Red Sea Crossing

Red Sea Crossing

Atari 2600, 1983
Developer: Steve Stack
Publisher: Inspirational Video Concepts
Genre: Action

Back in the early 80s gaming was still in its wild west phase. Just about anyone could try to make a game and seek their fortune. Atari had created such a boom that many fly by night companies set out to find success in an industry they didn’t understand. The history of Atari is littered with mail order games that are only known about by a couple of print ads, strange foreign games that maybe trickled into the states but maybe didn’t, and at least one that was sold door to door. You don’t know rare if you don’t know Atari. The rarest Atari games make the Nintendo World Championship cart look like Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt. Red Sea Crossing is such a cart. It is only known about from a single print ad in a religious magazine and two known copies that both sold for over $10,000. Supposedly the designer of the game made 100 carts and then promptly lost track of them. No part of the story makes any sense, especially now that I have actually played the game and can’t see anything amateur about it. How does a game this well made end up being so rare?

In Red Sea Crossing you play as Moses crossing the newly parted Red Sea. The game plays similarly to Pitfall in that the object is to avoid obstacles as you move across the screen. Unlike Pitfall though it is a color extravaganza. It’s hard to think of a 2600 game that is more colorful. It is also one of the most musical 2600 games I have played with a song at the beginning, a brief one when an enemy is jumped over, and a separate one for game over. There’s also a sun that slowly moves across the screen and friendly fish that swim around both above and below your character. That’s a lot going on in one game.

Since this is a religious game Moses doesn’t do any fighting himself. Instead he has to avoid hazards such as giant crabs, clams, cacti, and Egyptian soldiers shooting arrows. Some enemies will take away points while some cost a life. It has a very good pace and the difficulty increases slowly enough to let you learn the game. Every time I played I did a little better, and I always wanted to play again. I was also surprised by how many different types of enemies there were. Honestly I don’t know if I have seen them all, but there must be about a dozen enemies and hazards. That’s surprisingly deep for an Atari game. 

Everything about this game screams hoax to me. How did one guy make such a quality game for a tiny religious company and then promptly lose all the copies? Also, the original ad claims that the game came with a coloring book and cassette narrated by western star Dale Evans. They must have invested some money into the project to get her to participate. Also, the game plays somewhat similarly to foreign game Bobby is Going Home which I doubt the programmer would’ve had access to. However, the ad is definitely real. The game looks just like the game in the picture. Also, everyone I trust in the Atari community believes that it is real. It’s just a game that is so strange that its very existence is the strangest part of all.

However all of this speculation has no bearing on my list. All games are welcome homebrews and bootlegs included. As I said already this game is impressive for a one man indie game. It’s not a masterpiece, but it definitely goes above the Baraduke line. I am going to put it just above Walt Disney World Quest because I think I could have fun with Red Sea Crossing longer. It’s actually a pretty good high score game. Of course I don’t have a copy of it so I played it over at atarimania.com. I’m glad that site exists so I can check out all these weird old games.

1. Galaga

2. Pac-Mania

3. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

4. Metro-Cross

5. Gaplus

6. Dragon Spirit

7. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

8. Red Sea Crossing

9. Baraduke

10. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

11. Galaxian

12. Gyruss (2600)

13. Looney Tunes Racing

Next time: Another mail order game with only a couple known copies

Looney Tunes Racing

Game Boy Color (2), 2000
Genre: Racing (3)
Publisher: Infogrames
Developer: Xantera

Recently I talked about how Disney had a good track record with video games. Well their main golden age rival Warner Brothers had a reputation all over the map. Their games run the gamut from classic to garbage. There were also a ton of them released in the 90s so the varying quality isn’t all that surprising. They weren’t always getting the best in the business to make their games. Looney Tunes Racing is a textbook example of their over exposure. It was made by a small company called Xantera that for about two years did sports conversions for Game Boy Color. Their other six games are Test Drive and Tiger Woods games that are more well known on their home console counterparts. Looney Tunes Racing is no exception to the rule as there is also a version on Playstation. I haven’t played that one, but I can tell you this GBC version doesn’t give me much confidence. In this game we have the funniest characters in the history of cinema staring in one depressingly dull game.

