Atari 2600 #8: Gopher

Developer: James Wickstead Design Associates

Publisher: U.S. Games

Release Date: January 1983

Unique Feature: insta-grow carrots!

Don't let this cover fool you. The gopher shows no remorse.

 It’s not easy being Johnny Three-Carrots. This poor farmer should have it all. He only needs to plant three carrots at a time because he has a magical duck that delivers insta-grow carrot seeds free of charge. These carrots spring up practically instantaneously meaning that he doesn’t have to waste all that space actually growing things. He just has to stand in a small section of land, catch seeds, and instantly reap his three carrot harvest. Unfortunately before he can even put down his shovel the evil gopher rears his ugly head. Johnny Three-Carrots gives him a look that says “not today Gopher, not today.” The war of the carrots has begun.

Farmer, gopher, duck!

 Okay so things are getting a bit silly now, but what is there to say about a game starring a farmer who fills in gopher holes? It’s not very good for essay writing, but it is pretty fun. Gopher is gloriously simple. A gopher digs holes on the bottom of the screen. When these holes reach the surface you can use your shovel to fill them in. If the gopher manages to get out of the hole you can hit him along the way or else he takes one of your carrots away. A duck will deliver seeds which give you an extra carrot if you manage to catch the seed and plant it. When you run out of carrots its game over. That is seriously the whole game, and I applaud the developers for managing to take such a simple premise and turn it into a fun game.

 

This is one of the games I played at my grandma’s house when I was a little kid so I might be a little biased, but Gopher really is a surprisingly fun game. It plays at a frantic pace almost from the beginning and is too quick to ever get boring. I love the edition of the extra carrot seeds because it adds a much needed precision element to the game. Filling in holes is super simple, but catching seeds takes perfect timing. Also the ravenous gopher is a worthy opponent so you need the extra carrots. The developers could’ve just given out extra carrots with points like most games and made the game start out easy and boring, but because of the seed system they can start the game already in frantic progress.

What a jerk!

 I am honestly surprised to be giving this game such a good review. It’s so simple and silly looking that it’s easy to overlook the solid gameplay. Its simplicity is going to keep it from getting too high on the list, but it does land in the good section right below the more complex Super Soccer. I love that Gopher puts the 2600 quality percentage back to 50%. It’s just the kind of console that gets rescued by silly little gopher games. It’s even a fun game to make up silly backstories for. Every Atari game should be that way.

 

Atari 2600 quality percentage: 4/8 or 50%

 

 

1.  Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

2. Super Mario Odyssey

3. The Legend of Zelda

4. Galaga

5. Donkey Kong

6. Exodus: Ultima III

7. Pac-Mania

8. Wrecking Crew

9. Super Pac-Man

10. Pac-Man

11. Viva Pinata

12. Dragon View

13. Excitebike

14. Drakkhen

15. Todd’s Adventures in Slime World

16. Arc the Lad

17. Clu Clu Land

18. Tails’ Adventures

19. Scrapyard Dog (Lynx)

20. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

21. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

22. Metro-Cross

23. Double Dragon

24. Panic Restaurant

25. Felix the Cat

26. Adventure

27. Ice Climber

28. Gaplus

29. Dragon Spirit

30. Pinball (NES)

31. Ninja Golf

32. Fast Eddie

33. Super Soccer

34. Gopher

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

36. Red Sea Crossing

37. Baraduke

38. Demon’s Crest

39. Evoland

40. Tennis

41. Renegade

42. Beethoven

43. Hogan’s Alley

44. Gamma-Attack

45. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

46. Galaxian

47. Dragon Crystal

48. Cosmic Commuter

49. Hot Pixel

50. PocketBike Racer

51. Wild Gunman

52. Defunct

53. Gyruss (2600)

54. Looney Tunes Racing

55. Squidlit

56. Gordo 106

57. Baseball

58. Home Alone

59. Birthday Mania

60. Bad Street Brawler

61. Burly Men at Sea

62. Wayne’s World

63. WeakWood Throne

64. X-Men (HyperScan)

65. My Name is Mayo

66. Marvel Heroes

67. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends

68. Ben 10

(Images are from mobygames.com)

