Circus Atari

"A fun breakout-esque game."

Circus Atari is an early Atari VCS/2600 game. When I first saw the cartridge of it, I didn't think it was going to be to good. The cartridge had a picture of these two trapeze artists popping balloons. These days, with more realistic graphics the game might have been sort of silly to play, but I realized this was back in 1978 when it was all about the gameplay, so I tried the game out. I'm very glad I did this is quite an addictive challenge.

Graphics: 8/10
For their time, these graphics are very nice. There are three streams of squares at the top of the screen that have a nice scrolling animation. The two clowns are made as best as they could and it gets the job done. The teeter-totter at the bottom is crude , but it works. The graphics are also very colorful, the balloons come in three different colors and the colors of the clowns change sometimes. It is almost hypnotic watching.

Sound: 9/10
The sound is appropriate with splat sounds when you miss the clown and a pong-like sound whenever you pop the balloons at the top

Gameplay: 10/10
The gameplay is simple but addictive. You use the paddle controller. You control a teeter-totter basically. Which is represented by a slanted line. You have one clown on one end of it, holding the other end up. Another clown will bounce off trampolines on the left or right sides of the screen and you must make sure they land on the raised end of the teeter-totter. This propels the clown on the other end upwards to the balloons on the top of the screen which look like squares. Which ever ones the clown touches, it pops and the square/balloon disappears. Once the whole line of squares disappear, a new line is made and you just keep trying to rack up a high score.

The clown then falls back down and you must repeat the process of getting the clown to land on the raised end of the teeter-totter. If you are good you can get the clown to pop many balloons in one leap.

Overall: 9/10
It is just a fun and addictive game, but it is rather hard. But with practice you can get good. If you get a chance to play or buy it, I suggest you do because it is very excellent for its time and still has great gameplay.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/05