"The Sin of Sloth"

In the early 1980s, any programmer at Atari could get a project greenlighted. This was both a good and a bad thing. Some programmers came up with some innovative games in this era, like Surround and Outlaw. Gary Palmer, however, took advantage of Atari's liberal project approval and came out with a ''game'' so bad, its horror would not be overshadowed until the E.T. debacle.

There has always been a drive in the video game community to create ''edutainment'' titles, and to validate video games as an educational tool and not only mindless entertainment. Generally speaking, educational games, at best, pretty bad. At their worst, they're ''Basic Math''. ''Basic Math'' is so bad, it actually hurts to play it.

''Basic Math'', it must be said, lives up to its name. It's basic, and it's math. The code for this game could be written by a student of BASIC programming in about 30 minutes.

Essentially, you are presented with a very simple math problem (addition, subtraction, multiplication or division), and then you solve it. A correct answer is awarded with a victory fanfare, and incorrect answer is awarded with another fanfare. At the end, the number you answered correctly out of ten is displayed. That's it. That's the entire game.

You are afforded the options of ''table'' problems, where one number in the problem remains the same, or random problems where the both numbers change. These are your only options.

There's really no excuse for this. It's laziness, plain and simple. Fifteen minutes of extra labor spent on the code could have added some graphical representation of score, improved the sound, or set the math problems in some sort of gaming concept. This is essentially a math quiz that Atari honestly expected people to spend money on.

The only value ''Basic Math'' has is to collectors of Atari cartridges. If you are considering an emulation option, I can honestly say that the 2k of room it would take up on your hard drive is too much to devote to it.

Instead do this, take the D. Dodge Silver ''Basic Math'' challenge. Using your favorite programming language and a time limit of one hour, see if you can make a better game than ''Basic Math''. I'm pretty sure you can.

I've never given any game a ''1'' before, since I believe that every game has some redeeming quality that could at least net it a ''2''. ''Basic Math'' has no redeeming features whatsoever, and actually caused me to question the morality of the procedure that brought the game to commercial release. My final advice...stay far far away from ''Basic Math.''

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 12/07/03