Retro Game Review: Burgertime

Game: BurgerTime
System: Arcade
Manufacturer: Bally Midway
Year: 1982
Ranking: Four Quarters

Growing up hamburgers came in one of two forms. The first, most popular option, was the fast-food burger. McDonald's and Burger King reigned supreme in this court. The second, much more common option, was the home BBQ burger. Here well-done was the way they were done. Think charcoal brisket burger. Imagine my surprise, when I was sixteen and discovered that there was such a divine item as "the gourmet hamburger", and that it existed steps away from my physics lecture at a place called Mr. Bartley's Gourmet Burgers, henceforth simply referred to as Bartley's.

Bartley's burgers are culinary masterpieces. Layer upon layer of delicious ingredient is piled carefully on top of each other to create towering skyscrapers of burger goodness. The first time I beheld a Bartley's burger, I had to take several moments to figure out how I would fit the behemoth into my mouth. Staring at that burger, I was reminded the arcade classic BurgerTime. In that game, the protagonist, Peter Pepper, is chased around a multistory maze desperately trying to construct the world's largest burgers while being chased by anthropomorphized food. If I assume that Peter Pepper comes in at an average height of about 5 feet 9 inches tall (1.75 m), then those arcade burgers he's making are a whopping 11 and a half feet (3.5 m) thick!  

I'm not really sure why Peter is making those burgers, but it sure is fun to try to help him out. BurgerTime combines winning elements of two wildly successful early arcade games. First it draws its construction site platform and ladder aesthetic from Donkey Kong. Second, it borrows the chase and maze mechanic from Pac Man. Here ghosts are replaced with 6 ft tall BBQ items. Although a bit unusual, a competing greasy spoon down the street from Bartley's, the Tasty, did serve a slippery burger topped with cheese, bacon and a fried egg. Layer on top of the proven arcade elements new features like falling burger parts and Peter's pepper sprayer, and you have a winning combination.

What keeps the game fresh is the various and sundry ways one has to deal with the enemies. First, there is the standard avoidance tactic. As near as I can tell, none of the food items have the same sophisticated algorithms seen in Pac Man. They simply head for Peter Pepper. In fact, they operate under a bit of a delay since they can't change direction while they are in the middle of a ladder, unlike Peter. Second, Peter can hit them with a dash of pepper to freeze them. This allows him to pass right through them without harm. Third, Peter can drop burger parts like hell from above, knocking Food Foes over and sending them back to their spawn point. Finally, he can start walking across a burger ingredient, wait for his enemies to walk onto to the same piece, and then finish his trip across to drop both the burger piece and the hostile food at the same time. The key to racking up a high score and wrapping up a level fast is to group the Food Foes together and get them to walk onto the topmost bun all at the same time before dropping everything and everyone.

One aspect of the game that I've wondered about inordinately is speed. How fast is Peter Pepper trying to get away from those fiendishly tall foods? I figured that he had to be humming along if he wanted to make those burgers fast enough not to get gobbled up himself. Using the average height of French Chefs and measuring the amount of time it took Peter to travel between known points on the scaffolding I generated some rough numbers. 

The first number I calculated was the speed that Peter Pepper traveled up the length of the first level. For the Arcade version, Peter scales the ladder at a fairly good clip of 5.4 mph. To put that in perspective, a typical person walking on a flat surface travels at about 3.1 mph. A good jog, one that I might use at the gym on any given day, is about 6 mph. Peter Pepper is practically running up those ladders! I was also happy to confirm that I got similar speeds on all three of my emulation machines. In the Atari 2600 and 5200 versions, Peter travels at a slower, more reasonable speed of about 4.0 mph. This is not very surprising, given that a common complaint of the Atari 2600 version is that it is "slow". Finally, all the exercise that Peter got in the earlier versions of the game, paid off because in the GameBoy version he runs up those ladders at a blistering 7.8 mph.

