NES #32: Qix

Developer: Threshold Research/ Novotrade (port)

Publisher: Taito

Release: January 1991

 Despite my hobby of playing and writing about old video games I don’t feel like I am that nostalgic. At least, I don’t feel the extreme nostalgia of our modern age. I’m not aching for things I like from my childhood to become new media, and I mostly find the recent nostalgia wave to be more of a cynical cash grab than anything else. My childhood had its moments for sure, but I wasn’t the happiest kid, and my life is much more fulfilling now that I am the adult instead. And yet, when I play an old NES game I love like Qix, it puts me back into my childhood. I feel like I’m back at my childhood home playing games all night with my brother. It’s interesting that I get this nostalgic feeling because while I did play this game with my brother, it wasn’t until I was in college. It takes a special game to evoke warm childhood memories that didn’t even exist. Now we did spend countless nights playing Tetris as children, and despite the two games being released several years apart and developed on different continents, I feel like there is a link between the two games.

 Qix  is a much older arcade game designed by the fairly enigmatic and wonderfully named husband-and-wife team Randy and Sandy Pfeiffer. Qix is their only major credit, and I’ve only found the briefest mentions of them online. No one is exactly sure how the game got its odd name (pronounced “kicks” instead of “quicks”), but one story is that it comes from a vanity license plate they owned which said JUS4QIX. I guess they were into the whole brevity thing. Qix hit the arcade scene in 1981 and became a fairly significant hit. There were a couple of ports within the next two years, but then like so many arcade games of the era is drifted off into relative obscurity. Luckily, it came roaring back in 1989 when ports would start popping up everywhere. The most famous from this particular wave of ports is likely the NES version, and it certainly ranks among the console’s most vital arcade ports. This is about as arcade as an NES port can be.

 

When you first start your Qix experience you are treated to one of the simplest set ups in gaming history. There’s just a white rectangle against a black screen with an odd line-based shape moving erratically. There’s not even any music. You play as a little dot moving around the outside of the rectangle. I usually discourage dot-as-protagonists in games, but Qix is about as story-free as it gets so it works. The object is to fill in the rectangle by drawing lines, and thereby making polygons within. It’s mostly gonna be squares and rectangles, but there will be more abstract shapes mixed in as well. The large moving shape is the titular Qix, and the object is to trap it in a tiny space by filling in the grid. Each level has a certain percentage of the play field that needs to be filled in to progress, but you get big bonus points for going over that number, and getting big points is what the game is all about.

If this was only a puzzle game about polygons it would be good, but Qix is filled with fast action as well. The cover art boasts that your mind is your only weapon, but fast reflexes and a bit of luck are required too. The qix moves randomly, so you never know where it’s going to end up, and if you get hit while drawing a line than you lose a life. You also can’t wait for the danger to pass because there are enemies called sparx that move along the perimeter and cause you to lose a life if you touch one. The only defense is to draw around them because they will only pass over completed sections. So you have to be constantly moving, constantly drawing, and always thinking about ways to trap the qix in as small as small a space as possible. I try to make little nooks that it will wander into, but you never can predict where it’s going to go. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and trap it in a bigger space because if you wait too long more sparx will appear. This is action-puzzling at its finest.

 

Qix works because it is always a blast to play. It’s still a thrill every time I am able to capture a high percentage. Of course, getting a high score is just about all there is to do here. You have to put yourself back in an old school mindset to get the most out of your experience. It doesn’t even have milestones like in Ms. Pac-Man that you can use to claim the game won. The filled in areas do have patterns, but even these are random, so you can’t just wait for them to loop. This lack of closure might bother some, but you just have to free your mind and become one with the Qix, man. You’ll be happy you did.

So, we’ve already established that this is a great game, but why did it make a comeback in the late 80’s? This is pure speculation, but I think it was boosted by the Tetris effect. After Tetris became a smash, everyone started looking for their own puzzle game. This boom created space for many interesting games in the years to come, but luckily for Taito they had already created their Tetris several years prior. Qix gained a second life and was ported enough to become a staple. It’s nice to see two such great games boosting each other. I can’t wait to review all the other quirky puzzle games that came out in the wake of Tetris.

