I wouldn't call this game outright good, but I definitely have played worse games from around this time.
Obviously, it still has its issues. The biggest one being the collision detection with the holes being way too strict. So strict that most of the time, getting out of one is followed by immediately falling back in. And while I do feel like it should have been more lenient, there is a solution of simply not holding a direction once you get out so you can check your surroundings.
And at the end of the day, the reason the game turned out the way it did was corporate greed. The game's sole developer, Howard Warshaw, was given just five weeks to make what he could to have it ready by Christmas. For comparison, most Atari games, even the ones that look and play like ass, take multiple people 5-6 months.
So yeah. A flawed game, but those "Top 10 Worst Video Games Ever" lists need to stop actin like it's the Battlefield Earth of the Atari
Obviously, it still has its issues. The biggest one being the collision detection with the holes being way too strict. So strict that most of the time, getting out of one is followed by immediately falling back in. And while I do feel like it should have been more lenient, there is a solution of simply not holding a direction once you get out so you can check your surroundings.
And at the end of the day, the reason the game turned out the way it did was corporate greed. The game's sole developer, Howard Warshaw, was given just five weeks to make what he could to have it ready by Christmas. For comparison, most Atari games, even the ones that look and play like ass, take multiple people 5-6 months.
So yeah. A flawed game, but those "Top 10 Worst Video Games Ever" lists need to stop actin like it's the Battlefield Earth of the Atari