After wandering down this rabbit hole, I was a bit surprised to realize that Peter Pepper travels a lot faster across the flat surfaces than up and down the ladder -- at least on the first level. In the Arcade version, he's moving over two times his vertical speed when moving horizontally. A whopping 12.0 mph! This is almost on pace with the world's best marathoners, who typically post speeds near 13.0 mph. The Atari versions also have a speed up, although not nearly so dramatic. In the Atari 2600 version his speed increases to 6.5 mph, and in the Atari 5200 version it increases to 7.2 mph. Interestingly, in the GameBoy version, Peter Pepper has the same horizontal and vertical speeds. Unless you are playing the GameBoy version, it is much better to try to outrun your enemies on flat ground than it is to try to outclimb them on the ladders.

It is worth noting that all of these speeds were calculated on the first level of each version, and Peter's speeds may change as he progresses further in his culinary career.

The line has always been long at Bartley's, but thankfully the wait is short. I like to think that somewhere in the back there's a olympian marathoner named Peter, scurrying around a 17 story rube goldberg tower of food, assembling the most monumental burgers in Harvard Square. Thankfully to generations of burger aficionados, Mr. Bartley found that miniaturization ray in Area 51 in the late 1950s so that we could enjoy Peter Pepper's magnificent creations in digestible dimensions.  

BurgerTime Cast of Characters: Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, Mr. Egg, and the star himself, Peter Pepper. In the Atari 2600 version, Mr. Pickle was lost along with any decent graphics. In that version, Peter Pepper, aka the Chef, battles Hot Dogs, Eggs, Bread Sticks, and the dreaded Cheese. The Atari 5200 version introduces some colorful naming fun. Chef Pete squares off against Frank, the hot dog, Mr. Yolk, the egg, and Dr. Dill, the pickle. Burger Time Deluxe for the GameBoy returns to its arcade roots with Mr. Hot Dog, Mr. Pickle, and Mr. Egg reprising their roles as the original Food Foes. This image was captured from the arcade version running in MAME. 

Bonus Items and Extra Pepper: Proper pepper management is critical to success in BurgerTime. Peter Pepper will quickly find himself overwhelmed without any pepper shakers. Thankfully, after successfully luring several of the Food Foes onto falling burger parts, a bonus item will appear. Each bonus item gives Peter some bonus points and an additional pepper shaker. It's important to note that in the Arcade version the bonus items only appear for about 7 to 8 seconds. The Atari 2600, Atari 5200, and GameBoy versions all give you a little more time to replenish your stash of pepper shakers (17, 12 and 12 seconds, respectively). This image was captured from the arcade version running in MAME.

Alternate Versions

Game: BurgerTime
System: Atari 2600
Publisher: M Network
Year: 1982
Ranking: Two Quarters

The horror: The Atari 2600 version severely lacks the critical graphical elements seen in the other versions of BurgerTime. Seen at left is Mr."hip to be square" Egg. On the right we have a two new additions to the Food Foe team, Mr. "Flappy" Cheese (brown), and Mr. Breadstick. Only Mr. Hot Dog shows some semblance to his actually personna. Finally, it's worth noting that while the burger fixins are suspended from the scaffolding they are all an identical muddy yellow, but once they fall they become relatively recognizable burgers. This image was captured from the Atari 2600 version running in Stella. 

March of the breadsticks: Due to the flappy nature of Mr. Egg and Mr. Cheese, there comes a time when it appears that Peter Pepper is being pursued by a bunch of breadsticks. The key travesty in this image however, is the graphical representation of the first bonus item. In the arcade version the ice cream cone is the first bonus item. For the longest time I tried to reconcile the image of a burning bush above with an ice cream cone. In preparation for this blog, I realized that M Network changed the order and made French Fries as the bonus item on the first screen. A slightly better match to what is shown above, but not nearly as interesting as a flaming shrub. This image was captured from the Atari 2600 version running in Stella.

Game: Beef Drop
System: Atari 5200
Author: Ken Siders
Year: 2004
Ranking: Four Quarters

Progression of Peter Pepper: The Atari 5200 version does a significantly better job matching the arcade experience. The graphical elements are clear and obvious. Breadsticks and fluttering flags are gone and replaced with the customary anthropomorphised fast-food items. The game no longer pauses when Peter tosses his pepper, and the bonus items match the Arcade progression. Beef Drop for the Atari 5200 is a fantastically fun game that matches the arcade experience well. Image captured using a digital camera and an actual Atari 5200 hooked up to a CRT screen.