Atari 2600 #7: Fast Eddie

 Developer: Sirius Software

Publisher: 20^th Century Fox

Release Date: September 1982

This is a strange cover! It does at least represent the game well though

 There are many interesting publishers for Atari, but 20^th Century Fox may be my favorite. Between the obscure licensed games and long forgotten arcade gems they had some truly interesting releases. Also, none of them are particularly rare so it’s a publisher not that difficult to evaluate. They don’t have any hidden terrible games that are 200 dollars. One interesting thing they did was decide to get into the game business before they actually had any games. Their first few games were made by Sirius Software and have red labels instead of the later more familiar picture labels. It’s a same Sirius didn’t become more famous because all their games are worth playing.

Fast Eddie is an early platform game with some similarities to Donkey Kong. Now I should say that I am a sucker for Atari platformers. I am automatically drawn to any game with a ladder in it. Because of this I might rank this game a little higher than other people, but I really do think it’s a good game. The goal is to move up and down collecting objects until a key appears above the strange creature at the top. One of the hallmarks of Sirius games is the large number of objects, and this one rotates items every level. The first level has hearts which makes sense in a way, but the objects get stranger and stranger. Why are you collecting ink wells and axes? Just what are you planning? It might be a gimmicky way to make the game seem bigger than it actually is, but it really does make the game more fun. If you were a dot collecting dots it just wouldn’t be as good. I also like that the enemies look like fry kids from the old McDonalds commercials. It’s a fun experience all around. They can’t be defeated so avoiding them is a large part of the game. Luckily the controls are tight so it’s always fun.

 I don’t think I can always write long essays about Atari games, so I am going to cut this one a little short. It’s a fun game with a good difficulty curve that gives it a good amount of repay value. I am not going to put it higher than Adventure, but it’s one of those infinitely playable games that I was talking about in that review. It’s not quite deep enough to get too high up on the list, but I am going to put it at #32 right behind Ninja Golf. It’s only caveat is that it does get repetitive since it’s nothing but climbing and jumping. Still, ladders always make for fun Atari games. I’m sure I will be proven wrong soon enough, but until then it’s all about the ladders.

 

Atari 2600 quality percentage 3/7 or 42.85%

1.  Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

2. Super Mario Odyssey

3. The Legend of Zelda

4. Galaga

5. Donkey Kong

6. Exodus: Ultima III

7. Pac-Mania

8. Wrecking Crew

9. Super Pac-Man

10. Pac-Man

11. Viva Pinata

12. Dragon View

13. Excitebike

14. Drakkhen

15. Todd’s Adventures in Slime World

16. Arc the Lad

17. Clu Clu Land

18. Tails’ Adventures

19. Scrapyard Dog (Lynx)

20. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

21. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

22. Metro-Cross

23. Double Dragon

24. Panic Restaurant

25. Felix the Cat

26. Adventure

27. Ice Climber

28. Gaplus

29. Dragon Spirit

30. Pinball (NES)

31. Ninja Golf

32. Fast Eddie

33. Super Soccer

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

35. Red Sea Crossing

36. Baraduke

37. Demon’s Crest

38. Evoland

39. Tennis

40. Renegade

41. Beethoven

42. Hogan’s Alley

43. Gamma-Attack

44. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

45. Galaxian

46. Dragon Crystal

47. Cosmic Commuter

48. Hot Pixel

49. PocketBike Racer

50. Wild Gunman

51. Defunct

52. Gyruss (2600)

53. Looney Tunes Racing

54. Squidlit

55. Gordo 106

56. Baseball

57. Home Alone

58. Birthday Mania

59. Bad Street Brawler

60. Burly Men at Sea

61. Wayne’s World

62. WeakWood Throne

63. X-Men (HyperScan)

64. My Name is Mayo

65. Marvel Heroes

66. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends

67. Ben 10

Atari #6: Adventure

Developer: Atari

Publisher: Atari

Release Date: July 1980

I sure miss interesting cover art

 