It gets off to an okay start. The vehicle descriptions are peppered with Looney Tunes humor and the backgrounds on the tracks look very nice. But then the first track ends up being a simple circle. Then the second track is also a simple circle. Then reality starts to set in that every track is going to be a circle. The whole game you are slowly racing around a long boring circle. No obsticles, no sharp turns, just circles. There are also only four racers per track which means that there are long stretches where there is nothing on the screen but road. You can pick up some typical Looney Tunes items like anvils and portable holes, but there’s just not much opportunity to use them. Kart racing just isn’t that much fun without characters to interact with or interesting tracks to navigate. Who knew? It can also be beaten in less than a half hour not that anyone would want to play it much longer than that anyway.

It’s hard for a game that I expected so little from to disappoint me so much. It’s not like I thought this was going to be Gran Turismo or anything, but I was at least hoping that Xantera would put in a little effort. It’s a shame because the graphics are quite nice. This makes it one of the most inexplicable things in all of gaming. It’s a game that’s actually better on pause. It’s time to get out your red pencil if you’re playing along at home because we have our first bad game on the list. Just like Wile. E. Coyote running off the side of a cliff, it’s going straight to the bottom.

1. Galaga

2. Pac-Mania

3. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

4. Metro-Cross

5. Gaplus

6. Dragon Spirit

7. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

8. Baraduke

9. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

10. Galaxian

11. Gyruss (2600)

12. Looney Tunes Racing

Next time: Ultra rare Atari week begins!

Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour

Year: 2000
Genre: Racing (2)
Developer: Crystal Dynamics
Publisher: Activision

The awkwardly named Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour is the other side of the racing coin compared to Mickey’s Racing Adventure. Quest is shorter and more straightforward. There’s no world to explore, just races. It also has a side view instead of the overhead view of its Adventure cousin. Also since all the tracks are based on Disney attractions it feels much more like an advertisement. It is, however, still a pretty fun little racing game.

It certainly meets its quota for kooky characters and collectibles. Besides Chip and Dale the game has several unique characters who I believe are only in this game. At least I’ve never heard of Otto Plugnut or Baron Karlott anywhere else. Each one has their own backstory, but I am still not sure about their stats. It did feel like some were better on certain tracks, and ones that were unlocked later tended to do better overall, but this could all be my imagination.

There are three goals to each race, so everything needs to be done more than once. Luckily the races are all pretty quick and the different goals offer up enough variety to keep the game from getting tedious. The difficulty is pretty low in this one as it was obviously designed more for kids. I would say the endings are a bit of a cop out. Is there anything more lazy than a parade and fireworks show? It’s not like real fireworks are all that uncommon or exciting. It doesn’t stir the emotions seeing them on Game Boy Color’s washed out screen. That’s still not too big of a gripe though since I enjoyed getting all the endings and that’s what really counts.

I’m excited about this ranking because I now have eleven games. That means that I can have a real top 10 now. It’s so much fun saying that something made it into the top 10. You should try it on something yourself. This game certainly makes it into the top 10, but not particularly high. It’s more fun to play than Baraduke, but I think I’d rather play Dragon Spirit and try to survive the challenge than play through this easy racing game again. Still, I am glad I played it. I am also experimenting with colorizing my list. I’ve got green for the good games, orange for the okay games, and red for the bad games. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but let me know what you think.

1. Galaga

2. Pac-Mania

3. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

4. Metro-Cross

5. Gaplus

6. Dragon Spirit

7. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

8. Baraduke

9. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

10. Galaxian

11. Gyruss (2600)

Next time: The first red game???

Mickey's Racing Adventure

Game Boy Color 1999
Developer: Rare
Publisher: Nintendo

If you’ve ever wanted to play a licensed game that combines elements of Gran Turismo and Boulder Dash than I have a game for you. Mickey’s Racing adventure is just about as complicated as a Game Boy Color racing game aimed at kids can be. I can use all my favorite descriptors for this one. Depth! Overworld! Collectibles! Stat increases! And while it’s not a perfect game by any means, it’s still impressive.

Racing!

