Snoopy & The Red Baron

"Wasted Potential."

Where would society be without the Peanuts cartoons? The great work of the late Charles Schultz has kept the world entertained for over 40 years now. Originally a comic strip, the Peanuts series has spawned TV specials, books, and in this case, a video game. In Snoopy and the Red Baron, Atari attempts to capture some of the Peanuts magic. Sadly, somewhere in the game’s production, the word “attempts” was replaced with the word “fails”.

The story goes like this: the sinister Red Baron has thieved some rations from the Allied war effort. It is up to World War I flying ace, Snoopy, to get the supplies back and take out the Red Baron. To do so, the anthropomorphic dog must take to his doghouse and go one on one with the Baron in a never-ending series of dogfights (pun intended, I’m sure). Snoopy must also catch rations dropped by the Baron during the battle. A great concept for what should have been a great game.

After the novelty of playing as Snoopy wears off, it is easy to see why this game falls flat. First of all, the AI can be described, both literally and figuratively, as loopy. The Red Baron simply runs a few loops around Snoopy, retreats to the clouds, and drops a ration. Apparently, the programmer must be a huge supporter of the “wash, rinse, and repeat” mantra. Without plausible AI, Snoopy and the Red Baron just becomes a twitch-fest, especially on the higher difficulty levels. Even by Atari 2600 standards, Snoopy and the Red Baron is very shallow in the gameplay department.

The second glaring problem with Snoopy and the Red Baron is a lack of any reward system. With the Peanuts license, one would think that there would be some simple cut-scenes of Snoopy celebrating a victory or something of that nature. All the player gets for winning a round is a simple listing of how many planes Snoopy shot down and what rations were collected. Between the poor AI and lack of rewards, there is no reason to play this game for any length of time.

As Charlie Brown knows quite well from his baseball experiences, three strikes make an out. The third strike against Snoopy and the Red Baron is in the graphics and sound department. It must be said that there are some nice touches like the bullet-holes that appear in Snoopy’s doghouse after he’s been shot, the nifty Baron explosion animation, and the booming sound effects. However, those are overshadowed by a total lack of extra Peanuts references. With the wealth of material in Charles Schultz’s world, one would reason that the game should draw from that. Well, the programmer saw things another way, and made things as generic as possible. The background consists of only multi-colored hills and clouds. It would have been nice to see the neighborhood below, especially since that’s where Snoopy usually flies his covert missions in the cartoons. Totally inexcusable is the lack of the trademark “Linus and Lucy” theme. While it wouldn’t have sounded perfect on the 2600’s hardware, the programmer should have at least put a rendition of it in. Without touches like that, Snoopy and the Red Baron just doesn’t feel like a Peanuts-related game.

It didn’t have to be this way. It didn’t have to be this way at all. A game that pits World War I flying ace, Snoopy, against his arch-nemesis, the Red Baron, is a brilliant concept. Unfortunately, Snoopy and the Red Baron falls well short of expectations due to loopy AI and a complete lack of supplementary Peanuts references. The game isn’t a total waste, but it just could have been so much more enjoyable with a few tweaks. Atari really blew a great licensing opportunity with this one. Somewhere, off in the distance, a troubled young lad mutters, “Good Grief.”

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 10/12/02, Updated 10/12/02