DoctorSpuds

YOU FOOL!!!

YOU FOOL!!!

I had my heart broken by this game; it was the subject of the first major regret of my collecting career. In Madison and the surrounding areas we have a Goodwill equivalent called St. Vinnie’s, every year there are a couple of game sales at St. Vinnie’s where basically everything videogame related that came in gets put up for sale ridiculously cheaply, like half to a quarter Ebay and resale price. It was my first time going, and I didn’t know much about what was rare and what was desirable, at that time I tried to collect the good games for the system not the weird ones. I had a mint copy of Final Approach in my hand for $8 and put it down for a copy of Barnstorming that didn’t even have the manual and a crappy copy of racquetball I thought this game looked boring and I wouldn’t play it all that much (which may be correct in hindsight), but then I saw what it was listed and selling for on Ebay and my heart sunk to my knees, I done screwed up. We all have the one that got away, the game that we looked at on the shelf that was on clearance that we found out years later has become rare and valuable, many people have done this with Earthbound, but I found out an hour later and it still haunts me to this day, I think back on that and just cringe at my ignorance. But I finally have a copy in my collection, it isn’t CIB but it will do for now, this is Final Approach. To say this game looks simple may actually be an understatement, there is almost nothing going on here, I mean the game doesn’t look bad or anything there’s, there are a few nice touches like the table top and large brown microphone, but in those are just for show, they don’t actually do anything. The big green radar screen is where all the action happens, and the most you’ll ever see on it are four plane profiles, a big black bar that is supposed to be the runway, and some flashing yellow lines that lead to the runway that might be landing lights or something. The landing screen has a bit more going on but that isn’t saying much. There is a top-down view and a side-on view of the runway with white guidelines leading to them, these will be important later, the runway is decently detailed but one thing that annoys me is that the plane used for the top-down view is still the profile of the plane which on a physics level is quite impossible since such a craft would find it quite impossible to take flight, I’ll just chalk it up to an inability to reliably program it or just plain laziness. Alright, so we have a game so visually bland as to induce sensory deprivation, can the sounds fix this issue? No they cannot… the sounds in Final Approach are as subdued as the graphics if not more so. Most of what you’ll be hearing is the basic engine/thruster noise you’ve heard in a couple dozen other 2600 games paired with the simplest of beeps when things happen. Thankfully the abrasiveness of the beeps offsets the calming effect of the engines. There is also a collision sound effect when you crash two planes together but it’s the same as in Grand Prix or Enduro or any other generic crashing noise really. I guess that word describes it best ‘Generic’ there just isn’t a whole lot going on here. I’ll give this game credit, it has a very unique premise, guiding a number of aircraft to a runway and landing them, occasionally a plane will flash indicating there is an emergency on board and that it has to be landed immediately otherwise you’ll lose one of your three lives. Lives are lost when you don’t land an emergency plane or when two planes collide, you will regain a life every 500 points which equates to 20 normal planes landed or 10 emergency planes, though you’ll likely have a mix. Landing is a unique experience, a plane will automatically move right across the screen and you have to move the joystick to position it for a successful landing, since you have only the one joystick you have to control the left and right and the height by moving the joystick left and right and up and down which leads to some major confusion since holding the stick at an angle will trigger both movements and will just lead to a botched landing, it’s very difficult to explain but it’s also rather difficult to pull off since you don’t know which direction does what and you don’t have any time for mistakes. I almost forgot to mention how you actually move the planes around on the radar screen, you have a big black cursor that moves adequately quickly around the screen, simply place it over a plane and press the button and you’ll have control over the plane, don’t let the planes fly off-screen otherwise you’ll lose five points. This game plays painfully slowly, and the planes will only start moving faster after you’ve accrued enough points, there are some variations, as is to be expected with an Apollo title, but all they change are the number of players, the number of planes, and whether there is a cross wind when landing, which does inject some semblance of challenge to the game. All this game really is though is a test of patience since you’ll likely turn the game off before you land your second plane. This is not a cheap game, I got lucky with my copy and got it in a small lot with Star Ship and Solar Fox for $9-free shipping but buying Final Approach standalone will make you raise an eyebrow. The cheapest loose copy is on Ebay for 14 dollars free shipping with the most expensive loose copy is sitting at $59.95+$3.95 shipping, if you ask me both prices are too high. All of the boxed copies currently on Ebay are sitting at a princely $149.95+$3.95 shipping even though one sold BIN a while back for around $30. I don’t really think I need to say this but Final Approach goes to the Collector’s Zone, there’s simply not enough game here for the price people are asking.