Game: Burger Time Deluxe
System: GameBoy
Publisher: Data East
Year: 1991
Ranking: Four Quarters

BurgerTime Evolution: The typical early 80s Arcade port evolution went as follows. Amazing game is introduced to the public at the local arcade. Groundbreaking game is decimated to run on the Atari 2600. Incremental progress is made to improve home game play on the Intellivision, Atari 5200, and NES while trying to hue as closely as possible to the original game. At some point, right around the GameBoy/SNES era a conscious effort is made to no longer match that original arcade, but expand upon the idea and make the game even better. BurgerTime Deluxe on the GameBoy follows this model. The first few levels match the arcade versions, and then the sky opens up. New bonus items become available and the game is fun and new all at the same time. One thing to watch out for in this version is that Food Foes don't respawn at the edge of the screen when the fall to the ground with a burger part, rather they wander around dazed for a few seconds and then quickly resume their hunt for Peter Pepper where the burger part has come to rest. Image captured using a digital camera and a GameBoy SP.

Useful Links

• BugerTime Strategy Guide (Arcade)
• Let's Compare BurgerTime
• BurgerTime Deluxe Manual (GameBoy)

Retro Game Rankings: No Quarters to Four Quarters. It should be noted, that although the going price of an arcade game was a single quarter when many of these games first came out, I feel that true retro game fans would be willing to pay a little bit more to capture the glory of playing some of the truly great ones one more time.

Retro Game Review -- Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom (Atari 5200)

Game: Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom

System: Atari 5200

Publisher: Sega

Year: 1983

Ranking: Two Quarters

Example Gameplay: YouTube - Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom

Before Spiderman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Batman, and perhaps the greatest superhero icon of the 20th century, Superman, there was Buck Rogers. Created in 1928, Buck first appeared as Anthony Rogers in the Amazing Stories' novella Armageddon 2419 A.D. by Philip Francis Nowlan. Buck is a modern day Rip Van Winkle. After falling into a mysterious stupor when exposed to radioactive gas during a cave in of an abandoned mine, Buck, like Rip before him, wakes years later to find a world completely different than the one he left.

Armageddon 2419 A.D. doesn't hold up as well as the other classic origin stories. First, it's seeped with jingoism. The final line of the book, "...unless you and I [Buck] are killed in the struggle, we shall live to see America blast the Yellow Blight from the face of the Earth.", still has me cringing. The "Yellow Blight" that Buck refers to here are the Hans, a technologically advanced society from central Asia that has swept across the globe in the centuries Buck has been sleeping. While the great superheroes that came after Buck were well know for defeating malicious and malignant enemies, never did they target an entire human population for annihilation.  

The second, and not quite as morally damning, shortcoming of his origin story is that it is completely devoid of any space drama. Sure we have ray guns, disintegrator beams, and inertron belts (nifty devices that allow their users to defy gravity), but there is not one space ship, space trip, or space alien. Buck Rogers, a name synonymous with outer space adventure, gives us none of this in his inaugural title. Luckily Buck's legacy was saved by the comic strips, movies, radio dramas, television shows, video games, and books that followed.

In the early nineteen eighties, Buck was experiencing a revival. The property had a TV show and a movie. While the TV show only lasted two seasons, it was enough to spark imaginations. SEGA, not afraid of scooping up sci-fi properties, e.g., Star Trek, acquired the rights to Buck Rogers and produced his first video game: Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom. The only references to Buck were 1) the title and 2) the flashy painting of a super-sized Buck launching spaceships from his hands. The fancy cockpit conversion arcade didn't even get a painting of Buck. The game was a third-person forward-scrolling trench shooter. As it was, it didn't add much to the Buck Rogers cannon, and, in fact, appeared to have more in common with Luke Skywalker's X-Wing flight over the the first Death Star than anything Buck Rogers had done. Surprisingly, the Atari 5200 manual, often a rich source of context and background, also doesn't delve much into the story either. It simply states "It's the 25th century. You are Buck Rogers fighting the battle of Planet Zoom. This is a race against death! Your ultimate and most powerful enemy is the deadly MOTHER SHIP". This game could have really just been called "Planet of Zoom", and nobody would have missed a beat.