 

I have ranked enough NES games that a picture is starting to form about what I like and what I don’t. I really do love arcade games, but I don’t tend to rank them as high as classic Nintendo originals. So Qix is going in at #18 overall and #5 on the NES list just ahead of Galaga. It’s not quite great enough to unseat a Super Mario Brothers or a Zelda, but it’s a worthy edition to any NES library.

 

NES Quality Percentage: 17/32 or 53.12%

Ranking List.docx

Atari 7800 #2/NES #31: Galaga

Developer: Namco

Publishers: Atari/Bandai

 

Everybody loves Galaga. It’s one of the most beloved arcade games of all time. It’s been an arcade staple so long that it’s outlasted the concept of an arcade staple. It’s been released so many times that you’re still likely to find one at a bowling alley or movie theater lobby near you. That being said it’s not a game that was ported to consoles much until the 21^st century. Pac-Man, Namco’s biggest hit, has been ported dozens of times. It’s on almost every obscure console available. It’s so popular that the NES has two licensed versions, one by Tengen and one by Namco.  Namco loves getting their games out on consoles, so the lack of Galaga in the early days is probably more related to the technical aspects than demand. It’s by far the most famous arcade game to not have a 2600 port, and as far as I know there was never even an attempt at make one. That’s somewhat surprising considering what a good job Atari did with Galaxian. I guess it was just too fast and too powerful for early 80s hardware. As a result, the two significant home versions didn’t come along until well into the 8-bit era, and they are both games I played a ton as a kid. So who wins, the Atari 7800 NES?

The Atari 7800 was my first console, and I have so many fond childhood memories of playing Galaga on it. Those great old arcade classics are what got me into gaming in the first place. So it’s a bit of a surprise to play it now and discover that it’s one of the worst versions of Galaga. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad game overall, but it certainly pales in comparison to the great ports that exist today. The main problem is that it is way too slow. It seems to move at about half speed compared to the arcade version. It was perfect for five year old me, but not great beyond that. It doesn’t quite capture the look either. It doesn’t have the usual score display, and instead of medals to track levels it has simple numbers. I know I’m nitpicking here, but if you were truly looking for the arcade experience you grew up with than it might be a disappointment. It’s still decent, but it’s certainly one of the weaker 7800 arcade ports.

 

The NES isn’t remembered for classic arcade ports, but they sure had some great ones. I know I was just griping about Ms. Pac-Man yesterday, but that is the rare exception. Most publishers handled it better than Namco. Bandai did a great job with this one even though they didn’t specialize in arcade conversions. Bandai mostly did bad, weird looking games that were quickly forgotten on the NES. Of course, now the company is called Bandai-Namco, so perhaps it was their destiny. This version of Galaga is subtitled Demons of Death for no reason at all. I don’t know if they were trying to make people think it was a sequel or just thought it sounded cool. I will admit though, demons of death certainly sound like the scariest kinds of demons. I’d be much less intimidated if they were just demons of discomfort or mild inconvenience. Silly name notwithstanding this is exactly what you would want if you were itching to play Galaga at home. It’s as close to arcade perfect as possible. The graphics, sound, and presentation put my mind right into the arcade. The speed is perfect, and it is pleasantly chaotic. My one gripe is that it’s a very bare-bones presentation. The Atari 7800 version had its problems, but even with that one you could change the difficulty. The NES version has no options at all. You put the game in your console, turn it on, and play Galaga. That’s all you get out of this one, but luckily that’s all you really need. Unless I’ve missed one, this is the best version of the original Galaga that would come out until the wonderful widescreen version on Namco Museum Volume 1.

 I feel bad comparing the two because, obviously, the NES is a much more powerful system. If you only had a 7800 at the time and wanted to play Galaga you probably wouldn’t be sad, but you might not be excited either. I will say that 7800 Galaga certainly wins for warm childhood memories. That’s a game that has been with me for almost my entire life, and just looking at the cart gives me warm fuzzies. I can’t rank games based on memories though, so the NES version is going to rank much higher. In fact, it’s all the way up at #19. A great version of Galaga is always going to end up high on my list. That makes it the fifth best NES game I’ve reviewed so far. Galaga for 7800 is a respectable 78^th. As you know I love old arcade games, so expect to see more of those high up on the list than most people would probably put them. There’s much more worth playing on NES than Mario, Mega Man, and Zelda, and I look forward to digging even deeper as this blog goes along.