I have been after Crackpots for a while now, but long has it eluded me, usually because I kept forgetting to buy it or because the prices made me vomit in my mouth a little. I was immediately suckered in by the amazing graphics and unusual game premise, but now that I have it, how does it hold up? Well before we get to that I have to address the cartridge my copy of Crackpots came in. Mine is not an official Activision cartridge, mine is a Brazilian release from Datasoft, and my goodness what a strange cartridge, as far as I can tell the cartridge shell is custom made for Datasoft, with its logo emblazoned on the back an everything. The label on the cart is where the weird factor goes up a notch, on the front are three game sprites that I’m very sure were stolen from somewhere, there is a ship that was stolen from Megamania, an AT-AT walker taken straight from ESB, and a running man taken from RS: Soccer, and under each is ação (Action), Estratégia (Strategy), and Esportes (Sports). As far as I can tell the label is a generic one used by all Datasoft games with the only differentiating factor being the name of the game being stamped onto the front label, not printed, stamped, it seems all of the budget went into making the cartridges and not the labels on them. This is a fantastic looking game, though if you ask me this looks very much like Beat ‘em & Eat ‘em, except way better. There is a lot going on here so let’s start at the top, there is that classic Activision sunset behind a fairly good if not conspicuously brown skyline. Potsy the Rooftop Gardener looks suitably surprised considering the situation he’s in, he’s very detailed despite only being in two colors, and Potsy’s potted petunias look marvelous which is a pity since he’s about to throw them at some bugs. The windows are nicely detailed with sills and some Venetian blinds (subtle jab at Atari?), and even the wall of the building has some red bricks standing out among the grey to give that added bit of detail that we’ve come to expect from Activision releases. The bugs themselves look alright, even though it looks like they have four legs in the screenshot they actually have six when moving through a clever usage of quickly cycling between two frames of animation. The bugs come in several flavors, they’re all the same sprite but in a different color though, they are black, blue, red, and green, and as you can guess each is more difficult than the last, but that is for the gameplay section not the graphics, all that’s really left is the curb drain that the bugs appear from. I almost forgot, when you lose a stage a very nice animation plays where a bug eats a section of the building and it drops a small amount, it even bounces a bit on impact with the ground, I don’t know how this was done, but it is rather incredible. Sounds are rather sparse in Crackpots, but there are enough that it doesn’t feel empty. There is a soft ticking or short whooshing noise that plays in the background, that just feels like it was put in there to keep things from getting too quiet, but it’s not annoying so that’s nice. There isn’t a sound when you drop a flower pot, but there is a rewarding semi-shrieking noise from the bugs when you hit them and there is a nice crashing sound when the pot hits the ground. There is a beep whenever a bug enters the building, and when you lose a round there is a very good digging/chewing noise when the bugs lower the building by eating it. There is also a beeping noise when you are getting your bonus as well, but that’s a given. Oddly enough there is no game over noise or 1-Up noise, though I’m pretty sure this game doesn’t have 1-Ups, when you lose the game the only indication of it happening is the Activision logo cycling at the bottom of the screen, so that’s a bit of a bummer. This game has a simple premise, drop pots on bugs. If the bugs get into the building one of the bugs at the bottom of the screen will vanish, you have six in total, if six bugs get into the building you lose the round and a layer of the building is eaten, if the building gets too low it’s game over. There are four flavors of bug, the black bugs will just go straight up the building, the blue bugs will move side to side a little bit and are more difficult to hit, the red bugs will move diagonally across the building which will require you to put your predictive positioning skills to the test, and the green bugs move between two windows which is somehow even harder than the red bugs. My main complaint with this game is a small one but it really does affect the gameplay, you have to be very precise when dropping pots, you can’t drop them while moving since a little animation plays of Potsy pushing the pots, you have to stop then drop the pots but you have to be positioned almost directly on the pot which means you spend most of your time trying to drop the pots but not actually doing so because you are a pixel off. This doesn’t render the game unplayable; it just makes it a bit more difficult, perhaps unnecessarily, perhaps not, it just seems like the game got a but caught up in its own graphics by having the pushing animation play instead of keeping things fluid rather like Kaboom! Overall Crackpots is a fun game, by no means is it Activision’s best game but it is far from being the worst, I’d say it falls somewhere in the middle, and while the graphics may be stellar it seems the gameplay may have suffered slightly for it. Sadly this is not one of Activision’s more common releases; expect to pay well for even a rough copy of the game. The cheapest copy on Ebay right now is sitting at $10 for a loose copy with the most expensive loose copy sitting at an eye watering $44, it is actually cheaper to buy it in a lot, since there is a 15 game lot for $24.99 with Crackpots in it. Let me also say that all of these Crackpots carts look awful, these are some of the most sun-faded label I’ve ever seen even for an Activision cart, boxed copies don’t come up very often but one that did sell sold for $30 so expect to pay double that in the future. Sadly this game must go in the Collector’s Zone for being too expensive for its own good.