I'll admit that when I first played the Atari 5200 game, I wasn't impressed. The space ship swoops over a surface of banded blue lines. Off in the distance, snow cap mountains loom. Ringed electron posts appear, and ostensibly, you must slalom through them. I say ostensibly, because this is a video game, and that's what you are suppose to do. On the first level of the game, however, there is no immediate penalty for missing a gate. If you don't fly through any of the electron posts, you won't be credited with defeating and enemy and will never reach the end of the stage. You will simply blow up when you run out of fuel. I think that it's a little sad that our cars don't blow up when they run out of fuel. It would make driving a lot more exciting when the low-fuel light pinged on. Back to the game. Since there's no immediate penalty to missing the electron posts, I recommend avoid them when you are in doubt. They are squirrelly devils and appear to behave non-linearly when you get close. Just when you think there's enough room to fly past: WHAM, you've slammed head first into one. 

After the first stage, alien saucers fly past you to the horizon and then come back down the screen to attack you again. It's easiest to shoot them as they fly past the first time. While this game purports to have three-dimensions, it's only worthwhile to fly at the top of the screen at maximum speed. This will cause all the alien saucers to initially fly underneath you. Luckily your blaster can blow them up from any level. Eventually, space hoppers will also lumber towards you. Blast these when they are as far from you as possible. It's important to always fly as fast as possible, otherwise you will run out of fuel and not have enough to fight the MOTHER SHIP at the end of the forth stage.

The dreaded MOTHER SHIP is unique. She can only be destroyed if you hit her dead center, presumably where the pilots are. If you fail to hit the ship in its one vulnerable location, your energy pulse will ricochet back at you! Why the antagonists in the battle of the Planet of Zoom didn't think of caking their entire ship in this marvelous material is beyond me. Succeed in blowing up the enemy ship, and the entire screen will flash with its destruction. Or is it your destruction? At the end of every level, when the screen flashed, I always had to ask myself, "Did I just blow-up?" Victory music would be more rewarding than an apparent explosion.

Eventually, I started to enjoy the game. While it bears no resemblance to the jingoist hero introduced to us in Armageddon 2419 A.D., Buck Rogers and the Planet of Zoom for the Atari 5200 let's you pretend for a moment to be that legendary pilot portrayed by Gil Gerard in television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. 

Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom for the Atari 5200: Opening screen. Beware the innocuous looking electron posts. They have a strange attraction to Buck's ship. 

Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom for the Atari 5200: Explosive stage ending. Did Buck just blow up, or did I just successfully finish a stage?

Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom for the Atari 5200: The deadly MOTHER SHIP. Be sure to hit the center module; otherwise, your photon torpedoes will ricochet back at you.

Retro Game Rankings: No Quarters to Four Quarters. It should be noted, that although the going price of an arcade game was a single quarter when many of these games first came out, I feel that true retro game fans would be willing to pay a little bit more to capture the glory of playing some of the truly great ones one more time.

Retro Game Review -- Mario Bros. (Atari 5200)

Game: Mario Bros.

System: Atari 5200

Publisher: Nintendo by way of Atari

Year: 1983

Ranking: Three Quarters

Before Mario starting dating Nintendo exclusively, he was open to relationships with all sort and sundry video game consoles. In the mid-1980s the first eponymous Mario game, Mario Bros., was released in the arcade and on the BBC Micro, the ZX Spectrum, DOS, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Commodore  64 (two versions!), all major Atari systems (2600, 5200, 7800, and 8-bit computers), and, as one would expect, the NES. This can be compared to Super Mario Bros., the second eponymous Mario game, which was only released in the arcade and on the NES. I'd like to think that Mario's libertine youth is what ultimately lead to him to finding true and lasting love with Nintendo.

Mario Bros. was not the first game Nintendo published featuring its world famous mascot. That honor resides with Donkey Kong, a game more famous for its antagonist than its protagonist. In fact, Mario didn't even have a real name in Donkey Kong. He was only referred to as Jumpman. He wasn't even a plumber. He was a carpenter, ostensibly due to the fact that he was chasing Donkey Kong though a construction site to save his beloved Pauline. In Mario Bros., Mario and Luigi are trying to clear pesky pests out the pipes in their house so that they can take a relaxing bubble bath. Owing to Mario's potent pipe cleaning proficiency, Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario's legendary creator, said in a 2010 interview in USA Today that this was the game that decided his career. Interestingly, all three Atari home system manuals for Mario Bros. list Mario's occupation as carpenter. The NES manual is surprisingly silent on his occupation. This implies, to me, that the decision to make Mario a plumber was a bit of a retro-fit. If anyone can find primary source material from the mid-1980s (e.g., manuals, press-releases, etc.) that mention Mario was a plumber, please post a link in the comments below! 