 

NES Quality Percentage: 16/31 or 51.61%

Atari 7800 Quality Percentage 1/2

Ranking List.docx

NES #30: Ms. Pac-Man by Namco

 Developer: GCC/Midway

Publisher: Namco

Release: November 1993

I just discovered something that I thought was impossible. I have stumbled across a version of Ms. Pac-Man that I don’t like. To me Ms. Pac-Man is one of the greatest games of all time, and just about every port is worth playing. I don’t just like most ports, I adore them. So it’s a bit shocking finding such a poorly done version published by Namco themselves. Of course Ms. Pac-Man has a very complicated history. It was developed by GCC and Midway instead of Namco, so it’s not a Namco game the same way Pac-Man or Dig Dug is. It originally came to the NES via a well-received unlicensed port released by Tengen. That’s the version most people have played, and they’re probably not aware another version even exists. I’m not exactly sure why Tengen was able to release so many famous games by big companies without Nintendo’s okay. I know that they were a division of Atari who had the rights to release many of these ports, but it’s still strange that they were essentially released illegally. This version of Ms. Pac-Man must’ve been Namco’s way of asserting their rights to the game after their agreement with Tengen expired. They released both this one and Pac-Man as official versions right at the end of the NES’s run. There are only a handful of third party games that came out later, and it came out just in time for what was basically the last Christmas for new NES games. The NES version is also the only one that needed a replacement. Tengen licensed their games legally on other consoles, and the handheld systems never got a Tengen version in the first place.  So they had to do a  port of a well-represented game on a dying console that nobody was going to play anyway. It’s not too hard to see why they didn’t put in much effort. It’s just a shame that they made the gamers pay the price.

 Ms. Pac-Man seems simple. There’s a series of fixed mazes, a bunch of dots, Ms. Pac-Man herself, and four ghosts. Ports had been coming out since 1983 so they should’ve had it down to a science a decade later. However, everything just feels a little off in this version. This should look better than the older Tengen version, but the colors are drab and lifeless. They try to emulate the arcade version by having the vertical sidebar, but this just makes the mazes look squished. I appreciate the attempt, but the score display didn’t have to be that big. The smaller mazes are contrasted by a too-large Ms. Pac-Man with a bow that overlaps the maze itself. I don’t know why, but this might actually be what bugs me the most. It’s just distracting seeing that bow hang over everything. It gives me the impression that nobody cared enough to size the characters right. Even the intermissions seem a bit off. The familiar movie slate is replaced with plain text, and there’s something about the graphics that doesn’t sit right with me. They seem too round and move to human-like. Junior looks more like a baby xenomorph than a typical pac-baby. This is one game where the graphics need to be straighter and flatter.

 

These may sound like trivial nitpicks, but it can be distracting from the gameplay when you expect a certain experience and everything is just a little off. The sound is even messed up. When fruit appears on the screen you can no longer hear dots being eaten. That’s something that even the Atari 2600 got right. Of course, if it played well I could forgive the strange errors, but in a surprise to no one it does not. It’s very slow and unusually boring. Ms. Pac-Man moves like she really is getting her bow stuck in the maze, and the ghosts act like they only showed up for contractual reasons. It’s like they know nobody is going to play this, so they don’t put up much of an effort. The thrill of the chase is mostly gone. The ghosts rarely go into active pursuit and instead wander around aimlessly until they trap you. There is still some challenge, but it’s definitely the easiest version I’ve ever played on the default setting. Even switching it over to hard mode doesn’t up the challenge enough. It just seems to make the ghosts more frantically aimless.

 I will say that after my initial shock died down, I went back and played it a bit more, and to give it the faintest praise it’s not a complete train wreck when I took it for what it was. It’s still Ms. Pac-Man deep down inside, and if you’re less familiar with the game you might be likely to overlook the shortcomings. I guess I’m just not used to the NES having the worst version of something. I’m sure this is not the only example especially in the later days when it started to get more ports from 16-bit games. Still, it’s jarring considering how many great versions of classic arcade game there are on NES. Even the very similar handheld versions are better. The Game Boy version fixes the sound while the Game Gear version has vibrant colors. I suppose that makes sense in a way because the Game Boy and Game Gear were the current handhelds and more likely to sell. I suppose the NES version is a bit like a bad Beatles cover. Even if it’s poorly done you know that it’s a great song. In a way that almost makes it worse.

