"Pretends to be inspired at first but ehh...well...pfft...bleah."

Scramble makes an interesting first impression before its variety turns into scenes restricting your movement and repetition of obstacles and eventually a sickly combination of the two. I don't know if any game makes fatigue a factor so quickly, and perhaps even the programmers felt similarly when they decided to give you ten points for each second you survive. The rules are simple--shoot as much as you can, but you can die(returning you to the start of a wave) by losing fuel or touching anything, enemy or building or land. Surviving long enough gets you to the next wave, of which there are six that cycle, and your progress is monitored rather tackily at the top of the screen. The waves are divided logically enough; in the first three, you pilot your ship over hills, which take up the lower portion of the screen, while bombing and shooting rockets that launch up at you(this is all pre-timed,) fuel tanks, and enemy bases. Shooting fuel tanks, in an amusing twist of logic, can restore your continually depleting fuel. Part two adds the challenge of weaponless flying saucers that take snaky paths from right to left in attempts to crash into you, and the third section has rather fast comets that are invincible and can really distract you. In the next stage, there are buildings that are higher up and restrict you to the top of the screen, and next, there are tunnels you must work through--lots of fuel here and no monsters, but the walls are quite annoying. On stage six, there is a base that is tucked away for which you will need to use tricky piloting, and the stage cycles until you die or hit the base, which looks annoyingly like the other bases you've taken out. Again, you can't be shot down, but you risk hitting walls when you swoop in for the kill. Upon destruction of the base, the game loops.

Your ship is allowed to move around the whole screen; it slowly scrolls to the right, but if you move back and up, then you will keep level with the ground. Moving all the way right and back up and left allows you to move vertically relative to the advancing terrain, which is almost invaluable, if too prominent, in level five. You also have the choice of laser shots(fired horizontally) or missiles(two on the screen at a time, they start right and bend sharply down) to take out enemies. Combining these two is sometimes necessary for huge shooting runs. For instance, shooting a missile and going down where the ground target allows you to fly low and destroy a lot of enemies. Missiles can also take out random bad guys when you don't seem to have a purpose, so until you get to a spot where they are necessary, it doesn't hurt to remember them. But what takes over the game is that the terrain you pass is the same, you need a little memorization to run by rockets where you're pegged in at the top, and the buildings you pass through require too much evasive action.

The graphics do seem impressive at first; every so often, the whole color scheme changes, which gives the brief thrill of cheap fireworks(remember, strobe lights and disco balls were still cool when this game was written,) and the crayoned-in effects don't seem bad. However, after a while it gets a bit annoying, and you realize it's limited at first. It's hard to bungle graphics like a fuel tower that says ''fuel,'' a rocket, or a base--or especially the buildings you face on level five. There's just nothing neat. Everything's a little too generic, as the saucers look like macaroons. Your ship isn't particularly menacing and probably the thrusting fuel under the rockets and your ship are the best details. But when you see the same things repeatedly throughout the game(there's no appreciable animation) even loud colors get bland. The sound makes a similar impression, with a nice tune to start the game off followed by...nothing other than a constant computerized warbling, which is too bad, because dramatic music might help in the tricky parts. Sure, the missiles make the sounds you know and love from cartoons, but explosions--yours or theirs--sound like people are unloading and dropping heavy metallic objects, and the echo each explosion gives isn't pleasant. There's also no sound to alert you that you've passed a stage. It requires you to look at the ugly banner at the top that says ''1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th/6th'' and has a row of squares below--filled in or not. Not even icons!

Back in the day, it was one of those games that I figured were too tough for me(I think I read so in a ''How to be great at Video Games'' book,) and I was right. With tricky yet unoriginal maneuvering and three major, relatively static opponents and without even the chance to put in your initials if you get on the high score list, Scramble comes off as quite uninteresting after the promise of the opening wave, where you do get a bit of a charge blasting everything on the ground and getting lucky missile hits. The drop in excitement is so palpable, the game feels like the sort of person who lies and brags to impress others. As it is, the title itself is pretty honest; the ideas are a bit scrambled, and perhaps it's a wise move to scramble away from machines containing this game, too. If you drag out the agony by playing several games in a row, you are asking for it. I'm glad I got hooked on Star Blazer for the Apple instead, a similar game that knocks Scramble cold and didn't dent my allowance.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 09/21/01, Updated 09/21/01