"Best Konami game on the Atari."

I've had the displeasure of playing most Konami games on the Atari 2600, and boy do they suck. I don't know how it suddenly started making cool games in the NES and up era, but thank God they're now not the same crappy developer as they were back in the early 80's. Although it's not saying much, Strategy X is their best effort, and despite having uuugly graphics and no strategy whatsoever, it's still fun and challenging to play.

You control this tank and move in a forced vertical scrolling screen while fighting other tanks and destroying bridges to go through. You can slow down or speed up the screen's uh, "scrolling" and have the ability of firing one big ugly shot at a time. Besides bridges that block your path (and destroy you unless destroyed first) you have to defend against other static tanks that shoot an array of different things at you (one fire type per tank type).

Dodging these shots is easy unless of course you happen to stumble in a swamp? or some unclear blob thingie that slows you down while inside. It's much better to destroy every tank you see because they will keep firing and dodging many bullets while trying your best to evade the blobs while become a very hard task overall.

Furthermore, there are these fuel deposits that fill up your fuel tank that depletes in time. They have been placed in positions that you would reach exactly when your fuel "tank" depletes completely at the normal scrolling speed so you can't afford to miss one. The thing is, enemy (and your) fire would destroy a fuel deposit if hit so you have to be extra careful while moving around with enemies on the screen.

This along with many other things such as no diagonal movement or shooting, too many blobs and tanks and some "cheating" types of enemy fire create frustration and anger. But with patience and experience you can find a pretty good game here. If you look hard enough. Under the uuuggggggly graphics and horrible sounds that is. I'm sure you can find it. 400th word!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/29/06