Developer: Bomb/Onbase
Publisher: Bomb/Onbase
Release Date: 1983
There’s not enough written about all the 3rd party companies that sprung up during Atari’s boom years of 1981-1983. It was over these three years that the majority of all 2600 games came out. Activision came up with the concept and Apollo showed that you could make games even without much experience, so everybody thought there was money to be made. By 1984 they were almost all gone. Even big companies like Parker Bros. and 20th Century Fox couldn’t weather the storm. What hope was there for the smaller companies? Bomb was certainly one of the smallest and most obscure of the 3rd party publishers. There is very little information about them online, but they appear to be an Asian company that was trying to branch out in the the US market. That makes sense why they decided to name their US division something synonymous with failure. They had probably never heard the term before. They managed to release four games in America in very small quantities sometime near the fall of 1983. There are no exact release dates or reasons for their rarity. And these are some rare games too. All four are about as rare as it gets for game actually released in stores. Usually there’s an interesting story behind extreme rarity, but if there is one behind the Bomb games it has been lost to time. Another quality of ultra rare 3rd party game is low quality. Happily, Wall-Defender breaks the trend. It’s actually a decent game. Thankfully it is now 2023 and we can play all the rare 2600 games without much effort. Although this game is good, I’m glad I didn’t have to pay $100 to review it.
Wall-Defender is a tense and claustrophobic shooter. The play field is small and only gets smaller. That can be a detriment in some games, but in Wall-Defender it works. You play as a typical Atari spaceship hopelessly trying to keep your walls from being destroyed. You will eventually lose of course, but why not try to stave of the inevitable as long as you can? You defend yourself by moving around a rectangular set of walls while shooting at aliens who come in from certain spots on all four sides of the screen. The middle is the most common place, but they can spawn closer to the sides as well. You don’t take damage yourself in this game, but instead your walls get damaged as the aliens crash into them. Every layer can take ten hits. The walls will get darker as they get closer to destruction and start blinking after seven hits If you are on the outer layer when it is destroyed than you are destroyed too. You then get to watch your character sadly float away into the dark vacuum of space. It’s a nice touch. There are also big aliens who take out your wall in a single hit. There is less distance to travel when the walls get smaller so in a way it gets easier as it goes on, but of course this puts you closer to a game over. Walls will regenerate after successful rounds, so it’s not hopeless if you do something stupid early in the game and start losing walls too soon.
For such a simple premise this game is full of tension and strategy. The aliens can pop up anywhere at any time and they only get faster as the game goes along. There is always that decision you have to make when one spawns on the complete opposite side of your rectangle. Do you try to go get it even though chances are low that you will make it over there, or do you stay closer to where you are and hope something spawns closer? Sometimes you have to sacrifice a couple of hits to make it through a round. It’s a game as much about decision making as it is about accuracy. It also gets very fast after a few rounds. Your walls get smaller, the aliens become more frequent, and it gets to be very exciting. The graphics are sparse, but there are several different aliens and they do look not of this Earth. I appreciate it that they took the time to make some actual aliens instead of just using generic shapes. I just wish I knew who actually made this game. It’s strange how anonymous older games can be. This one takes it a step further. Not only do I now know who made it, I don’t even know what country it’s from. I barely have it narrowed it down to a continent.
So, Wall-Defender is a fun game that was released forty years ago and went virtually unplayed. It came out in small quantities by a practically unknown publisher right as the US market was collapsing. This is one of the reasons I love living in the internet era. Today I can type the name into Google and within seconds be playing. I’d still love to have a physical copy of course, but playing Atari games on the computer doesn’t alter the experience all that much. In some respects, we live in a golden age. At least that’s how having access to rare Atari games makes me feel.
So Wall-Defender definitely makes it up into the good section of games. I know it has a reputation for low quality shovelware, but the Atari 2600 has a lot more good games than you think it has. Now it’s not going up particularly high in the good column, but most of the 2600 games are going to be stuck in that section by virtue of their age and simplicity. It’s just hard to compete with games that got a ten- or twenty-year head start. It’s at #66 on my list which is just below the even rarer Red Sea Crossing and just above the kooky Bible Buffet. I’m going to play some more bad ones of course, but I’m excited to uncover even more hidden Atari 2600 gems.
Atari 2600 Quality Percentage: 9/15 or 60%
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