Atari 2600 Friday’s #45 – Fast Food

I hope you are hungry because it is time to “eat all the things!”…

The Story: Eat all the food, get fatter…Be an average American.

From the Manual: “Burgers, fries, shakes, pizzas . . . Flying by at sub-gastronomical speeds. You and Mr. Mouth have to catch ’em if you can. The higher the calorie count, the better your score. The more calories you consume the faster the food flies. But beware of the purple pickles! Catch too many and your binge is over. No matter how much you eat, you’ll never gain a pound.”

From the Box: “Burgers, fries, shakes, pizzas…Flying by at sub-gastronomical speeds. You and Mr. Mouth have to catch ’em if you can. The higher the calorie count, the better your score. The more calories you consume the faster the food flies. But beware of the purple pickles! Catch too many and your binge is over. Fast Food – it’ll satisfy the appetite of every video game hot dog.”

The Gameplay: So, the object of the game is to eat all the fast food and get fatter while avoiding the healthy purple pickles. You control a mouth, which eats all the food, that can move in all four directions. This game plays similar to how a shooter plays except you don’t shoot anything. The food comes scrolling across from the left and you have to eat or avoid it. There is no penalty for missing food. The food speeds up as you get fatter. Collect six of the purple pickles and its game over.

The Controls: Joystick Up/Down/Left/Right to move left/right. The red button starts each round.

Post Review: It’s a fun little diversion, but it can be tough as food speeds up. some of it crosses the screen in a second or two. Sometimes you will get a purple pickle just from it going at supersonic unavoidable speeds. I noticed once my purple pickle count went down, this seems to happen every 500 points and wasn’t really listed anywhere and isn’t in a lot of guides…I had to google it after it happened so I’m sharing the information.

High Score: 787

Atari 2600 Friday’s #44 – Pitfall II: Lost Caverns

I missed last week because I went to a 3-day weekend anime convention, but we are back this week with Pitfall 2: Lost Caverns!

The Story: Pitfall Harry and Company got lost or god knows what while exploring a cavern, it’s time to go save them.

From the Manual: “We were all pretty worried about Pitfall Harry. We sent him and his niece, Rhonda, along with Quickclaw the cat, on a treacherous journey to an underground cavern. Well, not a word was heard from him–until
today. We now present you with Pitfall Harry’s diary–the journal he’s been keeping in the lost caverns. It arrived this morning by carrier condor. Typical of Harry.”

From the Box: “A call from crane, a call to danger! …Here I am, Pitfall Harry, plummeting toward the dark thunder of rushing water below…and thinking of the night David Crane called. “I hope you’re well-rested” he had said. Too rested, I said. I was ready for action. He asked if I’d heard tales of the legendary lost caverns of Machu Picchu in Peru. Or of a roaring, uncharted underground tributary off of the Urubamba River replete with waterfalls and deadly electric eels. “Yes” I said. He asked if I knew of the infamous, cursed Raj Diamond. Or of the recent robbery of gold bars from the U.S. Gold Bullion Depository in Fort Knox. And had I heard of vampire bats? Poisonous frogs? Albino scorpions? The dreaded Andean Condor? “Yes” I said. And could I still run? Climb? Jump? Could I… swim? “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.” “Good said Crane. Then you’ll do it?” “Of course” I said. If only I had known…”

The Gameplay: Your goal is to find Rhonda, Quickclaw and the Raj Diamond, doing so ends the game. There is no time limit so you can take your time. For a bonus perfect score of 199,000 points, you need to find Rhonda, Quickclaw, the Diamond, 28 gold bars, and a stone-age rat all without falling peril to a single danger.  Red crosses in the game act like a modern-day checkpoint, find one and you can “respawn” there if you fall peril to a danger. Dangers include poisonous frogs, bats, condors, electric eels, albino scorpions and pitfalls of course. There is a shaft where you can grab balloons to cross the pit, but be careful you can only let go if a bat pops the balloon, make sure the bat doesn’t hit you.

The Controls: Joystick Left/Right to move left/right. Up/Down to climb ladders, control balloon speed. The red button is jump.

Post Review: This game is a horror. I had to pull up a map to know where to go, my god, this game is huge. The checkpoints are a blessing and a curse, you have to watch harry run back to the last one every time you hit something…every time! this gets old quick. The music while fun was starting to wear one me, it’s about the same 10 or so notes on repeat. I was also having trouble getting harry to climb ladders and not just fall down the shaft, this and a few bats I couldn’t see against the black background cause me to quit. I’m sure someone on an emulator will have a better time. Oh, and did I mention watching Harry run back to the last checkpoint? Thank god for modern teleporting back. I’m not entirely amused by the game, but I’m sure some people like it, I do prefer the original. I get worse at games as I get madder, and between the few notes repeat grating on me and watching harry run back every 30 seconds, I was done. Pitfall 2 has some pluses and minuses. Decide how they weigh out for you.

High Score: I had 20,000 at one point, then I hit the first shaft and quit after 5-6 falls

Pitfall II: Lost Caverns was one of the games that you could win a patch by sending in a screenshot of a high score, 99,000 or higher.