Atari 2600 #25: Stargunner

 

Developer: Telesys

Publisher: Telesys

Release: 1983

Stargunner has everything I have come to expect from a Telesys game minus one important thing. It doesn't have a funny name. Didn't they get the memo? Telesys games are supposed to have silly puns in their titles. The box art isn't funny either. It just looks like a Stargunner. I don't know what order the games were released in, but I know that at the very least Demolition Herby has a later serial number. Perhaps with Stargunner they were just taking a break from funny titles and not abandoning them altogether. At least it gave me something to talk about in the first paragraph. I already mentioned that Stargunner gave me everything I expected. What I meant by that is they simplified a much more famous arcade game so that it could run quicker on the 2600. 

In this case their inspiration in the classic Defender. I loved the Atari 2600 version of Defender when I was a kid, and it has such sentimental value to me that I have no idea if it's good or not. I think it gets a mixed response, but it's also not a game that was done so bad that people needed a replacement. Telesys didn't add something missing like they did with Demolition Herby. They just took a very famous game and used it as the inspiration for their much less famous game. It's not purely plagiarism, but it doesn't take very long to see where they got the idea for their game. 

Stargunner is a much more stripped-down experience than Defender. While Defender featured an entire city complete with a map, Stargunner only has one screen. The rolling hills at the bottom of the screen give the illusion of size, but if you fly to the edge of the screen, you just pop up back on the other side. The targets on the screen are also more passive. They don't shoot at you and can only attack by colliding. There is a ship at the top of the screen that shoots down at you, so there's plenty of action to deal with. The objects on the screen are a bit abstract so I'm not sure how to describe them. Maybe an onigiri and an enzyme? Well, whatever they are they must be eliminated. So, you shoot one target, it turns into another target, and you keep doing that until you die. It's simple, but it plays well. It has a certain addictiveness to it. 

My main problem with Stargunner is the poorly balanced difficulty. On the default easy setting the game can get almost boring. The targets move slow, and the shots coming from above are easy to avoid. Of course, this is the starter difficulty, so it's supposed to be easy. What of the other difficulties? Things get too intense too fast. Even the second option is much too hard. The ships suddenly zip across the screen, and their one goal is to collide with you. I could barely get a shot off without having some kamikaze aliens blow me up. I could easily get 30,000 or more points on the easiest setting, and on any higher difficulty I could barely break 1,000. I just wish there was a difficulty between the two extremes where the ships were more of a threat but not constantly suicidal. It's a shame because if it was well-balanced, it might be a true hidden gem. 

When I'm comparing every game ever made, 2600 games have to really be good to break into the green section. Stargunner doesn't rise up to that standard, but it's still alright. It's sad that of the three highest ranked Telesys games, two of them were adaptions of already existing arcade games. I feel like Telesys was a company that wanted to have big ideas and memorable games, but they fell short. It could've been that they ran into the crash just about the moment they started and just had to do whatever they could to survive. I'll probably never know for sure, but they weren't phoning it in either. Stargunner comes in at #115 which is almost halfway up the list. I'm already up to 184, which means I'm getting close to 200. I should play something special for my 200th, but that's a story for another day. 

Atari 2600 quality percentage: 9/25 or 36%

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

Atari 2600 #24: Ram It

 

Developer: Telesys

Publisher: Telesys

Release Date: January 1983

(The box art implies the existence of circles. Sadly, none are featured in the actual game.)

I pride myself on being able to make a good essay out of anything. I love to take insignificant things and turn them into interesting written pieces. However, 2600 games can push me to my limit sometimes. So many of them are single screen games that have simple goals and were made by phantoms who were in business for about six weeks and left behind no digital footprint. I can't even pad them out with biological information because there is none to be found. It's even more difficult with a company like Telesys that I have already covered and have nothing new to say. I've already told what little of their story I can tell, and now I have to fall back on the hope that their last couple of games are at least interesting to talk about. Well, Ram It is an essayists worst nightmare. It's not a terrible game, but it is about as simple as games get. I think I could get some more interesting stories out of a tic-tac-toe simulator than I can out of this game. I guess the name is a little funny. Of course, I've already talked about how they made boring games with funny titles. I guess I'll just get into it, and we can all make the most of what we have.

(One thing I will say about Ram It though. It is definitely this game.)

Ram It has you controlling a gun attached to a rail in the center of the screen. You can move up-and-down and shoot either direction, but you are otherwise stuck. Your goal is to take out all the colorful rectangles that are slowly filling the screen. They start out tiny, but they will randomly grow until you are trapped. There is also a countdown that will cost you a life if it runs out, so you have to hurry. Once you destroy all the rectangles you get to move on to the next level which is a little bit harder. It's the standard Atari setup. I can tell their main goal was to have as many colors on the screen as possible. It looks very nice, and it certainly shows off how far the Atari had come during its lifespan. I like how the top and bottom are curved with makes it look like you are trapped in a big, colorful burger. 

It looks nice, but there is something unsatisfying about shooting at passive rectangles. They don't do anything but grow, and even the growing is random. My main strategy on easy mode is to start from the top-left, shoot my way down to the bottom, and then shoot my way back up from bottom-right. If I aim just right, I can take out two rectangles at once and then turn around and take out two on the other side. In fact, this is just the strategy they recommend in the instructions. I can practically ignore the length of the rectangles and just focus on the system. It's a successful system, but not a very exciting one. It is more frantic on higher difficulty settings, and they add in bonus blocks that will disappear completely if you shoot them while flashing. It's some much needed variety in an otherwise very repetitive game, but the straight-line strategy is still fairly effective. 

And that's about all I can say about Ram It. I hate it when my reviews become nothing more than describing the gameplay, but Ram It doesn't give me much material to work with. The name is funny I guess, but not funny enough to keep a review going. Ram It came out in the era when dozens of amateur companies started making terrible 2600 games and flooding the market with junk, so it actually looks fairly good stacked up against the competition. It's well made, and there is something mildly addictive about the gameplay. Unfortunately, all those terrible games are much more interesting to write about. Ram It is a competently made mediocracy that was probably appreciated in the dark days of 1983, but nothing special when stacked up against the whole library. 

(Suddenly I am hungry for a Pride Burger. Is that a thing?)

Ram It is very comfortably in the purple section just like most Telesys games. With their weird titles and fun box art I expected more. The only one I have left to review is the one with the least interesting name, so maybe it will be the most fun to play. I may write about some more boom-era publishers because I think their stories are interesting even if the individual games are not, so get out your Atari bingo cards. Ram It ranks in at #127 overall and #15 on the Atari list. I have a feeling the majority of the less famous third-party games are going to be about as good as Ram It, so I have quite the journey ahead of me. I hope you like reading about boring old Atari games, because I probably still have hundreds of them to go. 

Atari 2600 Quality Percentage: 9/24 or 37.5%