Mario Bros. is a one or two player game. Players can choose between going it alone with Mario, or opting for a cooperative or competitive game with Mario and Luigi. The game play is very similar to Midway's classic Joust. Players are confronted with a single battle screen. Enemies swarm down the screen, and Mario and his brother need to eliminate them before they themselves are eliminated. Enemies are familiar, but are referred to by obscure names. Koopa Troopers are Shellcreepers, Crabbies are Sidesteppers, and Freezies are Slipices. The one exception is Fighterflies. They retain their moniker in later games. The familiar mechanic of raining death down from above is replaced by punching destruction up from below. Pipe clogging pests must first be flipped onto their backs and then kicked off the screen before they have a chance to flip themselves over. Shellcreepers require one punch to flip over. Sidesteppers require two punches. Fighterflies also only require one punch to flip, but it has to be carefully timed to coincide to when they are touching the ground. Defeat an enemy and a coin with exit from one of the pipes. You can collect it for bonus points. Take too long to defeat your enemies and two fireballs will start roaming the screen looking to roast Mario and Luigi. You can either choose to avoid them, or attempt to punch them from below for big points. If you get frustrated and there are just too many enemies on the screen, you can hit the "POW" button to flip over all the enemies touching the ground. Be judicious though, you can only hit the "POW" button three times before it disappears until the next bonus screen. Bonus screens come along every so often and are filled only with coins. You'll get extra points for collecting all the coins within a prescribed time limit. 

Mario Bros. was the only Mario game released for the Atari 5200. The game play is solid and the difficulty increases at an enjoyable rate. While the single player mode is entertaining, the game really shines with two players. Although it is possible, I suppose, to play a cooperative game, the real fun is trying to bounce a Shellcreeper onto your opponent. My only complaint is that the colors are a bit murky. I would have preferred to see the bright, lime green pipes we have come to know and love in more recent Mario games. Mario may have married Nintendo, but I am sure glad that he went out on at least one date with the Atari 5200.

Atari 5200 Mario Bros. start screen. 

Shellcreepers (Koopa Troopers) and Sidestepper (Crabby) descend upon Mario in the Atari 5200 version of Mario Bros.

Retro Game Rankings: No Quarters to Four Quarters. It should be noted, that although the going price of an arcade game was a single quarter when many of these games first came out, I feel that true retro game fans would be willing to pay a little bit more to capture the glory of playing some of the truly great ones one more time.

Retro Game Review -- Missile Command (Atari 5200)

Game: Missile Command

System: Atari 5200

Publisher: Atari

Year: 1982

Ranking: Four Quarters

It had the best controller, it had the worst controller.

The notoriety of the stock Atari 5200 controller cannot be overstated. It had a floppy, non-centering joystick. Fire buttons were mushy, unresponsive, and stopped working after a few intense sessions of your favorite shooter. The design was so bad, if fact, that if you did mange to keep it all working, you were pretty much guaranteed to develop an RSI within a week owing to the abominable ergonomic design. The stock controller was ranked as the 10th worst video game controller by IGN editor Craig Harris. I am truly surprised it did that well. 

On the other end of the spectrum was the Atari 5200 trak-ball controller. The Atari 5200 trak-ball is big and heavy: it's nearly as big as the Atari 2600! The ball is about the size of a tennis ball, so while it's not "arcade-quality" it's a lot more substantial then the standard ping-pong sized balls commonly used for home trackball controllers. Most importantly, the Atari 5200 trak-ball works fantastically with all compatible games. The most recognizable of which is the 1980 arcade classic Missile Command.

Atari 5200 trak-ball controller (left) shown with the Atari 2600 (right) for scale.