I did a quick Google search to see what the elusive screen two is for Spiderdroid. Like with Amidar it's the same maze with different sprites, on screen two the enemies turn into pretty decent approximations of skulls, and you turn into whatever the heck the player controlled thing from Amidar screen one is except the head is slightly modified. Here's a brief update to my recent status concerning my copy of Spiderdroid: you'll have seen that I had some trouble with my copy of Spiderdroid, I managed to snag a copy factory sealed for cheap, but when I opened it there was no instruction manual. I, and everybody who replied suspected foul play but the seller has opened another copy of Spiderdroid (I don't understand why he even has another copy) and is sending it through the mail free of charge. Bullet dodged, I would really hate to have to track down a manual since no matter what it's going to be overpriced like the game. If you ever buy from Ebay Seller 'oddnix' they'll treat you right.

I don’t like Amidar, I don’t like how it looks, or how it plays, it was a game that was best left in the arcades and forgotten about. If you like the game then good for you, you can find enjoyment in something that infuriates me, to be honest. Amidar was an arcade game that was developed and published by Konami back in 1981, and by all accounts it was a decent game, but when Parker Brothers brought the game over to the 2600, well, they screwed it up something fierce. Now Amidar was pretty much the first of its genre of line painting games, it was originally ported as Amidar to the Atari 2600, the Casio PV-1000, and the PC-6001, that’s a strange selection, but it’s spin-off’s under various different names, like Crazy Painter, and Pesky Painter, were released on just about every early micro and home computer on the market, though mostly in Europe and Japan where the home computer craze was kicking off, though sadly the Oric-1 didn’t get a version which saddens me. But it was on the 2600 where the Amidar formula struck again, in the form of Demolition Herby from Telesys, don’t get your hopes up I’m not reviewing it anytime soon, and Spiderdroid from Froggo which is actually just the Amidar code with some new sprites in a new box. Amidar is an incredibly simple looking game, there is very little going on here, all it really is is a rectangle made up from other smaller rectangles. There is the player controlled sprite, in Amidar it’s a strange yellow space invader lookin’ creature, while in Spiderdroid it’s just a spider. The enemies in Amidar are supposedly gorillas, but they look more like the assassins in Fast Eddie, or the spies in Infiltrate, the enemies in Spiderdroid are chickens, for some reason, at least they look vaguely like some sort of avian creature. The only other thing of note in the graphics department is how the stage gets colored; you’ll notice how the stage is made up of orange or blue-ish green bars, depending on the game, and as you move around the black bars that are intermixed with the colored ones will change color to either purple or orange, again depending on the game. This is actually a somewhat nice effect since the stage is colored in segments and not the whole line at once, I don’t know how they did that on a technical level but it’s still a nice touch. Both Amidar and Spiderdroid share the same amount of sounds, but they are changed up in Spiderdroid. Amidar’s sounds are quite and subdued staying on lower octaves so as not to hurt your ears, while Spiderdroid does the opposite and makes things as loud and high pitched as possible. Whenever you fill in a segment in Amidar it plays a slightly muffled beeping noise, which is good since you’ll be