Atari 2600 #21: Fast Food

Developer: Telesys

Publisher: Telesys

Release Date: October 1982

Fast Food is certainly a good example of what the company was trying to be. It's another funny game with an even more ridiculous cover than CocoNuts. There's just something undeniably fun looking about it. Look at all that food flying around! Look at those disembodied lips which remind me of old Twizzlers ads! Look at that decidedly car-less drive-in! If I had seen this one at a store in 1982, I might've bought it just because it looked like so much fun. I mean, I did see it on a store shelf at some point and buy it, but I would buy any Atari game as long as it's not too expensive. I have no idea who did the cover art for Telesys, but I hope they survived the game crash and had a long career. For all I know they really did make those Twizzlers ads. It's a shame we never really know these things. Telesys was founded by a man named Richard Taylor, and that's such a common name that MobyGames has over 700 of them in their database. That's not very helpful from a research perspective. I did find a picture of him in a vintage magazine article that also referred to Telesys games as "funny." I guess they don't really look that much different in 2024 than they did in 1982. 

(The legend himself!)

I would say that Fast Food is about as simple as it gets, but I've played CocoNuts. Fast Food is at least more complicated than that. It's a very simple premise that you might be able to glean from the cover art. You are a disembodied mouth trying to eat all of the flying food you possibly can. Fast Food ups the ante by allowing you to move vertically as well as horizontally. It's hard to get away with horizontal-only motion unless you are Space Invaders or Galaga, so it's nice that they only tried that experiment once. The only thing you are not supposed to eat are the purple pickles. Eat too many of them and its game over. Hey, you don't have to tell me twice. I can't say I've ever seen anything tubular and purple and wanted to eat it. The different types of food only move in straight lines, but they are worth different amounts of points and travel at different speeds. I appreciate the attempt at variety, but I don't see anyone strategizing in this game. They are just going to catch whatever they can. It gets frantic fast. Every so often the screen says, "You are getting fatter" and then everything speeds up. It's a shame they couldn't animate the fattening, but the fine folks at Telesys weren't exactly miracle workers. 

(I hope you weren't expecting anything else. This is just a one screenshot kind of game)

I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but the problem with Fast Food is the same one that plagued Atari 2600 games in general. It's just too simple for extended play. My games always last around the same amount of time, and I almost always get close to 1000 points. Those purple pickles start coming on fast, so even when I start out well everything goes downhill quickly. It's just hard to avoid the inevitable when everything starts moving so fast. I'm not going to be leaving behind a worse food item for a better one because there just isn't time for it. I don't know what anything is worth, and I don't really care. I'm just trying to avoid purple pickles.  

And this is going to sound like a weird complaint, but I can't get over how weird the smacking mouth in this game looks. I get that they wanted to animate something because that was always impressive in the early 80s, but that thing doesn't look anything like a real mouth. You would expect some teeth or a tongue, but those red fleshy masses barely even look like lips. They look more like two tongues covered in bubble gum flapping against each other. Or perhaps a toothless mouth covered in denture cream trying to open and close. It's shown from an odd side view which doesn't work at all. They should've done a front view and had the teeth opening or closing. Honestly a non-moving mouth would've been preferable. It's better than having what looks like two uncooked burger patties kissing. 

While definitely an improvement over CocoNuts, Fast Food is still a middle of the road Atari 2600 game. I have a little fun with it from time to time, but only being a little fun does not make a game actually good. Atari games can be thrilling and addictive, but Fast Food gets a little old after a few minutes. I can see why companies like Telesys failed so quickly. Video games were much more expensive at the time adjusted for inflation. Getting a new Atari game could run you something in the equivalent range of 80 or 90 dollars. That's a big investment for something you're going to get bored with in five minutes. I doubt any of the fringe 3rd party companies had any major hits because it was just too expensive. Luckily, this is 2024 where you can get Fast Food for only ten dollars. That's a fair price for a game based on poorly animated mouths and flying pickles. Fast food ranks at #107 overall which puts it right in the middle of the Atari section. Most Atari games in the purple section are worth playing for enthusiasts, so I'd call that a victory for now. It seems like there are a couple of Telesys games I like, so hopefully there are some hidden treasures to uncover moving forward. 

Atari quality percentage 9/19 or 47.36%

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G01RKJ7-caaal5lgFfGgPfZRGcqWlv4E3E2E615UYKg/edit?usp=sharing

Playstation #3: Punky Skunk

Developer: Ukiyotei 

Publisher: Jaleco

Release Date: February 14, 1998

I will always be fascinated by the early days of PlayStation. It came into a world still dominated by Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis trying to succeed where every other disc-based system had failed. Sony had a great strategy of just releasing every kind of game. It was an unprecedented quality and quantity approach that had never really been seen before. No matter what kind of gamer you were there would be something for you on PlayStation. This means that in addition to games like Twisted Metal and Battle Arena Toshinden we also got 16-bit holdovers like Cool Spot and more than one Tiny Toon Adventures game. That's where a game like Punky Skunk fits in. It was the mid 90s so people were still playing character-based side scrollers. Punky Skunk feels like it should've been on an earlier console, but that was nothing unusual for a game released so early during PlayStation's run. It was so early that it was release #409. Wait, that's not an early game at all. That's right in the middle. It came out a couple weeks after Final Fantasy Tactics and just before SaGa Frontier. What's a game like Punky Skunk doing coming out even after Sonic the Hedgehog had started to fade? I need to look this up. 

