The Video Game Critic's
Arcadia 2001 Reviews A-Z

The title screen for Alien Invaders tries to convey impending doom, but it's hilariously bad. As aliens are shown congregating over a city, the ominous background score sounds more like a second grader struggling through a clarinet recital! It's so stilted and off-key that you almost have to laugh. Although clearly a Space Invaders clone, Alien Invaders does have its moments. First off, there are a ton of aliens jam-packed into that formation at the top of the screen. If I were Carl Sagan, I'd say there were billions and billions of them! How any of your shots can miss is beyond me! Rendered in four colors, the aliens also tend to shift directions unpredictably and "wrap" around the sides of the screen. Your cannon floats across a platform on the bottom, and can seek refuge under three shields. A blocky city skyline looms in the background, although this goes away as the aliens descend. Unlike the original Space Invaders, mother ships continuously move across the top, and shooting one pauses the action for a brief "explosion" animation. Alien Invaders is pretty fun to play, but only if you wait until a missile is visible on the tip of your cannon before you fire. If you simply pound the fire button there's an annoying delay before the next missile is armed. Maybe it's like that by design, but I kind of doubt it. The only thing that ruins this otherwise enjoyable shooter is its incomprehensible time limit! That's right - every game is only about three minutes long, no matter how well you're doing! And since there's only one wave, you'll spend most of that final minute picking off the mother ships. Wow, the designers really shot themselves in the foot with that bone-head decision! It effectively reduces Alien Invaders from an intense shooter to a cautionary tale. © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

It's pretty sloppy, but I have to credit Emerson for at least attempting to create a full-featured football game. American Football is played on a side-scrolling screen with players that look like those generic "people" from the Odyssey 2 games. Some of this game's notable features include field goals, safeties, fumbles, and off-sides penalties. You get two run and two pass plays, but also have the option to run with the quarterback or activate a "decoy" receiver. The overall design is ambitious, but the execution is lacking. You only control one player at a time, and his movements are terribly jerky. Players not under your control tend to stand around like a bunch of idiots. But American Football's biggest downfall is its convoluted control scheme. The keys on the keypad serve multiple functions, and having to constantly look down at the controller while a play is unfolding is unacceptable. Worst yet, the keypad overlays have tiny text and the buttons are poorly organized. At the very least, you'd think they could have assigned "pass" to one of the side buttons, but no, those are left unused. You'll also want to turn the volume down because the constant "whooshing" sounds like a freaking hurricane is coming through! American Football is playable, but let's face it - most other football games of the same era blow this out of the water. © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

This comedy of errors belongs on the permanent DL. It only takes one look at that white grass and green diamond to know that this game is hurting in the worst way. The players are large and the ball moves smoothly, but that's the extent of the good news. You can't even throw a pitch until the second player presses the "signal to pitch" button on his controller. Ugh!! This ill-conceived design flaw makes every game about twice as long! The pitches come in pretty fast, and you swing by pressing a button on the keypad. When balls are hit to the infield, the fielding is totally automatic, which is lame as hell! When a ball's hit to the outfield, a cut-away screen depicts a fielder in a large triangle as the ball approaches from the left. Apparently this is meant to show the ball heading towards the fence, but it looks atrocious and is totally disconcerting. Once you have the ball, you can whip it between bases pretty quickly thanks to the diamond-shaped graphic on the control pad overlay. Unfortunately, the programmers had to get cute and add "arcs" to each throw. As a result, the ball movement looks bizarre - as if it has a mind of its own! Baseball also has its fair share of glitches, including one that will not let your fielder relinquish the ball until all the runners have scored! Yeah, I know it's just a minor bug, but I like to nitpick! And then there's the audio. This game beeps so incessantly that it should come with ear plugs! My buddy Scott offered a five word review for this game: "Beep beep beep beep F!!!" © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

At first glance, Breakaway resembles an ugly version of Breakout (Atari 2600, 1978). Its walls aren't exactly a rainbow of colors, but its unorthodox control scheme works surprisingly well. Your joystick-controlled paddle moves slowly by default, but holding down a keypad button gives it a nice boost. In the basic variation you just deflect a ball against a wall, but others let you steer, catch, or slice right through the wall. A nasty glitch makes these games a lot more challenging than they should be. Many times when you press the button for a new ball it comes flying down so fast you have no chance to react! You'll lose a lot of balls that way, so it's a good thing you get five. Before you dismiss Breakaway, check out its innovative head-to-head mode. Two players defend walls on each side of the screen, giving it a bit of a Warlords vibe (Atari 2600, 1977). You can compete against a friend or the CPU, and it's a lot harder than it looks! You move your paddle up and down instead of left to right, but the programmers didn't bother to adjust the controls, so you'll have to hold your controller sideways. My friend Scott discovered a technique that allowed him to press both the keypad (for speed) and side button (to catch) - in addition to the joystick. "Hey look - I can do both at the same time!" "Gee Scott, that's looks really uncomfortable." "Yeah! And it hurts like a b*tch!!" We had some fun, but some contests seemed to end prematurely thanks the game's unnecessary time limit. Even so, these head-to-head variations make Breakaway one of the more entertaining Arcadia titles. © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