hearing it often if you’re proficient at the game, Spiderdroid on the other hand uses a very loud and high pitched beep that will get on your nerves in no time flat. When you get caught in Amidar you’ll hear a low pitched slightly muffled explosion noise, whereas in Spiderdroid it’s a full on explosion that seems far louder that the one in Amidar. Spiderdroid just sounds abrasive, and frightfully obnoxious. The gameplay is as simple as it gets, just color in the whole stage by walking over it. The enemies have a predictable moveset, they will always turn the first corner they come across, which is great since the game would be impossible otherwise, there is an enemy that patrols the perimeter of the screen as well and will never venture inside the level. My main problem with the games is that they move so slowly, which unfortunately is how they were programmed, the player controlled characters move slower than the enemies by default, and since the enemies move rather slowly it makes the game move at a crawl, there are no difficulty options either, there’s one game variation and that’s all you’re getting. If you want to see scoring information or useful strategies then the manual has you covered so I won’t put all of that into the review since it would simply be filler. Unfortunately Spiderdroid has chosen this moment to set itself apart from Amidar, and in doing so has rendered itself virtually unplayable, instead of having four enemies on the inside of the stage with one patrolling the perimeter like in Amidar, there are now five in the center and still one on the perimeter in Spiderdroid, you wouldn’t think that would make much of a difference but it really does. I can usually finish the first screen of Amidar after losing one or two lives, in Spiderdroid I can fill in about seven rectangles before all my live are gone, the enemies act exactly the same, except there are more of them and that makes all the difference. Needless to say I dislike both of these game, one because it’s too slow and the premise is boring, and the other because it’s too hard and it’s too slow and the premise is boring. If you buy Atari lots then you already have several copies of Amidar, it’s just that common, so it’s a rather unavoidable game when it comes to collecting, Spiderdroid on the other had is far less common and far more expensive. If you must own Amidar then you can find loose copies on Ebay for five dollars or less while boxed copies go for ten to twenty dollars, Spiderdroid however has gotten stupidly expensive for what it is, loose copies range anywhere from eight to forty dollars while boxed copies are anywhere from forty to eighty dollars, and take it from me it ain’t worth it. I managed to snag a factory sealed NOS Spiderdroid on Ebay for $30 which is pretty cheap for Spiderdroid, but when I opened it up there was no manual inside. I can confirm that it was the original plastic and that it wasn’t opened and resealed, I just got unlucky, as if I needed another reason to dislike Froggo. If it isn’t apparent already both of these games go to the Collectors Zone, Amidar on the edge since it’s so common, and Spiderdroid goes far deeper for being a more expensive product that is somehow worse than it’s near exact copy.

That is an excellent Idea, I'm gonna have to do that sometime. I wouldn't classify the Intellivision version as 'Bad' it's just very slow in comparison, but the graphics are nicer, and the maze is better laid out. And besides, the Intellivision version is incredibly cheap, I got mine boxed in the wild for two dollars. And SpiceWare, well, he knows things, he's one of the few people out there who can truly appreciate the technical side of things.

