Tutankham

"Loot ancient tombs without risk of disease or even mild boredom!"

In my book, you can rarely go wrong with maze games, even if it's obvious where the dead ends are. Now when that maze game scrolls down for about five screens on an ancient device like the Atari 2600, that is a very good sign. When it combines clever strategy twists, twenty-five treasures, twelve monsters, a mysterious ancient culture, and more color than you'd expect in four very different mazes, it's a definite winner. Although the arcade game was imperfect, that the Atari could not support some of the less perfect features actually improved the game, and the result was a very strong game, perhaps the best ever for the Atari.

The premise is still the same; although you are scrolling down instead of to the right, you must first find a key and then find the lock, which is at the bottom, to get to the next level. Sometimes you'll need to walk through teleportal niches, although one of the game's few shortcomings is that there are no optional niches. On the way you can pick up extra treasures for bonus points, but you need to avoid three types of monsters specific to the level(they differ in color and speed) that are produced in specific port-like locations. There's also a time bar at the bottom of the screen, and although it isn't really a factor until the fourth level, which has nasty surprises like passageways you think you can squeeze through but can't, you lose the ability to fire bullets when it goes. As in the arcade you can only fire sideways, but unlike the arcade you have three smart bombs for the whole game plus one for each set of four waves you complete, and if you lose a man without losing a smart bomb, it isn't gone forever. This seems fairer, although not allowing you any extra men is a bit Draconian--granted, the game just repeats, but an extra smart bomb is scant reward for the puzzle-solving one needs to do. Also, that there is only one key makes this game a lot less of a shuttle-race than its arcade version and is an example of when simpler is better. However, one thing more complex than the video game is the scoring system for treasures; the point total doesn't just increase for each treasure you pick up but is based on how difficult it is to get it and survive.

The controls are still as loose as the arcade, with the memorable horizontal-fire-only rule still in effect; you also have to rely on running into walls to stop your man, although holding the button and firing allows you to move one way and shoot another. There's also the smart bomb, which is a bit tricky and tested my puzzle-solving abilities, as I did not read the manual; you fire and push up. This actually can challenge your reflexes in certain parts where a bomb isn't appropriate, but you need to fire a lot and move up quickly. And you must have a running start to do so, so being in a corridor can get tricky. But there's a real sense of sneaking around in the game; the monsters don't move as randomly as the arcade, so often you can(and have to) bait them or move quickly to the right place to destroy newly-produced monsters. If you are not careful a monster will sit below and to the side of you, forcing you to use a precious smart-bomb or die, but on the other hand, holing up in the right place can help you sneak by ''security.'' Although it is tough to move quickly over and down if you run into a wall, you can usually do your impression of a drunk to get through the lower levels. The higher levels, which often have more wide-open spaces(you may need to learn where monsters appear, too) and ''drops'' and fewer narrow horizontal corridors, are not so forgiving.

The graphics are really wonderful. Each level has a basic color and combines it with black or white to create four colors of horizontal stripes that cyclically form the walls. The playing field is another color entirely, and you stand out pretty clearly. The monsters, being green(slow, half your speed) brown(medium speed) and pink/purple(your speed) are well-animated for their low resolution, and if you can't immediately tell what they are it's fun to guess. The treasures aren't always clear, either; I suppose my smart-alecky side told me that a candelabrum according to the manual was a Menorah, a crystal was a coffin, a bust was a boxing glove, an herb was a balloon, and that a ring was a door-knocker, but the treasures certainly aren't dull. You probably look the oddest of all, although it is definitely too presumptuous to confuse your character with a head-on view of a police car. More mundanely, marks at the top left indicate your number of men, and the number of smart bombs is at the right; unfortunately that number cannot exceed three. As for the sound, when it is disabled(not that you will feel compelled to turn it off,) it provides an additional challenge, as it is the main indicator of when a monster will appear in the ports.

Certainly the game has faults that cannot be allotted solely to Atari-imposed limitations. Something like monsters waiting in line behind another one that is spontaneously combusted to run at you is slightly and amusingly tacky but cannot be the programmer's fault. On the other hand, when you start a level, although monsters don't appear, the time keeps ticking off, which belies how the game seems frozen. You'll wind up missing a turn-down and lose a life, or sometimes a specific monster will get stuck blocking a passage you need to get through(another limitation of the Atari, fortunately, cancels this out: go back up until the monster's off the screen and then down!) I suppose it's a bit of a downer that there's no increase in level difficulty once you solve the fourth, but on the other hand, I enjoyed honing my skills to complete my looting mission more cleanly, and I must admit I didn't pick up all the treasures the first time through the fourth level. It's surprising how much you can improve even with the maze being, on reflection, a bit linear. However, the most serious fault may be that there are only so many fixed points you are sent to when you die, and you can get kicked back too far in some cases, negating some tough earlier work that shouldn't have to be redone. In the big picture, though, the game is surprisingly fun and challenging. Having found my first trick on this game(reset and select together when your game is over) only adds to my good memories of this one.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/01, Updated 08/08/01