Cat Trax takes a page from every maze game ever invented, and the results are pretty good! You control a feline in a cat-nip-lined maze with three dogs in pursuit. Like Pac-Man, "tunnels" along the edge of the screen allow you to escape to the opposite side. Your movement is a little sluggish, but the controls are responsive enough. A fish randomly appears in the center of the screen (that's a fish?), and touching it changes your cat into a dog-catching truck. The pause that occurs during this transformation can be slightly annoying. As a truck you quickly zip around the maze and snag dogs for points. The dogs make little attempt to escape, and they are neatly "crated up" as you catch each one. I like how the dogs don't return to the maze until you after you return to your cat form. Spicing up the action is your ability to open and close "gates" around the maze - much like Mousetrap. Your cat even has the ability to "warp" out of trouble - a feature referred to in space games as "hyperspace". The graphics in Cat Trax are exceptionally good, and that bright blue maze is very attractive. Each dog has its own distinctive look, although some look more like demons with horns. The sound effects are definitely weak, mainly limited to beeps and buzzes. 32 game variations are included, which is a lot for an Arcadia game. Cat Trax has a friendly arcade quality that makes you want to play, and enough depth to keep you playing. © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

This curious title is practically identical to Robot Killer, except enemies assume random "mutant" shapes instead of robots. And oh yeah - that bouncing ball has been replaced by a spinning bow tie. Any classic gamer will immediately identify both as Berzerk rip-offs. I suspect Escape was meant to replace Robot Killer, perhaps in an effort to avoid a lawsuit (Escape's product number is higher). This game does make a good first impression with its well-defined mazes peppered with a diverse assortment of enemies. But once the sluggish action kicks in, it feels like your man is wading through molasses. The monsters have all day to elude your slow-ass missiles, but they just stand around like a bunch of wallflowers. Pretty soon both your wrist and attention span will languish as you easily escape one uneventful screen after the next. That spinning bow tie is pretty quick, but since it lashes out in random directions, it's rarely a threat. Escape's pathetic gameplay is only matched by its atrocious box art. At first glance I thought a little kid had attempted to "color in" the poorly drawn characters, but apparently that's just the design. Berzerk fans might want to give Escape a try, but no one will ever make the mistake of playing this game twice. © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

This is a really shameless Berzerk clone that gets the visuals right but doesn't even come close to matching its fun factor. I can't quibble with the graphics, which make a solid first impression. The maze walls have a granular texture, and the characters are small but nicely detailed. You man runs by taking super long strides, but he moves in slow motion! And since he's small, you have a lot of ground to cover to reach the exit of each room. You fire huge red balls, but they take forever to cross the screen, and for some reason you begin each screen by firing upwards for no good reason! The robots are shaped exactly like the ones from Berzerk, right down to that single eye moving side-to-side. You can almost picture one of them saying "Shoot him - he's very slowly getting away!!" Only one robot can move one at a time, and they move at a snail's pace. They can also shoot, but their slow projectiles only present a danger at point-blank range. Should you linger in any room for too long, a small bouncing head appears in the center of the screen. Considering he's meant to chase you out, his pace is entirely too leisurely! Robot Killer isn't very challenging, and you'll hands will start cramping up long the game ends. I tried to increase the difficulty by adjusting the options, but each variation was equally slow and laborious. © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

I was totally psyched up about this Galaxian clone when I first turned it on. The alien armada on top of the screen looks sharp, and stars twinkle in the background. Since many Arcadia games are slow, I was pleased by the speed at which your missiles whiz up the screen. Dive-bombing aliens peel off two at a time, but if you ever see them in an "attack formation", it's probably by accident and not design. Space Attack's collision detection is really suspect, and it's not uncommon for your missile to pass clear through an incoming alien. I was surprised to discover that my missiles can collide with alien bombs, causing them to cancel each other out. It seems cool, until you realize it happens all of the time! There's nothing worse than not being able to destroy an alien bearing down on you because your shots keep colliding! Another unnecessary "feature" is the fuel gauge at the bottom of the screen, which recharges after each wave. Space Attack could have been a great title, but like many Arcadia titles, it appears to be the victim of over-programming. © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

It may not look like much, but Space Raiders has an arcade vibe that most Arcadia games lack. Like Defender, you guide a ship over a side-scrolling screen while blasting aliens with streaming missiles. When shot, enemy saucers and mutants burst into large bunches of pixilated squares. If the programmer was trying to create the largest possible explosions, he succeeded, but the effect looks pretty messy! There's no landscape on the bottom of the screen, but missile bases periodically move into view. If you bomb both missile launchers, you can dock between them to refuel. The keypad is used to unleash bombs, but the destruction is minimal since bombed launchers simply turn dark blue. Space Raiders has only one variation, but its difficulty is reasonable. Between waves your ship tends to change in appearance, and I have no idea why. It's a shame Space Raiders lacks the concept of "waves", because it would have been a lot more compelling. Despite its shortcomings, this is one of the more intense games for the system. © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.