The Top 30 Vertical Shooters for the Atari 2600 #10

Espial
Tigervision

Odd to see a Tigervision game this high up, and yet it has been ranked as high as #6 during the life of this project.  How can this be?

Innovation.

Espial is that little game you've never heard of that pushes the VCS to its limits and shows off what it is capable of.  The game features near-NES level music, dynamic playfield graphics that bring the enemy starbases to life, dual shooting at both air and ground targets, and even a high score screen!  This may not seem like much to the modern gamer, but these are Starpath-level advancements in a regular VCS cartridge.

Even the instruction manual undersells the ultimate coolness that is Espial.  The game pits your starfighter against a fleet of massive starbases.  Your job is to destroy the starbases by flying over their surfaces and bombing their hatches (a la exhaust ports via Star Wars).  The starbases will defend themselves by sending kamikaze drones to ram you and also by launching surface-to-air missiles at you.  You'll want to shoot out those missile launchers by using your targeting computer while avoiding and blasting the drones that march mindlessly on.  A cool concept for a game and fairly unique (although not entirely as we shall see with #8) for the Atari.  The ability to shoot both air and ground target with two kinds of weapons and only one joystick button is pretty advanced and takes vertical shooting to a new level.  Taking out the ground targets is a must for top scores and survival.

Your first play through of Espial might not impress.  The first three starbases are relatively easy.  The first and second bases are similar and the third features no ground targets, but drones that come from ahead and behind.  It will take careful maneuvering to survive.  Should you make it past all three, you might be lulled into thinking that this game is a bit too easy.  Then the difficulty reaches up and smacks you right in the face.  The fourth starbase is just like the first, but the drones have been set to crazy mode.  Their movements are erratic and sudden and they come at you much faster.  Taking out the ground targets becomes extremely difficult as does avoiding their missiles.  Before you realize it, you have a game on your hands, a challenging game that is a lot of fun.  Frustration isn't even much of a factor, even if you get demolished right out of the gate, because the game play is engaging and fun.

Espial looks amazing too.  The three starbases are distinct and extremely colorful.  Tigervision games have never been short on utilizing the full color palette.  The enemy drones are represented by a number of unique sprites and your ship looks far better than it really has to in a game like this.  The one complaint is that Espial is a flicker fest on part with something like Buck Rogers, but that fact is easily overlooked in favor of how great the overall game looks.

I lament the fact that I cannot find a copy of Espial to add to my collection.  The game is great looking and a great deal of fun to play.  I'm not very good at it and the second round of starbases proves to be my Waterloo at this time.  I would like to say that I would be better at it playing it on a console instead of an emu, but the game is sufficiently challenging to make that claim moot.  If you are not familiar with Espial, I strongly urge you give it a look.  And if you have an extra copy lying about, how about you cut yer ol' pal Stan a deal?

My Top Espial Score: 9090.

The Top 30 Vertical Shooters for the Atari 2600 #28 Threshold

Threshold
Tigervision


Another very standard shooter with not much else going for it, Threshold has a better pace and challenge than Spacechase, but it doesn't seem to strive to be much else.  Threshold is a typical space shooter that pits you against 11 waves of attacking enemy vessels.  The enemy ships fly vertically towards you and shoot at the same time.  If they pass you, they loop back for another run.  You are capable of moving vertically as well as horizontally to out-maneuver, but honestly, I find I get into more trouble when I try to get fancy.

The action is pretty fast paced right out of the gate and the difficulty ramps at a reasonable rate.  Unlike Spacechase, you won't get bored waiting for the real game to start.  However, there are some cheap deaths as enemies can spawn under you when a new wave begins, particularly if you are higher up vertically on the screen.  Enemy behavior varies by wave.  Some enemies jitter down the screen while also moving horizontally, other only move horizontally, but at great speed, others just flat out dive bomb you.  In this way Threshold will keep you on your toes.

Another nice touch is the Bonus meter at the bottom of the screen.  Defeat a wave quickly enough and you'll earn points based on the time remaining on the bar.  As if the action weren't fast enough already, now there is another reason to pick up the pace!

Graphically, Threshold looks pleasant enough.  Lots of vibrant colors, enemy sprites are distinct and interesting, there are things to see.  The player ship is rather boring, however, and there really isn't much else to see.  Sound effects are standard bleeps and bloops.

I think where Threshold fails me is that it, like so many Tigervision games, is a good game, but it doesn't try to be much else.  There are plenty of standard shooting games on this list and some of them are quite good (Demon Attack, Phoenix, Megamania), but they all bring more to the table than just good fundamentals.  I guess you could say that Threshold is the WBNA of vertical shooters.  So here it sits at #28, a good game that is fun, but not so great that you'll rush to play it over better options.

My Top Threshold Score: 19040

Jawbreaker!

