amphibious_ReViews

  Who knew a Snapchat game about throwing pizza to a cat could be so fun? I mean, it only took me a couple dozen levels to realize that it wasn't going anywhere, but it was still a fun distraction for a bit. This game alone is far from enough to keep me coming back, but it has opened me up to a whole library of easy-access competitive games. The gameplay in Pizza Cat is extremely simplistic. You set the trajectory of a frisbee-like pizza and then let it fly, hoping to avoid any obstacles on its way to a clearly-starved feline. The game has a little variety in the locations and types of obstacles, but not much. As it seems to have endless levels, I found that my real goal in the game was getting enough coins to afford the pizza toppings I wanted. As you play, you'll earn coins, which can be used in the in-game shop to buy cosmetics for your pizza. They don't provide any gameplay advantage, but my cat needed some broccoli in it's diet, so it works for me. The real draw

  If the pictures didn't make it painfully obvious, I am bad at this game. Classic arcade games usually give me trouble (that's their quarter-eating job), but Frogger kicked it up a notch. Other arcade legends eased me into the intense difficulty by making simple adjustments every level. However, just the second level of Frogger added faster vehicles, more diving turtles, less frequent logs, and two kinds of alligators. There's no room for learning - this game is a trial by fire. Each level tasks you to escort five frogs across a street and over a river while avoiding obstacles and, optionally, grabbing some extras for bonus points. With nothing deliberately seeking to kill me, Frogger did end up being a more "zen-like" experience than I'm used to from the genre. Unfortunately for me, zen and simplicity are not synonymous. Frogger  wrecked me, and like most other arcade games, I lack the dedication to improve. If you have a chance to play this game, by all m

  Galaga is an absolute classic. Upgrading the formula and gameplay from its predecessor Galaxian , this space-shooter has an almost perfect feeling of simplicity to tie its more complex mechanics together. I always leaned towards Galaxian amongst the two, mostly because I was the most familiar with it. However, it is clear that Galaga is an improvement in almost every way. Although the main gameplay mechanics of this title were popularized by the legendary  Space Invaders , I believe that this is the definitive alien-blasting arcade experience. Galaga tasks you with taking down as many fleets of bug-like aliens as possible, while dodging them as they fly by and avoiding any of their return fire. This title also introduces the possibility of losing a ship to an enemy tractor beam. If you get caught, you'll lose a life, but rescuing the lost ally let's you pilot the two ships together and wreak serious havok. Galaga also introduces bonus rounds that test your ability to hit

  Despite all of my love for Galaga , Namco can't seem to release it on mobile for me. The closest thing we have available right now is a disappointing micro-transaction-heavy spinoff. However, there used to be two amazing upgraded releases available for people like me that yearn to blow up aliens every once in a while. One of those was actually used to celebrate the anniversary of Namco's signature fighting game series, Tekken . It was odd that they wouldn't release something that was actually related to Tekken , beyond just a sprite-swap, but I was there for the Galaga , so I didn't mind. The gameplay here is straightforward, especially for those familiar with the original. The controls were streamlined for mobile, allowing you to shoot without pressing an additional button, which is very convenient if accuracy isn't a big deal to you. The actual biggest upgrade here is the ability to choose from six different characters to play as. Each character has their own

  Tempest is a unique alien-fighting arcade game due to the fact that the enemies are actually in front of you, rather than floating on the top of the screen. When other companies were having you fight invaders with 2D sprites, Atari used 3D vector graphics that allowed you to face your opponents head on. Because of it's unique design, and the enjoyable variety in level structure and enemies, this game had a lot going for it when it came out. Unfortunately, what made it good then causes it to suffer now. Thanks to it's use of unconventional controls, Tempest is fantastic on the original arcade cabinets, and rather disappointing in it's rereleases. The arcade machine is designed with an analog dial for movement, allowing players to navigate with extreme precision. Needless to say, modern consoles don't really have dials, so ports of this game have to settle for d-pads or joysticks. Unfortunately, neither of those options offer the kind of precision that this game was

  Robotron 2084 places the player in the middle of arena-like battlefields surrounded by dozens of evil robots and a few helpless humans. Your job is to protect the last survivors and destroy the waves of robots for as long as possible. Like all arcade games, Robotron is designed to give you a taste of glory, and then kick your butt for your quarters. To keep a long story short, it does it's job well. When I first picked the game up, I was immediately reminded of my childhood favorite, Smash TV . Both share a similar hard-as-nails, arena-focused, run-and-gun style, and, although it is more basic, I had fun playing Robotron . However, I did find myself wishing for something more. Fortunately, I have options, just not from this title. Playing Robotron 2084 was a fun few minutes, but that's all it really took for me to get what this game had to offer. I appreciated that it contributed to the genre that birthed games like Smash TV, but it's no longer the best option. It'

Dig Dug is a straightforward game about digging tunnels and popping baddies. Like it's arcade peers, the concept is simple enough to pick up pretty quickly, but the difficulty is no joke, and strategy is necessary if you want to make it more than two levels in. Separating it from  many other Namco titles at the time is the delightful bright colors and fun designs. Little touches like the changing dirt colors and the little flowers growing above-ground make progression that much more enjoyable. Lucky for the little enemies, I'm not the greatest exterminator, so I don't tend to make it far when playing, but I do have fun for the little bit that I survive. Losing so constantly puts a damper on my enjoyment, but I'm not committed enough to the game to work on my strategy, so I won't knock it for it's difficulty. I do have to give my kudos for the design though. It's rare for games from this era to excite me with their grpahics so much, but there's somethin

