Kool-Aid Man
Atari 2600
Nostalgia Factor:
1982 is in the books and it’s time for me to move on and start playing and reviewing some games from 1983! First up: Kool-Aid Man. Why, of all the games out there did I pick this one? Simple. I had never even known this game existed until about ten minutes ago. Any other games can wait. I’ll play them eventually. If I didn’t play this now, chances are I never would have played it at all. So that’s what I did!
Story:
Um, once upon a time there were these evil creatures that were attempting to use straws to suck all the water out of a swimming pool. When Kool-Aid Man caught wind of what was happening, he was like “Oh fuck no! Not on my watch!” He put on his best outfit, drove to the pool, and came crashing through the wall – ready to destroy those pool-sucking super villains!
Gameplay:
This is about as simple a game as you will ever play. You control the Kool-Aid Man. You can move him up, down, left, right and all of the diagonal directions on your screen. The pool-sucking super villains begin moving across the screen. If you touch them when they are moving you will ricochet out of control for a few seconds until you regain control of your character. You want to avoid these enemies until they stop moving, at which point the pool-sucking straw will come out of their mouth and descend to the water at the bottom of the screen. You then have to touch them, which kills them. If you don’t touch them right away (like if you are ricocheting and can’t control your character), you will see the water level of the pool start to drain. If it drains all the way, it’s game over. Your high score is displayed and you have to start the game over again. There is no winning this game. The pool WILL drain eventually. All you are playing for is the highest score.
You’ll see the occasional item move across the screen. Collecting them makes you bigger and grants you temporary invulnerability for a few seconds. You’ll need these, because as you progress deeper into the game, the enemies start moving faster and faster. Eventually it gets to the point where they are moving so fast, you can’t avoid them and all you do is constantly get hit and ricochet across the screen until the pool drains and the game ends.
That makes this game unplayable, fast. Those first few rounds when the enemies are moving nice and slow are kinda fun. Then all of a sudden they are moving too fast to avoid and you're getting knocked all over the place and it’s game over. My high score was about the same every single time I played because I’d do great at those early stages, and then when it sped up I wouldn’t be able to do anything because of the unavoidable enemies and the long recovery time after you are hit.
I put a good ten to fifteen minutes into this game, and then I was done with it. I had already seen everything the game had to offer.
Graphics:
The game looks like shit. Normally I’m not so blunt like this, because I typically don’t care if a game looks good or not if it is fun to play. Well, this game isn’t fun to play and it doesn’t look good. At least the Kool-Aid Man is recognizable as a character. Kind of. That’s a plus, right? I’ll admit I got a good laugh when he came bursting through the wall at the beginning of the game.
Sound:
Aside from the occasional bonk or doink when you hit an enemy, this game is dead silent. I noticed this with all of the 1982 games I played as well. Apparently stage music hadn’t become a thing just quite yet. There is a little jingle that plays at the beginning of the game and when you collect an item, but it doesn’t sound great. I understand that video games weren’t very advanced in the early 80s, but it’s like they didn’t even try with this game. Just terrible.
Overall:
There’s little about this game that is redeeming. No wonder I had never heard of this title until just now – 39 years after its initial release. It sucks. The graphics suck, the sound sucks, and the game itself sucks too. Those first few stages of the game when you are getting your bearings and figuring out how things work aren’t too bad. But then two minutes pass and you realize: yup – that’s all there is to this game. And then you die.
I made about five or six attempts at getting the highest score until I had had enough with the game. It’s horribly shallow and not very fun at all. One of the worst games I have played and reviewed for this blog, if not THE worst. I wonder how it was received when it first came out?
Play this if you’re curious about it, like I was. You won’t like it, but at least your curiosity will be satisfied. That’s about the only good thing I can say about this game.
THE GRADE:
F
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1982 Reviews:
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