One would think that Missile Command needs no introduction. Looking over the decades-old manual, however, I found a provocative and rich back story. You are a missile commander on the resource rich planet of Zardon. Armed with antiballistic missiles from a central missile bunker, you aim to defend the six principle cities of this peaceful planet. Unfortunately, the neighboring Krytolians stuck on the resource poor planet of Krytolia, have decided to launch an all out war on Zardon to capture its precious resources for the glory of Krytolia. As the commanding defense officer, you must deploy quick thinking and strategy to defend Zardon against the Krytolian onslaught. Missile Command is more than just a simple shooter, it is complex, hot-conflict simulation, modeling the fallout of the Krytolian's greed to seize the Zardonian's valuable resources at any cost. 

To be honest, this was already a fantastic game on the Atari 2600. The relatively straightforward arcade graphics translated very well to the more modest capabilities of the Atari 2600. Two simplifications, however, were made. First, the number of missile bases was reduced from three in the arcade version to one in the Atari 2600 version. Second, many users used the standard Atari 2600 joystick to move the targeting icon around the screen rather than the slick trackball that the arcade version used. While the Atari 5200 version has one missile base like the Atari 2600 version it also has a massive trackball to help you aim your antiballistic missiles with pin-point accuracy. Playing Missile Command on the Atari 5200 with its "trak-ball" controller is about as close as you can get to reliving the early 80's arcade experience without the arcade cabinet. 

Unfortunately, the Atari 5200 trak-ball is getting harder and harder to come by. I purchased my Atari 5200 in March 2013 through eBay, and quickly tried to buy my own authentic Atari 5200 trak-ball. After several unsuccessful eBay bids, I contacted Best Electronics. Best Electronics specializes in replacement parts and accessories for all Atari Game Systems. The webpage looks a bit dated, and ordering can be a bit convoluted, but their extensive inventory makes the effort worth it. When I contacted them to see if they had any Atari 5200 trak-balls in stock, they told me that after 27+ years of selling the Atari 5200 trak-ball, they ran out of stock the week before I emailed them. Talk about poor timing. In the end, I did find one on eBay, but I paid a little bit more than I would have liked. The good news is that even without the 5200 trak-ball controller, the game still plays well with the stock controller. 

As with most early arcade games, ultimately, resistance is futile. The Krytolians invasion is just too powerful, and all major cities eventually fall. I'd like to think that as the last explosions wipe out the final defensive position, a few proud, strong Zardonians survive to continue the good fight. 

Opening screen for the Atari 5200 version of Missile Command. The central antiballistic missile compound and six cities to defend can be seen along the bottom of the screen. Practically speaking there is little difference between this screen and the Atari 2600 version.

The Krytolian offensive begins. An enemy satellite can be seen exploding in the center of the screen. 

The famous Missile Command game over screen. The words "THE END" are engulfed in a  final nuclear bombardment. 

The finest way to play old-school Missile Command on the small screen: Atari 5200 with the 5200 trak-ball controller.

Retro Game Rankings: No Quarters to Four Quarters. It should be noted, that although the going price of an arcade game was a single quarter when many of these games first came out, I feel that true retro game fans would be willing to pay a little bit more to capture the glory of playing some of the truly great ones one more time.

Retro Game Review -- Moon Patrol (Atari 5200)

Game: Moon Patrol

System: Atari 5200

Publisher: Atari

Year: 1983

Ranking: Three Quarters

When I ordered my Atari 5200 SuperSystem off of eBay, it came with 11 games. Among gems and duds, was Moon Patrol. I don't remember hearing about either the arcade or Atari versions when I was younger, so I didn't spend a lot of time with the game. I played it once to make sure that it worked, and then I put it in the back of the drawer. It probably would have continued to collect dust if it hadn't been selected in the AtariAge Atari 5200 high-score club. 

Classic game high-score clubs, like the ones on AtariAge, help keep vintage titles fresh. Let's be honest, there is not a lot of depth to many old-school games. Fire-up most any classic and after a few nostalgic minutes, most people have satisfied their fix and will return to playing the latest installment of Call of Duty. High-score clubs help to keep these retro games interesting by creating a community of gamers all playing the same title at the same time. Just like when we used to trade high-scores with our buddies around the block, high-score forums are places where we can post scores, opinions, and advice. Seeing someone score hundreds of thousands more points than you can be humbling, but it also drives you to improve your game. The selection of Moon Patrol in the AtariAge high-score club motivated me to dig it out of the back of the drawer.

