The A-Team

"If you have an Atari 2600 and you can find a place that sells games for it, maybe you can buy....the A-Team"

Videogames based off a license have an infamous reputation for having great characters put into bad games to make a quick buck off an unsuspecting populace all to eager to control their favorite alter egos. Every now and then you'll get the occasional Goldeneye, Marvel Superheroes, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which ironically enough has more quality titles than crap) where the license is put to good use and the developers don't slack off because of it. Then there are games like A-team, where it's pretty obvious no attempt is even made to accurately match the source of it's inspiration.

As the floating head of the coolest A-Team member, B.A. Barracus (or Mr. T), your supposed to ''Save Hannibal!'' by shooting bullets out of your head at electric plugs and green suited men over the course of three simple stages (just like in the tv show). The first one you just shoot away and dodge some enemy fire from the dancing green man, black suited men (FBI agents?) who runs across the screen and something that I can only identify as a giant H shaped electrical plug. The second level your up against the green suited dancing man (or the Riddler as Ed the Moogle likes to call him) , who dances away while a bullet or two is bouncing around the screen. Keep in mind this guy is shrugging off ALL of the lighting bolts (?!) you throw at him and continues to dance to beat the of the level's sound fx, your supposed to just dodge the bullets and wait for the time limit to go out. The third level only takes one shot to stop whatever the hell that...thing is and the game loops to the beginning.
The only explanation I come up for this messed up premise is that T must have had his milked drugged by Hannibal again and he's dreaming this whole thing. Seeing as how I don't have a manual for the game I can't confirm this though.

Stop Rocket! er...Save Hannibal!
Simply put A-Team was nothing more than Saboteur (another Atari 2600 game) with a few alterations. The words ''Stop Rocket. Save Birdies'' where changed to ''Save Hannibal'' (who doesn't even make so much as a cameo in the game), the rocket's name in the intro is changed from ''Saboteur'' to ''A-Team'', and the humanoid in Saboteur (who had a full body complete with arms and legs) is changed to a crazed Mr. T head that shoots bullets out of his eyes and does amazing things with his chains. The purpose of just having T's head is lost to me, outside of trying to highlight his legendary gold chains I see no reason why he shouldn't have a full body.

Visually the game is pretty much what you would expect from an Atari 2600 title, which is a bad thing to most people but I couldn't find fault in them since I knew what to expect. The sound is the same story and consists of the usual Atari fx which I actually found pretty cool in a nostalgic way. There is no music (only really loud sound effects) but if you keep shooting T's bullets in the first level the sounds it makes turns into a kick ass beat.

The gameplay simply fails to provide any kind of long lasting enjoyment seeing as how you ''Save Hannibal'' in roughly 2 minutes by shooting a laser beam out of your chain (!) at some...thing. It bounces around the screen and it's an orange color, it wasn't in Saboteur oddly enough, as well as the electric 'H' plugs, (I guess the developers decided to do something original) but I fail too see how it has any connection to A-Team whatsoever.

The A-Team can be fun to kill a minutes with but it's not something your going to want to play for hours on end and it's far too short even by Atari 2600 standards. Couple that with the awful use of the license (c'mon at least this should ripped something like Pitfall or Jungle Hunt) and you'll have a title best left in the cellar to keep the likes of Custer's Revenge and ET company. Oh well it could have been worse I guess, they could have turned this into a Pac-Man clone. Then again seeing Mr. T's head gobble down pellets in the shape of milk cartons and chasing down Murdoch heads does sound pretty cool.

Pointless Ranting:
Someone needs to make a playstation2 or Gamecube A-Team game! Then again knowing the curse of licensed games it would probably be a kart racer.

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