(played as part of ATARI 50)
Admirable in its simplicity - the goal is just crossing an open space and trying to get to the other side. Four enemies appear and try to either run into you or pick up throwables to nail you, and you compete for projectiles with them at predetermined areas. You can either focus on running and dodging to get to the goal, or getting weapons and taking them out to clear a path. It's like something real kids would play on the playground with snowballs or something, and I love that. Wonderful clarity of design.
Unfortunately the mechanics don't fully live up to the idea. Throwing the food projectiles is key to success, but is made unnecessarily difficult because a) running direction and throwing direction are on the same stick and to aim without moving you have to do a half-tilt, and that sucks to have to focus on doing in the heat of battle, and b) the throwing itself is way too 'realistic', if you will, with the projectile originating from your character's actual arm on the actual side of his body that he's got the weapon on, rather than the center of the character like, you know, every other game with shooting in history. You don't think about how jarring that sort of thing would be until you encounter it, and here it makes the path of your throws hard to envision while aiming, and results in tons of errant shots.
It's still some good fun, and worth playing if for nothing else than to see the weirdly horrifying character animation on your little guy, "Charley Chuck". Seriously, check out what he does when you beat a level. Something's not right with that kid.
Admirable in its simplicity - the goal is just crossing an open space and trying to get to the other side. Four enemies appear and try to either run into you or pick up throwables to nail you, and you compete for projectiles with them at predetermined areas. You can either focus on running and dodging to get to the goal, or getting weapons and taking them out to clear a path. It's like something real kids would play on the playground with snowballs or something, and I love that. Wonderful clarity of design.
Unfortunately the mechanics don't fully live up to the idea. Throwing the food projectiles is key to success, but is made unnecessarily difficult because a) running direction and throwing direction are on the same stick and to aim without moving you have to do a half-tilt, and that sucks to have to focus on doing in the heat of battle, and b) the throwing itself is way too 'realistic', if you will, with the projectile originating from your character's actual arm on the actual side of his body that he's got the weapon on, rather than the center of the character like, you know, every other game with shooting in history. You don't think about how jarring that sort of thing would be until you encounter it, and here it makes the path of your throws hard to envision while aiming, and results in tons of errant shots.
It's still some good fun, and worth playing if for nothing else than to see the weirdly horrifying character animation on your little guy, "Charley Chuck". Seriously, check out what he does when you beat a level. Something's not right with that kid.