Food Fight

"A good port of the original arcade game that's still fun to play."

* throws a custard pie into your face *

That got your attention and also demonstrates what the game is about quite well. Food Fight is based on the arcade game of the same name, and overall is a very accurate port, the game also works very well with the Atari 7800's controller.

The concept of the game is simple, you begin the game as Charley Chuck on the right of the screen and your task is to consume an ice-cream cone on the left of the screen before it melts away, you have exactly 32 seconds to do this. Not as simple as all that though as the chefs Angelo, Zobra, Oscar and Charley are there to stop you, the chefs popping up from various manholes dotted throughout the level. Here is where the food fight element comes in, the levels contain various items of food such as melons, custard/chocolate pies and bananas scattered around. Food can be picked up by walking Charlie Chuck over it and with a click of a side button food can be hurled in the direction Charlie Chuck is facing. Should the food hit one of the chefs it will send them hurtling off the screen, covered in the whatever it was you hit them with, so they will turn red if you hit them with a piece of melon, yellow if hit by a banana and so on. The chef will soon re-emerge from a random manhole cover so it will only give you a brief amount of breathing space to get over to the cone. Should you come into contact with a chef all the food in the level will fly into you and you lose a life, staying clear of the manholes the chefs emerge from is advised, it's easy to forget they're there and be caught out by them.

So that pretty much covers what the game is about, levels progress onward with different food and manhole cover placements and you play for high scores. Some of the levels later levels begin to look similar to the earlier levels you already completed as is such with games of this kind of age. The somewhat simplistic 2D graphics won't exactly blow away a modern gamer but they depict what everything is supposed to be nicely and they are true to the arcade original, you really have to take games like this in the context of the time they were made. Little to no sound is present but a humable little tune plays whenever you lose a life, the tune playing with a little more gusto a couple of times when it's game over. Some nice touches being the ability to select the level you want start at (up to level 7) number of lives from 3 to 8, difficulty level adjustment and there is also a two player mode, adding an element of competitiveness as to who can get to the cone first.

Overall this is a good port of a fun to play arcade game from the early 80s, and is well worth a try if games from this era are your thing. Food Fight is up to the standard of the likes of other arcade games of this period including Centipede and Missile Command. Though what Food Fight does perhaps lack is the adrenaline inducing speed of those aforementioned gamed. Food Fight is one of those earlier games you can play for a quick 4-5 minute fix, something few later games allow you to do. So overall 7/10 is a good score for this game. I would recommend Food Fight if you own an Atari 7800, but at the same time it's by no means a must have nor an all time classic, just a nice simple little arcade game that's still fun to play.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/13/06