For the first time in well over a year I added a new game to my Atari 2600 collection.  I've been collecting for the 2600 for over 10 years in a transparent attempt to regain or relive (you choose) my childhood.  In that time I have amassed a silly amount of Atari 2600 games.  At this point my collection has reached a threshold:  all of the games I need are either on the rare side (some extremely so) or they are ridiculously common and I usually balk at paying more than a couple of dollars for them.  So these days when a new game comes along, it is cause for celebration, and hopefully lots and lots of playing the new game.

The newest addition to my 2600 collection is the Tigervision game Jawbreaker!  Jawbreaker is only moderately rare (a rarity 5 on the Atariage ranking), but has eluded me for some time.  My good friend Deatrick recently went to a classic gaming show in Columbus, OH and there purchased it for me.  I paid $25, a bit higher than I would usually go for a rarity 5 game, but since this one has been outstanding for so long, I went for it.



The game cartridge itself is in pretty good condition with some glue soaking through the label due to age (in nerd circles we refer to that as "Actiplaque" as it is most common with Activision games), and some minor peeling on the end label.  But all in all it is in good shape.  Tigervision had the cool gimmick of putting some of their games in colored carts, so they look extra cool in the collection.  Jawbreaker has a red cartridge, which will look really cool above my King Kong Tigervision cart which is blue!

But I don't buy games just to look good on a shelf (it is a nice perk though).  I buy games to play them.  Tigervision has a wildly inconsistent library of games that are for the most part playable, but often marred by blocky (even for the VCS) graphics that lack the refinement of games by companies like Parker Bros. or Activision.  Likewise the game play is often reduced down and simpler than it has the potential to be.

Jawbreaker tows that line very well.  The game is a Pac-man clone with elements of Turmoil or maybe Taz thrown in for good measure.  You are a pair of jaws set loose in a candy store.  Your job is to eat through eight screens of candy bars while avoiding the Smiling Face enemies that roam the maze looking to chomp on you.  Three times per maze, an energizer will appear in the center of the screen.  Eating this energizer will allow you to turn the tables on the Smiling Faces and chomp them instead.  Extra lives are awarded every other round.


The difference between Jawbreaker and a game like Pac-man is the build of the maze.  Unlike the static maze featured in Pac-man, the maze in Jawbreaker is constantly shifting.  Each wall of the maze features a single passage through to the next row.  This passage is constantly moving horizontally across the screen.  In addition to the passage in the maze wall, you can also go around the ends of the maze wall to enter the next row.  This provides some serious challenge since your escape route is never assured, at least not while in the middle of a row.

The Smiling Face enemies only appear one at a time in a row and there are only four of them in total.  This means that there will always be at least half of the rows on the screen unoccupied. However, the Smiling Faces can change direction at any given time and can reappear in any unoccupied row at any time.  They cannot use the passages nor go around the end of maze walls. Like in Pac-Man, eating the energizer gives you a brief window where you can eat the Smiling Faces and/or clear candy bars in peace.

Toothbrush or torture device?

As you progress, the Smiling Faces move faster and faster and seem to make better decisions on how to attack and corral you.  The AI doesn't seem to change when you eat an energizer, so occasionally the Smiling Faces will run right into you when you are the aggressor.  When you clear a level you get an interesting intermission where a double-sided tooth brush comes and cleans up your act.  Very strange.

You get three lives in all with the potential to earn up to 3 more (you may only have 3 maximum at any time, so go ahead and waste one at the end of every other round if you like).  The game's instruction manual seems to indicate that there are only 8 levels, but it does not say what happens at the end of level 8.  I have been playing for a couple of hours and have made it to level 4, but the difficult gets serious as the Smiling Faces get faster.

But is it fun?  Yeah, kind of.  I mean, I'd rather play Ms. Pac-man on the 2600, but Jawbreaker does not give a let down experience.  It is still fun to play, it's just not incredibly fun to play.  I would not recommend this game to you in deference to better, similar games on the system.  Graphically, it's alright.  It doesn't need much in the way of flash and it definitely does not overachieve in that capacity either.  I'll probably play it more than once, and I'll probably play it for high scores until I manage to get to the end of screen 8, but it's not going to make any best games lists.  I will say that it was worth $25 to fill a gap in my collection with a game that is moderately playable, but that may also be time talking since there has been such a drought in finding new games for my collection.

My advice to you?  There are far better games of this genre out there for the Atari 2600.  Go play one of them.  From a collecting standpoint, Jawbreaker is a rarity 5, but to be honest the value is more in the $15 dollar range than the $25 I paid.  If you can get it for $8, you've got a good deal there.

All of that said, it is nice to have a new game in my collection after far too long.  Now to find Espial, a game I have been after for about 6 years....

(For more information on Atari 2600 games and collecting check out www.atariage.com and www.atarimania.com)