Disney was always a bit immune to the licensed game curse. Some of the best games of the 80s and early 90s starred Disney characters. So it should be no surprise that when they license a racing game they are going to put a little effort into it. Of course it was also made by Rare during their heyday so it’s no surprise I enjoyed it. The game has the typical setup of Pete doing something bad and Mickey saving the day by racing. It starts out in a hub world, and to get to the race tracks you have to find coins for the train. There is also money to be found to upgrade your racers and buy items. I was surprised by just how much there is to find scattered about. Pluto has a dig ability which lets him turn the whole world into dirt looking for hidden goodies. Rare really loved putting collectibles in their games. 

Hub world!

There are also minigames that end up taking as long to play as the races themselves. Pluto follows along a parallel path where he has to play a game similar to Boulder Dash in which he digs in the dirt looking for bones while avoiding Butch the dog. Some of these levels are downright punishing and I almost gave up on the whole thing a few times. There are also sliding puzzles which I can’t stand. I will admit that I cheated on one by filming it getting mixed up and then watching it in reverse. I have no shame! There’s also also a train game that plays similar to the Intellivision classic Loco-Motion. Ask your grandparents about that one. 

Loco-Motion!

Oh yeah and there’s also racing! If I seem to be ignoring the main draw it’s only because it’s the least surprising part. It’s some good Game Boy racing which is mostly about knowing when to turn. You need to learn the tracks to get good at it which is alright because even losing earns money to buy upgrades with. It has both road and water races which get challenging near the end. I felt accomplished when I was done.

Boulder Dash!

So it sounds like I am gushing a little, but this game was a pleasant surprise. It’s my first true console game that I have reviewed, and it’s going to go fairly high. It’s interesting to see how a game made for a handheld compares to one built for the arcades. It breaks my heart but I have to put it above Metro-Cross. The deeper gameplay makes it more memorable. So now I finally have a top 10. I need to hurry up and play 10 more games so I can have a bottom 10. Every good list needs one of those

1. Galaga

2. Pac-Mania

3. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

4. Metro-Cross

5. Gaplus

6. Dragon Spirit

7. Baraduke

8. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

9. Galaxian

10. Gyruss (2600)

Next time: A simpler racing game with a more complicated title.

Gaplus

The only thing I really don’t like about this game is its name. It’s hard to say and doesn’t resemble the other games in the series. Is it really only the “Ga” that signifies the series? I’m just glad they didn’t call the fourth game in the series something like Gasuper. It’s no wonder that it has often been renamed Galaga 3. Even this is weird because there is no Galaga 2. The name is kind of dumb, but the game itself is fun.

So what is the third game in the Ga series like? Well it’s like Galaga but even more difficult and frantic. It’s hard for me to even survive the initial formations. The first level (called parsecs, which are everyone’s favorite measures of distance and not time) is okay because I can stay in the middle and the diving space bugs miss me, but in the second level they start shooting sooner and I just don’t know what to do. While I was playing it for this blog I only got past the second level once. In spite of this I kept playing. I always felt like I could do better even if I never really could. That’s good design for an arcade game. I would’ve spent rolls of quarters on this one back in the day.

Also new in this one is a ridiculous power up. In this game the captured becomes the captor. If you get the power up you shoot out a beam to capture enemy ships. You then get to keep every ship you capture. I’ve never been able to get more than four, but I am going to keep trying to get a whole row of ships. It wouldn’t last long, but it sure would be exciting. What’s not so exciting is the added ability to move up on the screen. I haven’t found a good use for not staying on the bottom of the screen. That just seems like a good way to get killed faster. Still I appreciate that they tried to add a new element, and maybe it’s just that I am no good. I always think it’s my fault when something in a game doesn’t work right.

For being the sequel to one of the most important games of all times Gaplus is surprisingly forgotten. It’s been rarely ported over the years and has two weird and rotating names. The Namco Museum Volume 2 port is still the easiest way to play it. This is a shame because it’s a very good game. Sure it’s difficult, but it’s the kind of difficulty that I still feel like I could overcome if I kept trying. Its connection to the earlier games makes it feel like an old friend, but its high level of difficulty keeps me on the edge of my seat. I’m actually going to rank it high on my list. It’s going above Dragon Spirit because it has more replay value but below Metro-Cross because it is less unique. I haven’t gotten to most of the true classics in the Namco Museum series, but I think it will always rank pretty high.

1. Galaga

2. Pac-Mania

3. Metro-Cross

4. Gaplus

5. Dragon Spirit

6. Baraduke

7. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

8. Galaxian

9. Gyruss (2600)

Next time: I know the secret to getting more views. I am going to write about some Game Boy Color racing games!