 

The question now is do I put this in the bad section of my list? It’s honestly right on the boarder. I like it better than Mario’s Time Machine for sure, and it doesn’t belong down the true horrors of the system. Gyruss is another disappointing arcade port, but my expectations were lower with that game. It wasn’t that great to begin with. Ms. Pac-Man exists between the okay and the bad. Is pred a color? If so, this is the most pred game I’ve ever played. So if you really want to play a console version of Ms. Pac-Man you can play the NES version, but before you do I would recommend you check out the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari Lynx, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, original Tengen NES, Game Boy, Game Gear, Namco Museum on any console, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and various compilation versions instead. But hey, if you can’t find any of these dozen or so versions than play the Namco NES port. It’s not very good, but I guess it works as a last resort. 

NES quality percentage: 15/30

Ranking List.docx

Atari 2600 #18: Time Warp

 Atari 2600 #18: Time Warp

 

Developer: Funvision

Publisher: Zellers

Release Date: 1983?

 

Time Warp is the last of the Zellers trilogy, and of the three it is the least easy to talk about. It’s a space shooter which is something very common for the 2600. It’s not a cheap copy of an existing game like Inca Gold. If it was a bad version of of something that would give me something to talk about. It doesn’t even have funny box art. I think the space scene looks quite nice, and strangely for a Zellers game it actually makes sense. So Time Warp is the Funvision game that most resembles a typical American release. Is that interesting in its own way? I suppose it’s possible, but of course when I’m trying to review every game, I have to be prepared for ones that don’t give me a ton of material. I think I can make it work. Let’s get to it.

 

Time Warp is a horizontally scrolling shooter where the object is to take out waves of ships. When you clear a column of ships they morph into a new wave of more technically advanced ships. The nifty morphing effect is probably the reason they made the game in the first place. Sadly, the ships only change in appearance. No matter what they look like they fly straight and shoot the same laser. It’s a game just as much about squeezing through gaps as it is shooting. The ship can move forward, but only about a fifth of the way across the screen. The ships all have fixed point values, so this section of the game doesn’t have much scoring variety.

 

It does have a second section as well where you have to navigate your ship through a skinny maze and fly it into a, well, I’m not really sure what it is. This is one of those times where sharper graphics would’ve helped. It looks like the beaks of a giant chicken constantly chomping. It does not look like a safe space for a ship. The manual calls it a “basement” which makes even less sense than a giant chicken. Does outer space have a basement? I know the Alamo doesn’t have a basement, but outer space is pretty big. God’s gotta put his washing machine somewhere, right? Well whatever it is, the goal is to squeeze through very skinny corridors and make it there safely. It’s definitely the harder part of the game, but I do appreciate that you can slow down and aim your ship properly. There are sections that are only as wide as the ship, so it does require a good amount of precision. Points are based on time, so it requires speed as well. It’s certainly a welcome addition in a game that could’ve just been a shooter. Time Warp was actually made with some care. I wish I could say that about all Funvision games.

 

Time Warp is certainly the type of game I would hope for in a budget title. If I had lived somewhere in North America between Detroit and Barrow, Alaska and had bought this game I would not have been disappointed. It’s a bit brainless and not overly exciting, but it has that comforting Atari feel to it. I would definitely play it more than once, and I have played it other times than just for this review. Of course, being an inoffensive time waster isn’t going to get a game in my green section, but I’m excited so far by how many Atari games have avoided the bad section. I’d rather play it than the two Vectrex games I have reviewed, so it’s going in at #97 on my list, and #12 on the Atari 2600 specific list. It’s not a lost classic, but if every minor 3^rd party game was this good than I would be a happy person. I know there are many worse 2600 games out there though but maybe I’ll try to be a happy person anyway just to be a rebel. 

Atari Quality Percentage: 9/18 0r 50%

Ranking List.docx