Okay so Punky Skunk was originally meant to be a Super Nintendo game, but the developers started a bit too late and had to move it over to PlayStation. It was released in 1996 in Japan but not until early 1998 in North America. I have no idea why it took so long, but that definitely wasn't in Punky Skunk's favor. Maybe the publisher Jaleco saw the success of Crash Bandicoot and thought that there was still some life in mascot games and so they decided to take a chance on an already made side-scroller. Whatever the reason, Punky Skunk is definitely an oddity in a year that saw PlayStation release some of the greatest games of all time. 1998 was the year of Gran Turismo and Metal Gear Solid. Going forward Sony would certainly encourage more games like those instead of talking skunk games. I suppose it's good to have kid friendly games that aren't based on existing properties, so that's a point in Punky Skunk's favor. But is it actually a quality kids' game?

Well, that's hard to say. Punky Skunk is a game of modest pleasures that is mostly fun if you like throwbacks. Of course this is a skunk with an attitude. Of course he attacks by shooting stinky clouds at the enemies. The graphics do not look very good for 1998, but oddly enough they would fit in perfectly in 2024. They just have a wonderful 16-bit look to them. It feels like I'm playing a long-lost PC Engine game. It even has a world map which you know I love. The major gimmick is that Punky can find powerups that give him different abilities. There is a pogo stick that allows him to jump high and a parachute that allows him to glide for example. He can only have one ability at a time, but he can switch between normal attack mode and special item mode. This is important since many of the transformations don't come with an attack. The levels are largely centered around the abilities, but it can still be annoying switching back and forth to avoid damage. 

There are a few other annoyances that keep Punky Skunk from being a true winner. The biggest problem is the somewhat bland level design. There aren't that many levels that stick out in my mind after playing them. They mostly boil down to finding the special item and using it to find the end. Many of the early levels are very short. And it's not the type of game that encourages exploration. Most of the items are just for gaining extra lives. It's not the type that encourages going for 100%. There are some mini games that can eventually lead to more hit points, but the game is easy enough that they are purely optional. I wouldn't say it's too easy though. I got some game overs as I played and had to grind for lives a few times. I just with the levels had been designed with a bit more care. 

This is one of those situations where the more I thought about the game I was reviewing the more I liked it. I hadn't initially expected to give Punky Skunk a very good review, but its modest charms have won me over somewhat. I think it's been helped by the passage of time. It didn't fit in during PlayStation's heyday, but 25 years later and the charms stand out more than the drawbacks. I can't deny that I had some fun while I was playing it even if I did tend to play it in chunks. I played about a third of it at a time over the course of a few months. That's not the most responsible way to review a game, but it does show that I couldn't quite take myself away from it. I would move on to bigger and better things, but Punky Skunk would always find its way back into my brain.  

I am a bit of a failure as a list maintainer. I switched laptops recently, and for whatever reason my list didn't want to come along. If there's anyone out there who knows a good way for me to present it on my blog, please let me know. I haven't made a spreadsheet since my college technology class 20+ years ago, so I don't know what I'm doing. The list does still exist though, and Punky Skunk made it into the green section at #69. I have rated 169 games so far which means there are at least 100 games worse than Punky Skunk. Not bad for a skunk with attitude.  

PlayStation Quality Percentage 2/3

Atari 2600 #20: CocoNuts

Developer: Telesys

Publisher: Telesys

Release Date: October 1982

Telesys was one of the many publishers that showed up during Atari's boom years and then completely disappeared. The Atari 2600 existed for almost 15 years and had a very large library of games, but the majority of them came out between 1981 and 1983. In these years third party publishers were sprouting up everywhere and trying to find a gimmick. Telesys decided they were going to make funny games, and you can tell the games were going to be funny just by the names. See, it looks like the game is called coconuts like the tropical fruit, but there's an extra capital letter so it's actually called CocoNuts. Well, that implies this game is actually about mentally unstable people and not tropical fruit. Now that's funny! And just as a bonus it is also about coconuts. Coconuts are by far the funniest drupes. How could a game with such a wacky name not be a total romp? 

Well, the reason for that is because CocoNuts is an Atari 2600 game, and there's just not the processing power for games to be that funny. Oh, people tried, but about the best anyone could do was to make a typical generic blob actually look like something. When Megamania came out it won an award for being the funniest game of the year simply by having the player shoot at telephones and burgers instead of ships. That's about as funny as Atari games could get. Megamania is still a good game though because the developers remembered the gameplay. Fast Eddie was also fun even though its attempts at humor fell a bit flat. Telesys didn't have the talent of Activision or Sirius though, and so CocoNuts ends up being memorable but not particularly playable.