Galaga

Galaga may win the award for most improved sequel of all time. Galaxian was a solid foundation for a game, but Galaga improves it in every way. It’s faster, more challenging, and less predictable. Every time you play it you’re going to get a slightly different experience. The enemies in Galaga relentlessly attack. There’s no more waiting around for something to happen. They shoot, dive, and split into even more monsters. You have bonus stages, enemy formations to shoot down, and of course the ultimate decision for gaining even more bonus points.

So what is the ultimate decision? Certain enemies will capture your ship. You can either avoid them to save your ship, shoot them while diving to get a double ship, or shoot your ship to get bonus points. I have always gone the double ship route. I am a bit hopeless with a single ship. It might be because I’m left handed and have never been able to push the button that fast. I should try to play some more one ship games sometime. It’s a fixed screen shooter that really gives the player a chance to experiment.

So this one is going to be very easy to rank. I almost hated to play it because I knew it was going to go straight up to the top and probably stay there for a while. If you consider yourself a gamer you need to play Galaga at least once. It’s one of the seminal games of all time. It’s another one that was never ported to the Atari 2600 so I grew up playing the Atari 7800 version. That version was alright, but twenty years ago the PS1 version blew my mind. It’s the highlight of the entire Namco Museum.

1. Galaga

2. Pac-Mania

3. Metro-Cross

4. Dragon Spirit

5. Baraduke

6. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

7. Galaxian

8. Gyruss (2600)

Next time: The lesser known third game in the series!

Galaxian (Arcade 1979)

Galaxian has a huge chip on its shoulder. It’s impossible to play this game without thinking about Galaga. No game lives more in the shadow of its sequel than Galaxian. There’s a good reason for this. Compared to its younger brother Galaxian is downright dull. Now I know that this game is a classic that can still be found in arcades today, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not very good.

Galaxian is a fixed screen shooter that presents the same formation of space bugs over and over. They move back and forth like in Space Invaders, but they don’t do much else while at the top of the screen. They don’t even fire while in formation. The only challenge, and with that the only fun, is when the space bugs dive. Then they become active offensive enemies. I enjoy the diving so much that I almost hate to shoot them while they are in formation. It’s bad when you have to sit around in a game waiting for the challenge to come.

Galaxian is an unusually slow and methodical arcade game. I know some people love it, but it just doesn’t do much for me. I just don’t have much fun waiting for space bugs to fly at me. I will take it out and play it sometimes, but usually only once or twice. It will probably end up much lower on my list than it would on the typical list, but I can’t help it if everybody else is wrong. It belongs lower down than just about every well known Namco game.

1. Pac-Mania

2. Metro-Cross

3. Dragon Spirit

4. Baraduke

5. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

6. Galaxian

7. Gyruss (Atari 2600)

Next time: Galaxian’s much better younger brother!

Gyruss (Atari 2600, 1984)

Tempest is one of Atari’s crowning achievements. It has fast and exciting gameplay, great vector graphics, and dozens of unique maps. It’s also famous for not getting a home version on the 2600. By the time programmers were able to figure out how to replicate it on the 2600 it was too late. The crash was in full force. So if you were shopping for 2600 games in 1984 and you wanted to play Tempest what could you do? You’d breathe a defeated sigh and buy Gyruss instead. Like Tempest you shoot down at enemies down a circular tube. Also like Tempest it is technically impressive. It is one of the few 2600 games to have background music, and some of the graphics are excellent. Sadly unlike Tempest it just doesn’t have the gameplay.

Basically the game plays like Tempest mixed with Galaga. You are a ship that moves around in a circle shooting down formations of enemy ships. You keep doing this until you reach a planet where you shoot down more formations of enemy ships. After the planet level you are then sent back to shoot down the same formations of enemy ships again. It’s repetitive is what I’m saying. It’s biggest flaw, however, is that it is just too easy.

Usually playing an Atari game on the easy setting still offers a fair amount of challenge. It’s a good way to test out the game and learn how to play. Many games don’t even need to be adjusted. Their default setting is just right. With Gyruss I feel like I’m playing a demo. The enemy aliens never penetrate your invisible circle so they are no threat. They just disappear if they don’t get shot. Their shots move very slowly as well making them very easy to dodge. I could play it without even looking at it, and that is never good. Even on the hardest setting it was still light on the challenge. I did have to dodge meteors and an occasional enemy ship, but I still didn’t have to pay much attention to do well.