I have been wanting to write an Atari review for a while, so I looked at my game list and the first one alphabetically that I actually wanted to play was Adventure. It’s an interesting game for many reasons. It came out right after Space Invaders which would popularize home gaming more than any other Atari game. Adventure was a smash hit as well selling over a million copies. It’s also a game that changed the rules. It’s one of the first major one player quest games to ever come out for a home console. It’s also one of the very few Atari games that doesn’t keep score. Superman had a similar setup and came out a few months earlier, but that one had a timer so you could still challenge your friends. Adventure is a one person trek to find the grail and move it from one castle to another. Its single goal gameplay would of course be copied countless times over the years. So just for that it’s an interesting game.

Not a bad castle!

I will say that I am not the biggest Adventure fan, but it’s still an impressive little game. It shows what you could do without much to work with. Give a game some cute little mazes, a few items, some dragons, and an open quest and you could really do a lot. The graphics are blocky, but in that attractive way that Atari could do so well. It’s still a fun one to look at even with its right angles and solid colors. It is fun to play too. Anybody who has played a Zelda-styled adventure game can probably pick this one right up and play it easily. It has quick, smooth movement that is always a pleasure on the system. It has a lot going for it. Unfortunately there is a downside.

It’s a game that’s over much too quickly. There are only three short quests without much to do after they are over. It doesn’t have the replayability of other great old Atari games. Sure it has that cool early Easter egg, but if you know about it you’ve probably already read how to do it and so there’s not exploration required. It’s just not good for much more than an hour of playing total. The best games on the system can be played indefinitely without losing their edge. Adventure is one of the most influential games of all time, but as a gaming experience it doesn’t quite rise to the same level.

Take that, dragon!

 I am still going to put it on the good side of things though. I can’t believe that so far Red Sea Crossing is my highest rated Atari game. I have hundreds of Atari games that I have been playing for twenty years or more, so I seriously need to start reviewing more of them. I am putting it much higher than the surprising Red Sea Crossing though. It’s going to be my new #26 game right under the more complex Felix the Cat. I know many people would put it much higher, but I am judging these game by how much fun they are to play and not be how important they are as games. Maybe I’ll do some more Atari games in the coming weeks and try to get the quality percentage to swing back towards good again. Honestly, however, I have no idea how many games it will take to get 50% overall quality. I think 250 might do it but we’ll see. I hope you are still reading this by then.

 

Atari 2600 quality percentage: 2/6 or 33.33%

 

1.  Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

2. Super Mario Odyssey

3. The Legend of Zelda

4. Galaga

5. Donkey Kong

6. Exodus: Ultima III

7. Pac-Mania

8. Wrecking Crew

9. Super Pac-Man

10. Pac-Man

11. Viva Pinata

12. Dragon View

13. Excitebike

14. Drakkhen

15. Todd’s Adventures in Slime World

16. Arc the Lad

17. Clu Clu Land

18. Tails’ Adventures

19. Scrapyard Dog (Lynx)

20. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

21. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

22. Metro-Cross

23. Double Dragon

24. Panic Restaurant

25. Felix the Cat

26. Adventure

27. Ice Climber

28. Gaplus

29. Dragon Spirit

30. Pinball (NES)

31. Ninja Golf

32. Super Soccer

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

34. Red Sea Crossing

35. Baraduke

36. Demon’s Crest

37. Evoland

38. Tennis

39. Renegade

40. Beethoven

41. Hogan’s Alley

42. Gamma-Attack

43. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

44. Galaxian

45. Dragon Crystal

46. Cosmic Commuter

47. Hot Pixel

48. PocketBike Racer

49. Wild Gunman

50. Defunct

51. Gyruss (2600)

52. Looney Tunes Racing

53. Squidlit

54. Gordo 106

55. Baseball

56. Home Alone

57. Birthday Mania

58. Bad Street Brawler

59. Burly Men at Sea

60. Wayne’s World

61. WeakWood Throne

62. X-Men (HyperScan)

63. My Name is Mayo

64. Marvel Heroes

65. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends

66. Ben 10

(Images courtesy mobygames and vgmuseum.com)