amphibious_ReViews

I'm cursed when it comes to arcade games. My experiences always follow the same cycle. I'll boot up the game, immediately appreciate the simple, yet intelligent, design that made it popular, lose a lot, become disenchanted, and decide to play something else instead. Ultimately, I'm just not very good at them, and I lack the patience to get good, so I move on. I thought that's how Centipede would go long before I realized I was cursed, so I never actually gave it a chance. I was right. However, I wasn't as right as I thought, and I actually surprised myself with how much fun I was having by blasting all of those darn bugs! It's pretty ambiguous what you actually play as in Centipede , and I never figured it out. What I do know, is that you can shoot projectiles that defeat enemies and break hazards. Based on that alone, I figured this would just be a clone of Space Invaders , shoot the enemies that move side-to-side while getting progressively lower, use shot-st

  As an earlier arcade title, I sort of expected Missile Command to be more simplistic than its "newer" peers. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually seemed to be quite complex. Instead of infinite ammo, resource management is a necessity. Instead of controlling one little character, you take command of three silos and protect cities throughout the whole bottom of the screen. Instead of comfortably picking off enemies one by one, you have to race to take out incoming missiles in groups before they spread too wide and overwhelm you. Perhaps the most impressive though was the fact that your failures stick with you as the game progresses; if you let an enemy rocket take out a city you were trying to protect, it won't magically return the next round. It's just gone. Missile Command has a simple objective. You are tasked with shooting down scores of enemy missiles before they destroy all of your cities. You have one aiming reticule, but three missile silos.

After my experience with Battlezone , I had a really tough time deciding how I felt about it. The game is technologically fascinating, and is truly a well-made tank simulation for being four decades old. However, it would have taken a miracle for me to survive more than a minute or two in my playthroughs, which is pretty disheartening. Battlezone puts you in the role of a tank with seemingly no allies and legions of enemies.  Without the ability to strafe, I could never really figure out how to balance dodging and shooting in order to be successful. However, that difficulty aided my suspension of disbelief; even though I have no idea what driving a tank feels like, this game made me think I do. Unfortunately, constantly seeing my screen crack after less than a minute of roaming this endless wasteland was pretty discouraging. I was usually able to take out a couple enemy tanks before I lost, so it wasn't all for nothing, but it still sort of felt like it was. Of all of the classic

  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

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

What is there to say about this game anymore? Everyone knows what it is, even those who have never played a video game in their life. It is an icon in nearly every sense and I can't really say anymore than what has already been said, so what I will say is that I am surprised that I enjoyed the game as much as I found myself enjoying it. Even today this holds up as a solid entry to the video game industry, and everyone should give it a  shot at least once.  Their is a free remake version that can be found on the bottom of the post, so those of you interested in playing pong for a minute or two should check it out! The game can be found in a collection for PC at this link (as of 10/15/2017):  http://store.steampowered.com/app/400020/Atari_Vault/ The game can be found in a collection for Android at this link (as of 10/15/2017):   https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atari.mobile.greatesthits2015&hl=en The game can be found in a collection for iOS at this