Krull

"Doggedly but not jubilantly faithful to the movie."

Krull, the Atari game, made considerably more sense than the arcade game, yet it wound up being even more infuriating. It's not that it wasn't planned out well; the game is logical and covers main scenes of the movie. The encounter with the Beast is just daunting, and unless you are very experienced you'll find yourself shuffling back and forth between scenes(a bit of sophistication on Atari's part goes overboard) in an effort to kill the beast and get to an even more impossible level.

Although there is no theme of disorganization, the game has several annoying factors that stand out. For instance, the manual recommends starting on beginner mode, but it's not the first one to select. More seriously, you can wind up losing multiple men very quickly in any of the three levels. Nothing is reset on the quick restart after you lose a man, so if you're vulnerable and get shot--watch out. It will happen again unless you take evasive action.

The opening scene reflects the movie beginning, where Colwyn is about to wed Lyssa, but Slayers interrupt the gig. Lyssa flees to the bottom of the screen, and the slayers come out of a castle at the top. Once they get to the bottom, she is taken away. These guys are vicious, and it's best to duck out of their way and not try to knife them. Not only will they eventually overwhelm you anyway, but they also produce bolts that they fire at you. Although you can touch the slayers without dying, if they happen to produce a bolt(which is also way fast) while you're near, it can be lethal, especially if you kill the slayer first as the bolt then launches. So there's some interesting stuff going on, but the best bet is to stay out of the way, especially since extra men aren't based on points. Once Lyssa's captured, the other slayers stand around and are easy pickings although you can still also get yourself killed. A bit rough around the edges.

The next scene reflects the dramatic spider's web part of the movie. You enter from the lower left, and a spider moves around randomly. You must avoid it and enter a door at the top center within a certain time frame, which tells you the direction you need to exit to see the castle. Things are made tougher by webs that slow you down significantly. They don't move on the easiest level but when they do they can push you to an edge quickly. You can jump over the webs, and it is important to learn the patterns of how they are produced.

Then you have a brief scene with hills rushing past where you are on horseback to the castle, which will only show up if you make it before sunrise(there's a cool bar at the top of the screen that depicts the time of day, and Atari did well to include this part of the movie in the game) of the day after you enter the web. If you don't make it, you'll be sent back having lost a life or, if you're on your last one, a glaive. Fortunately there are glaives and lives you can pick up on the way there and back(they show up, and you click when you ride over them,) which is good, as past beginner level you will be going back and forth a bit.

If you have played correctly, the beast's castle, after much blipping and multi-color flashing, rises up, and your horses enter it. Now there's a chance for even more back-and-forth action. The beast bounces from left to right with a frequent surprise turn even on beginner mode, and he always fires a wide purple swath down when he's above you and recharges pretty quickly too. You fire your spinning Glaive at a bunker above that hides Lyssa. Once you've hit it enough, she'll come out and give you a fireball to destroy the beast.

However, the Glaive is tricky to use. It is a sort of boomerang you can guide on its way up, but if you miss it as it comes back(i.e. ducking out of the way of the beast's shots) or the beast catches it, you lose one. Even though you can hold the fire button to get it ready and still move, the beast covers a lot of ground quickly, and you'll need to wait for him to move towards an edge before firing. You'll have to do this several times as the glaive takes out a block one-third its size, there are four levels, and the sides of the bunker are impervious. If you lose your complement of glaives, you will have to exit the castle and go back over the hills and re-visit the spider web. While it's nice to watch this, and you get a glaive/life each way between the castle and the web, it sure gets old quick. And by the way, you can miss the beast with your fireball, too. Success gets you a few thousand points, the wedding scene, and a tougher task the next time, but actually if you are going for points you're better off muddling around between scenes on the easy level.

Krull the movie hoped to stand out with special effects, and the Atari game has its own share of technical tries. Colwyn and Lyssa are gradual rainbows of colors, acceptable for someone who's wearing a wedding dress, but it's less clear why Colwyn should be red/white. The Beast winds up looking better than either of them. He turns his head and waves his hands and only has one weird stripe. The glaive, as it spins around, may look the coolest, but it comes a bit late, and Lyssa's bunker feels more like Space Invaders than Yar's Revenge and frequently you'll take out a different chunk of the barrier than you expected to. So the graphics are correct and impressive but not terribly enjoyable, except for the sun at the top and the changing colored sky there. And the castle rising is slightly tainted by the overdone noise. But even though the horse-riding noises are well done and the wedding march to start the game is cute, there are no two ways about the raspberry the game throws at you when you lose a man.

The Atari version, despite mirroring the movie more clearly, doesn't even have the Arcade version's amusing quirks, and it is less fun. It is, however, a more sensible product. But it is a daunting and maddening challenge that powerfully synergizes the separate pains of waiting around, continually moving back and forth in the big and small picture, and losing out to pure luck. Be impressed if you must, but don't be suckered into trying to win at the harder levels. Take up assembly language instead, or something.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/25/02, Updated 01/25/02