In Moon Patrol, you are part of the Luna City Police Department (LCPD). Not to be confused, of course, with the Liberty City Police Department, which has significantly better graphics for their patrol cars. You patrol the lunar surface, destroying invading aliens with laser bullets, jumping gaping craters with anti-gravity suspension, and avoiding menacing obstacles with knee-jerk reactions. The graphics are a bit of a disappointment compared to the arcade version. For example, your patrol buggy is missing an entire set of wheels, and the playing field is bracketed by two columns of blocky graphics that don't make a lot of sense. On the other hand, the sound effects are great and the soundtrack is exceedingly catchy. As you progress along your beat, markers present along the top of the screen tick off your progress. First "A", then "B", etc. Each time you die, you go back to the last marker you passed. It's a nice way to save you from starting at the beginning every time. In addition, if you wreck all of your patrol cars, you have the option to continue at the last station marker. Bonus points are awarded for speed. Blast through a set number of markers quickly, and you can score significant bonus points.

Moon Patrol is the perfect type of game for a high-score club. As a rookie, I was pretty sure that it was impossible to make it past a particularly tricky one-two, tank-crater combo early in the Championship version of the game. If I had been playing the game alone I'm fairly certain that I would have just turned in my badge and gun and quit the force. After checking in with the high-score club forum, however, I saw that nearly everybody had made it past that point and was posting some pretty solid scores. That was all the motivation I needed to make it past my that challenge and far enough into the game to feel respectable.

Moon Patrol is a fun game once you get into it. The most difficult aspect of the game is getting used to the fire buttons. First off, the primary fire button fires both forward and vertical guns. This wouldn't be confusing, except for the fact that the horizontal gun doesn't fire at the same rate as the vertical gun. Every time you press the primary button, the vertical gun fires. On the other hand, the horizontal gun will only fire if there isn't another horizontal bullet on the screen. This can make it difficult to get the timing right when you are trying to shoot things both in front and above you. The second wrinkle, is the fact that the secondary fire button activates the jump. For some reason, I was often confused between shooting and jumping to tragic results. Luckily, the more you play the game, the easier the controls become. I'm happy that the AtariAge Atari 5200 high-score club pushed me to play this game. 

Moon Patrol buggy showing off its mad vertical shooting skills. Notice the incongruous vertical strips bracketing both sides of the main field of play. I'm not sure why the programmers decided to keep these in the final version.

Moon Patrol buggy jumping for joy after shooting down an alien invader.

Looking at the chunky wheels on the patrol buggy, I couldn't help but recall my favorite Lego tires growing up. As final, parting thought, I leave you with my Lego interpretation of the Atari 5200 Moon Patrol buggy.

Lego interpretation of Moon Patrol buggy.

Retro Game Rankings: No Quarters to Four Quarters. It should be noted, that although the going price of an arcade game was a single quarter when many of these games first came out, I feel that true retro game fans would be willing to pay a little bit more to capture the glory of playing some of the truly great ones one more time.

Retro Game Reviews

Game	System	Ranking
Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom	Atari 5200
Burger Drop	Atari 5200
BurgerTime	Arcade
BurgerTime	Atari 2600
BurgerTime Deluxe	GameBoy
Darkwing Duck	GameBoy
Eggomania	Atari 2600
E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial	Atari 2600
Gremlins	Atari 5200
Lady Bug	Atari 2600
Mario Bros.	Atari 5200
Midnight Magic	Atari 2600
Missle Command	Atari 5200
Moon Patrol	Atari 5200
Pole Position	Atari 5200
Qix	Atari 5200
River Raid	Atari 5200
River Raid	Atari 2600
Skiing	Atari 2600
Yar's Revenge	Atari 2600
Zaxxon	Atari 5200

Retro Game Rankings: No Quarters to Four Quarters. It should be noted, that although the going price of an arcade game was a single quarter when many of these games first came out, I feel that true retro game fans would be willing to pay a little bit more to capture the glory of playing some of the truly great ones one more time.