is first rate, and the controls are perfect. In order to free up the fire button to use for the Mega Blaster, the player's cannons auto-fire the entire time. This works perfectly since there's so much going on, you'd just keep the button pressed the whole time anyway. The difficulty level ramps up nicely, so you're not overwhelmed too soon, yet once you get into it, you can play for quite awhile. The graphics are nicely adapted from the arcade game (I'll admit I'm biased, because I worked on some of them) and have only minimal flicker, and the sound and music are excellent. I think Colony 7 turned out much better than Atlantis: you can fire anywhere you like; the enemies move all around the screen; plus there's the colony's shield, the Mega Blaster, different enemy behaviors, a title screen, and a lot of other touches that really add up. You'd be hard-pressed to find a better arcade action game on the 2600, so pick this one up!
Melbourne Tatty
3/5
In Melbourne Tatty, you move your character (a square) around an ever-changing maze while collecting treasure and avoiding a giant, blue, floating wolf's head. If the wolf touches you, you die. Lose all three lives, and the game is over. Each level gives you three decoys you can use to lure the wolf away. There are twenty levels, each with ten treasures to collect.
Melbourne Tatty could probably be best described as a sliding-puzzle-type game - the difference here being that one of the pieces can kill you. The wolf chases you around, but he must pause each time he moves, giving an almost turn-based feel to the game. The graphics are very blocky, and tends to give an unpolished look to the game. It's too bad, since the idea of the changing mazes is clever, but with only twelve rooms to run to, it's very limiting and can get frustrating pretty quick. More and smaller rooms (and a smaller wolf) would have helped give the player more places to go, and given the game a larger scope. The decoys are a welcomed addition, since without them, the game would be just about unplayable. You can use Select to choose to start at any level, which is a good thing, since some of the higher levels are the most interesting, due to their more complex patterns and faster speed. The music is okay, but an option to turn it off (or have more than one tune) would have been welcomed. A few annoyances plague the game though: the Reset switch won't restart a game that's in progress; when the lives counter shows one life remaining, it means you're playing your last life - not that you have one in reserve; there seems to be no way to earn additional lives; occasionally the maze walls will throw you right into the wolf when they change; and there is absolutely no space inside of a room next to the wolf, so there is no room for error.
Melbourne Tatty is a good concept for a game, and there are a lot of levels to explore, but I kept wishing that it was "zoomed out" a bit, so there were more rooms and therefore more places to run. The "sliding puzzle" aspect with the wolf pausing at each room works well, but having the wolf completely fill up a room is very unforgiving. Perhaps the wolf could have been a little smaller, and then chase you around the room once you were trapped with him. That would have added an extra element of action to the game, and given the player more of a chance to stay alive. There was obviously a lot of effort put into the presentation - there's a nicely illustrated manual, cardboard cut-outs of the characters, a postcard, and there was even a limited-edition version with a box. Melbourne Tatty is a good start, but it falls short of its potential.
Raster Fahndung
3/5
The object of Raster Fahndung is to locate a certain 6x6 pattern of blocks, within a larger 32x20 field of blocks in a limited amount of time. You can refer back to the pattern at any time by pressing the fire button, but doing so causes the timer to count down faster. How many patterns can you match before time runs out?
The patterns appear to be generated at random, or at least, there's enough of them here so they don't seem to repeat. The graphics are for the most part just blocks, but because of a very elaborate animated title screen, the whole game feels like it has a certain level of polish to it. The sound is minimal, but adequate. A few things could have been improved: the cursor that you use to find patterns seems to be offset from the pattern itself, which is a little confusing; when a game ends, you can't start a new one with the fire button; and when you fail to locate a pattern, the game doesn't show you where the pattern was.
Raster Fahndung makes for an interesting puzzle game, and a good diversion from other 2600 games. I tend to find myself playing a few games in a row, then putting it away again. It's not what I'd call addictive, but once in awhile it's a good game to revisit.
Squish 'Em
5/5
Squish 'Em is a near-perfect port of a game originally written for the Atari 8-bit computers. In fact, comparing the two side-by-side, you'd find it difficult to detect any differences. Your goal is to climb up the girders of a building that's under construction, and either dodge or squish a variety of strange creatures which have infested it. The trick is in the timing - you have to time it just right in order to squish the creatures, but the payoff is higher scores. There are also bonus items to pick up along the way, and falling bricks to dodge.
The 2600 version of Squish 'Em is as much fun as the original in every way. All of the creatures are there, as are the bonus items, the sound effects, falling bricks, scoring, and most important - the game play. The controls are spot-on, and the creatures each have their own movements which keeps the game challenging and fun to come back to. Even a scoring exploit present in the original version managed to make its way over to the 2600. Back in the early 80's, a 2600 port of Squish 'Em was in the works, and although that one never materialized, we'll never miss it with this outstanding version. Highly recommended!
Next time: Invaded... by SPACE!!
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