Hard-as-nails platformers don't often find a home on touchscreens due to the need for precise controls, but that didn't stop Ubisoft from giving it a shot. The controls are surprisingly tight, and the try-die-repeat loop is actually pretty fun, as long as you don't have Internet access. Otherwise, the ads become unbelievably invasive, forcing a 5-30 second pause between gameplay at almost every death (in a game where death is designed to happen a lot). To make matters worse, reports from other players claim that paying to remove ads doesn't actually work. I was able to actually play the game once I turned data off, and I ended up enjoying it for a bit. Escape encouraged me to learn the patterns and structures of levels, and I felt myself improve as I played, which was quite fulfilling. However, after 30 levels, I started to notice reused level pieces; after 60, I stopped feeling challenged; after 70, I was bored. Prince of Persia: Escape offers an enjoyable time-w

Being pretty much THE reason to own a Nokia phone in the 90's, Snake  has truly earned itself a place in gaming history. When it comes to the gameplay, the mechanics are simple; you are tasked with directing a moving snake around an enclosed arena so that it can eat and grow without running into a wall or its own grotesquely long body. The game starts out pretty easy, as the snake is short enough to be very easy to dodge. However, as it progresses, more strategy is required to avoid hitting the snake's tail while still traversing the small playing field. That mechanic is what I think makes Snake  unique amongst other arcade-style games. Games like Tetris or Pac-Man  force players to act faster by increasing the game's speed. Snake  forces the players to act faster by punishing their success with a longer snake. The speed never changes, but the playing field effectively shrinks. I never really spend a lot of time playing Snake  in any one play session, but the intelligent

Space Invaders holds legendary status on gaming history. This beloved arcade title paved the way for one of my  favorite space shooters , and the aliens are legendary in both their designs and there ever faster approach. That's already enough to secure a legacy. However, I've found that I'm just not very good at it, and my incompetence puts a slightly sour taste in my mouth. I appreciate the unique strategy involved in using cover to your advantage, but I found that instead of helping protect me, the shields acted sort of like funnels for every opposing missile. This led my play sessions to end pretty quickly. I also never really felt engaged enough to take the time to improve. I hold no ill-feelings towards Space Invaders . The game is well made, and it deserves it's legendary status. However, it just doesn't seem like the game for me when I have so many other options. The game is available for Android here (as of 8/26/20):  https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta

Starting its life as the hack Crazy Otto , Ms. PAC-MAN  has had a turbulent history that has since made it rather obscure compared to its (frankly less-enjoyable) originator, PAC-MAN . I'll spare you from that here, but it is definitely worth reading into more if you aren't familiar. Luckily, it is still available on mobile, albeit with swipe controls that leave something to be desired. When playing Ms.  PAC-MAN , you may notice that the gameplay is identical to that of the original  PAC-MAN , but the field of play is not quite as familiar. Making this the better of the two games is ghosts with unique personalities (not just memorizable algorithms), four rotating mazes (rather than just one for all 256 levels), and fruit that travels around the maze (adding complexity beyond the capabilities of stationary fruits). Overall, Ms.  PAC-MAN  is still a simple arcade game, but it will easily give you a better time than the original, which earns it my endorsement as the best cla

Playing Q*Bert is definitely a unique experience. Although it looks a little bit like Pac-Man and Dig Dug had a weird soul-baby, the gameplay is a very fresh experience. My introduction to this gibberish-spewing, orange bouncy-ball was actually Disney 's Wreck it Ralph , in which Q*Bert was an adorable supporting character easing his way back into the limelight he held back in 1982. Unfortunately, his appearance in Pixels  was a little bit bigger, and a whole lot worse. However, it was enough to get me intrigued. I took on the arcade classic version of this game through the Internet Archive 's "Internet Arcade," which took a little getting used as I was forced to use arrow keys on an isometric field. However, once I understood the controls, I had a pretty good time hopping on color changing cubes and avoiding springy snakes! As the game progressed, the difficulty followed suit, and I had a little bit of trouble keeping up with all the additional enemies, but

As I was playing around with my copy of Asteroids  for the Gameboy , I began to notice something. I was not having any fun. The game felt like a chore and really didn't seem like it was worth my time. Honestly, I thought about writing a disappointed review right then so that I could be done with it and move on. Fortunately, I decided to get my screenshots from the PC Atari Anniversary Edition  version instead of the Gameboy  version, and I actually found myself having fun! The gameplay was smooth and exciting, with each dodge of an asteroid or evasion of an alien bullet feeling like a huge success. I'm pretty sure that the only real difference between the Gameboy  and PC versions (besides the updated graphics for Gameboy ) was the fact that I could control the ship's direction with the mouse instead of buttons. I felt as though I had more control over the vehicle and and it allowed me to be much more immersed in the title. In the future, I will probably end up playing

I'm sure that  PAC-MAN  needs no introduction, he is a legend both in the gaming world, and outside of it thanks to cultural references (both good , and bad ). So, in the hopes of saving you the same old spiel, I want to get right down to it.  PAC-MAN  is difficult (assuming you don't know the patterns), but that is what brings people back to keep playing! The most fun I have with this game is finding it at a restaurant or something, and playing it with a group of friends to see who can set the highest score. The only problem is that the quarter-eating machines also tend to have  PAC-MAN 's many spin-offs, which almost always seem to be more exciting. With that being said, they wouldn't exist without the original, and even though it has been improved in many ways in the series' later installments, this classic never really gets old. The number of iterations and recreations also make it pretty accessible, and chances are that every self-respecting gamer has so