So we have botched arcade conversion that strips out all the challenge and mostly just makes me think of a far superior game. This one is easy to put on the list. It’s going all the way to the bottom. At least The Legend of “Valkyrie” was challenging. Hopefully the NES version of Gyruss is better. I will have to check it out sometime.

1. Pac-Mania

2. Metro-Cross

3. Dragon Spirit

4. Baraduke

5. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

6. Gyruss (Atari 2600)

Next time: The wild world of Namco Museum Vol. 2 begins

Dragon Spirit (Arcade 1987)

If you played NES back in the 80s then you probably played or at least heard of Dragon Spirit. It was certainly one of my favorite games back in the day, and it’s one that I feel I have just about memorized. So imagine my surprise when I played the Namco Museum version and found out that I am now quite bad at Dragon Spirit. I couldn’t get to a single boss. The preset high score is 80,000 and I couldn’t even get 20,000. Yes, Dragon Spirit is very, very hard.

Dragon Spirit is a classic vertical shooter with a fun Paleozoic setting. It’s a nice change of pace from the more typical military or pacific setting of so many other vertical shooters. What I always enjoyed about this game is the strange enemies. It is filled with prehistoric cryptids that attack relentlessly and often become shrapnel after being shot. I know it’s the kind of thing I complained about in Baraduke, but the enemies in Dragon Spirit are predictable. You can learn their patterns and get better as you play. This makes the difficulty more about skill and less about randomness. This is just how an arcade game should be.

I can see why Dragon Spirit is fondly remembered today. It plays great, looks great, and offers quite a bit of challenge without feeling unfair. It’s certainly one that I am glad to have on console because it would quickly make my quarters disappear. For the Ironclad List of Correctness I am going to slot it into the third spot. That really highlights the surprising quality of Namco Museum Vol. 5. Dragon Spirit is a very good game, but It’s still a vertical shooter not that much different from so many other vertical shooters. Still, if you see it at your local retro arcade or pick up one of the Namco collections that includes it make sure you play it. Just don’t expect to get very far for a while.

1. Pac-Mania

2. Metro-Cross

3. Dragon Spirit

4. Baraduke

5. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

Next time: I got a couple of Atari games in the mail. Maybe I’ll write about those.

Baraduke (1985)

The mid 80s gaming world was one that was starved for inclusion. Most human protagonists of the era were young white males, even ones that were made in other countries. A game like Baraduke is interesting because it bucks the trend and makes the main character a woman, then ruins it by hiding her under body armor and not revealing her gender until the very end. Of course the character is called Kissy so maybe the twist should be pretty obvious. This plot point is similar to Metroid which was made a year later, but that’s really the only thing both games have in common. Metroid is more about exploration while Baraduke is pure action.

This is a game that I almost really like. I enjoy the setup. You are moving from room to room shooting specific monsters. The door opens when you defeat them all. The levels I have played through are all fairly small, so there is a lot going on in each one. This is actually the biggest problem with the game as a whole. It is almost all cheap hits. You only have two hit points to start out with, and there are unseen dangers everywhere. I usually get killed by an alien that I didn’t see or a bullet that was too big to dodge. It feels like dodging bullets is more an act of luck than anything else. Everything moves pretty slow, but the characters and projectiles take up so much space there is almost nowhere to hide. Not even the powerups are safe as about half of them have monsters that pop out and chase you. You should never have to run away from powerups. That’s just wrong.

(What Kissy is a woman? That was worth my whole roll of quarters!)

Still the game left an impression on me. It’s a good high score game because it doesn’t last too long and I always feel like I can do a little better. I just wish it was a little more fair. It’s less fun when I get killed by a deadly stalactite I can’t see. For my ranking it easily scoots into the third slot. It’s definitely more fun than Valkyrie and still a very playable game on Namco Museum Vol. 5. The Ironclad List of Correctness now looks like this:

1. Pac-Mania

2. Metro-Cross

3. Baraduke

4. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

Next time: I finish out Namco Museum Vol. 5 with a game you have maybe actually heard of.