I will admit that it does look funny at firsts. You play as a man wearing both a pith helmet and an umbrella, and the trees look quite nice. The whole object of the game is to avoid coconuts being dropped by a monkey in the trees. If you get hit once you lose your umbrella, if you get hit twice you lose your helmet, and if you get hit a third time it's all over. Atari 2600 has several "avoid the falling objects" games with Kaboom! being most famous. Most of them were twitchy, high-speed paddle games. CocoNuts uses the regular controller and moves much slower. It doesn't even use the button for anything, so the whole game is just moving back and forth. It's easy to tell where the coconuts are going to fall from because they will drop below the monkey, but I still found it challenging. 

The very obvious problem with CocoNuts is that it is extremely repetitive, even by Atari standards. The coconuts get faster, and earning points will eventually earn extra lives, but there's never anything else on the screen. For CocoNuts to work it needed to be exciting to make up for the simplicity. In this regard it fails. Dodging coconuts gets old pretty quick. It might look fun and silly when you first turn it on, but it never changes. Even just having the monkey drop bonus points or objects with different speeds would've been a big improvement. 

Still, I will admit that I had fun with CocoNuts for a few minutes, so it wasn't a complete loss. I've been reviewing some bad games lately, so it's refreshing having one that goes into the purple okay section. It feels like that hasn't happened in a while. I've ranked some odd Atari games, so it's not even that low on the Atari specific list. Right now, it falls in at #116 on the overall list and 13 out of 20 on the Atari list. If you're a classic game collector you'll probably buy this one for a few dollars because it looks silly, play it for a few minutes, and then put it on the shelf forever. That's the fate that befalls so many Atari games, but there are worse fates for 40-year-old video games. At least it looks good on the shelf.

Atari Quality Percentage 9/20 or 45%

 

Atari Jaguar #9: Pinball Fantasies

Developer: Spidersoft

Publisher: Computer West

Release Date: June 9, 1995

I love console pinball games, so I decided to check out Pinball Fantasies in order to rehabilitate Atari Jaguar somewhat. It's no secret that the Jaguar has had a very low batting average so far, and I have been focusing on many of the famously bad games because they are fun to write about. I'm still sitting on a few of the stinkers, but it's probably time to diversify and talk about some decent Jaguar games. In many ways Pinball Fantasies is the opposite of the Jaguar's other pinball game, Ruiner Pinball. While Ruiner Pinball featured outlandish effects that could only be done in video games, Pinball Fantasies strives for grounded, realistic play. I like how the two Jaguar pinball games are polar opposites, but I'm not sure which is the winner. Pinball Fantasies is definitely the type of game where there are good points and bad points which I need to be described in review form. Well, it's a good thing I am here then, because that's just what I do.

Pinball Fantasies is certainly the more generous of the two games. It has four tables compared to Ruiner's two. They are not officially based on any particular pinball machines, but their themes would be very familiar to anyone who remembers the days before tables were all licensed properties. The themes are amusement park, car racing, cheesy game show, and spooky. I think it's a law that you have to throw in a spooky table in your pinball video game. At the very least it should be. However, the tables are not quite as distinct as they could be. The two tables in Ruiner Pinball look like they could be from completely different worlds, but the tables in Pinball Fantasies all look a bit similar. It's not too egregious, but pinball tables usually feel fairly unique. I'm sure that there are common pieces that get used over and over, but I appreciate the illusion. Still, if I didn't know what any of the tables were called, I would still be able to figure out the themes. So, presentation still leans slightly positive.

The tables do have a bit of sameness to them, but I can't deny that they are fun to play. Pinball Fantasies definitely went for accuracy over frills and for the most part it works. If you are only familiar with modern pinball machines then the ones offered here might seem primitive, but they remind me of some of my favorite mid 80s tables. They are full of ramps and light-up targets. I'm sure I could play each table for hours and hours without doing everything there is to do, and for the most part I would want to. This is a game that I wanted to play more than just for my review. That's a big compliment for a Jaguar game thus far. Considering I could write a whole book about how bad most of these games have been and Pinball Fantasies leaves me at a bit of a loss for words is a good sign. It's a pleasantly bland game. I could see me and my family having a lot of fun with it back in the day. 

I just wish I had more to say about Pinball Fantasies. Jaguar reviews have been some of my favorite to write so far. They are always weird and interesting, and many of the games I have written about so far have been of the hilariously bad type. Funny reviews of poorly made media is what keeps reviewers like me in business. Pinball Fantasies is just a decently made game that I enjoyed. It doesn't stand out, but it doesn't make any serious errors either. I almost hate to say it, but this perfectly normal game is the best one I've played on Jaguar so far. Hopefully something weirder will dethrone it eventually, but every console needs a good comfort game, and on Jaguar I suppose this is it. It's ranking at #75 on the overall list and of course #1 on the Jaguar list. I hope there are some more good Jaguar games, but sadly there aren't any more pinball games. Will they be able to succeed at another genre? Only time will tell. 

Jaguar Quality Percentage: 2/9 or 22.22%