Telesys was most certainly not one to back down from new ideas and unique game concepts, which lead to the creation of such gems as, Coconuts, Fast Food, and the focus of today’s review, Cosmic Creeps. Cosmic Creeps is rather unique among games of its genre, it’s one of the only shooters where you shoot from the top of the screen, and is most certainly the only shooter so confusing that you may not actually get to the shooting portion of the game. Yes it’s one of those kinds of games, the type where consultation of the manual is necessary for the complete enjoyment of the game, well maybe it’s not that bad, but it’s certainly cryptic. The box art is certainly one of the more standout on the 2600, due in large part to how absolutely strange it is, you have a Buck Rogers lookin’ guy just sort of flying by unassisted by any means of propulsion, while pulling some kids in space helmets along on a rope while green aliens, who are not fighting back I might add, are being shot and killed by a large space ship. Also one of the kids has a teddy bear and it also has its own space helmet that could have been used to save another person but was instead put on a stuffed bear, because why not? If the game is anywhere near as confusing as the box art then we’re in for a wild ride. Oh yeah this ride is gonna be wild, you start the game and will be instantly confused. There is a sort of vertically scrolling obstacle course with fireballs emerging from the sides of the screen, while what appears to be a very high resolution sun, or planet, moves side to side at the bottom of the screen, all of this is going on while a large grey spaceship, which looks incredible, just sits at the top of the screen going nowhere and doing nothing. My goodness that was an incredibly long sentence, I hope I never have to do that again. There is also a little spaceman getting bopped around by the fireballs, at least on the intro/demo screen, don’t worry; he won’t be around for long. If and/or when you get to the shooting stage nothing much changes, the vertically scrolling stuff is still there even though it has no pertinence to the game anymore, the fireballs are gone and are replaced with some new creatures. Two of the three creatures that appear on the screen are the Cosmic Creeps, they’re suitably sci-fi what with their green and yellow skin and their bright red uniforms, just like on the box art. The third demon creature is a Cosmic Kid, it looks like a kid, and is a perfect example of why this game is so disappointing, almost nothing is animated, it’s just still sprites sliding around the screen, the only things that actually have animation are the fireballs but they are only visible for about 1/10 of the actual game, the creeps only flash between green and yellow skin so it doesn’t really count as animation. Sounds are pretty standard as far as 2600 games go. There is a rumble for the engine, there are chirps and blips to indicate the appearance of an enemy, simple generic things like that. The only sounds that I find remotely noteworthy are the explosion noises, they are just so chunky, and since you can sometimes get enemies in a destruction loop you can hear the chunky crunchy explosion noise over and over again. There are also vaguely musical noises whenever you start the game and whenever you progress to the next ‘planet’, I’ll explain that in a moment, but since there is nothing that makes me want to press the mute button I’ll let it pass. Alright so this is where the game gets both confusing and boring, the gameplay. To start off with you play as the Orbinaut (no relation to Sonic the Hedgehog), who must traverse the obstacle course to the ship at the top of the screen; you can select its starting position from the intro screen. When you get to the top of the screen, dodging fireballs all the way you stand beneath the ship and the real game begins. A Cosmic Kid followed by two Cosmic Creeps will appear from the bottom left of the screen and it’s your job to destroy the creeps without hitting the kid, you can still shoot him and be fine though simply hold up on the joystick to make another kid appear. The creeps have two speeds comically slow and fast, if a fast alien hits your kid in the back the kid is toast, and you lose more of your precious time. Oh wait! I completely forgot to mention the timer; can you guess what it is? Of course you couldn’t it’s the big orange circle at the bottom of the screen, every time it hits the sides of the screen it sinks a pixel lower, and when it’s all gone your time is up, to keep playing you have to have 5000+ points otherwise it’s game over, unfortunately spawning another kid makes the ‘thing’ sink an extra pixel but the child is worth 1500 points so it’s a trade off. Each creep is worth 100 points while a saved child is worth 1500 but a lost child will detract from your precious time so it’s a trade off, there is strategy but it’s intermixed with a hearty helping of luck as well. If you’re unfortunate enough to have a slow moving child spawn right before a fast moving creep you’ll lose the child guaranteed unless you’re the best shot on the planet, but I doubt that since your shots move as slow as molasses and require you to shoot way ahead of the creeps to even have a chance of hitting them. Cosmic Creeps had the potential to be a very good game, but is ultimately hindered by an unclear starting objective, and lackluster verging on boring gameplay since it’s entirely possible to get the creeps in an endless loop of death where you simply fire at regular intervals and they all move right into your shots. The only thing that really sets it apart is the graphics which are, at a glance, extremely good, but the beauty is only skin deep as this is one of the most shallow games on the system, you can get some fun out of it, but it will be fleeting. Copies of this game are relatively cheap usually falling into the sub $10 range, with handle copies being a tad more expensive, boxed copies are few and far between but the only boxed copy currently listed is sitting at a hefty $65 + $11 shipping, 15-25 dollars is the recommended purchase price for this game boxed however so just take your time with this one. Unfortunately I have to condemn this game to the Collectors Zone for just being a mediocre verging on bad and mildly confusing game that is simply overshadowed by other, better games.

Makes "loud special sounds".

Sorry about missing the review yesterday, I've been under the weather recently. I managed to get this review out for you guys today, because I like ya, and you deserve it. We’re back in Mattel territory with Lock ‘n’ Chase which just so happens to be another Pac-Man clone. Lock ‘n’ Chase was one of the several Mattel games that were released both on the 2600 and on the Intellivision. While the Intellivision version was a slow and monotonous mess with unresponsive controls, the 2600 version was snappy and fast and played much like a Pac-Man game should, fast. The graphics are plain and boring, and the sounds are unimpressive, that doesn’t matter, all that matters with a game of this genre is how it plays, and it plays pretty well. The controls are fast and responsive and the enemy AI is challenging and cunning, I would even say wily. The main goal in this game is to collect all of the white things and get to the exit, you are pursued by four restroom signs who will take a life if you touch them, collision detection is very strict so watch your step. You can stop the signs dead in their tracks by pressing the button and magically summoning a locked door, I honestly don’t know where the doors will show up so it’s a bit of a crap shoot on whether you’ll stop them or not, but it’s still useful either way. Much of the difficulty comes from the somewhat restrictive maze layout that consists of several long straightaway’s that will lead you to get boxed in, and a grid-like design that will have you backtracking heavily, but the design simply emphasizes the use of the door system to save you from getting boxed in and losing a life so the maze design is rather smart in that aspect. There are escape chutes that will take you to the other side of the maze, and from what I’ve experienced the enemies are unable to use them to those are an easy way out of a bad situation. Overall this is a fun game to play a few rounds on and put down for a while, like most Pac-Man style games it won’t hold your attention for long but while it does it’s a fun time. Copies of Lock ‘n’ Chase are relatively cheap, on Ebay you can find loose carts for as little as $3.50 free shipping and boxed copies (some are still sealed) are as cheap as $10 free shipping, if anything I’d say to go for a CIB copy since it’s be easier to store, since those M-Network carts are garbage.

is it even possible to roll the score on this game?

It’s time to play a true classic, a game that seems to stand above the rest with its fun and quality. SPIDER FIGHTER!!! Or as I call it ‘SPIDER FIDER’, a game that is both fun and cathartic because I don’t like spiders and would much rather beat them up. Your objective in Spider Fider is to shoot the crap out of insects and spiders that are trying to steal the fruit from an orchard, to stop them you shoot poison pellets from your Bug Blaster. The Master Nest will spew out ugly bugs for you to contend with, while also trying to steal the fruit situated on the top right of the screen if you shoot the Master Nest, all bugs present on the screen will turn into yucky looking Stingers that shoot a whole bunch of nastiness at you. The movement of your Bug Blaster is fast and responsive, and experienced player can effortlessly weave through waves of enemies without breaking a sweat. Shooting is one of the best feelings you can get in a videogame, coupled with the sounds is feels like you’re a poison machine gun of death doom and destruction hell-bent on vaporizing anything with more than four legs, it just feels so good. I need not comment on the graphics or the sounds, since its Activision and you know it’s good before you put the game in the console (I know that’s not true for all Activision games but it is for most) so you don’t need to worry about it. This is one of Activision’s most common titles so it should be no problem for you to find one in the wild, but if you are unable to I’m seeing loose copies for 6+ bucks on Ebay with boxed copies coming in at 25+ dollars, which is a bit steep for such a common game. Spider Fider is definitely a game worth owning and worth playing (often, very often).