Q*bert

"Our favorite bouncing foul-mouthed 80's phallic symbol!"

Ok I'll admit it! I had a big stuffed Q*Bert and constantly played Q*Bert on the Atari 2600!! Long before Pokemon, there was Q*Bert, the bouncing Orange mutant with a foul mouth...err snout. Yes, he had his own cereal and his own cartoon! His game wasn't too bad either, if not a little strange. It was a combination of puzzle and action, where in you had to hop on squares in a pyramid to change them to a uniform color. Along the way you would be pursued by assorted purple villians, whom you could lure off the edge of the pyramid. When you hopped on the colorful swirling disks along the sides of the pyramid, you got a free ride to the top!
Strangely enough this was one of the first games to be pursued by censor happy fruitcakes. They claimed Q*Bert was an ''adult'' game because of his phallic nose and the fact he ''swore'' when the bad guys got him. Of course his swearing consisted of a bunch of symbols *(^%%#@ and a noise like a fart in the shower. They also claimed the enemies to be ''bad role models.'' And they were right! Not only a week after discovering Q*Bert I was jumping on any damn square I could find; sometimes I would do this with sunglasses on to be cooler. Anyhow, let's look at the cast of characters:
Q*BERT - The Large nosed hero, he used his connections in the video game industry to get his cousin Octorok a job in the first Legend of Zelda game. Q*Bert did not have arms, a rather disturbing observation. He was essentially a head with feet. And despite it's menacing appearance, his nose did not shoot anything. Not a single laser or even a booger. I figure it must have served like a reverse tail for balancing purposes. Q*Bert picked up his foul language while in the merchant marines. Studies show Q*Bert did also not have a butt
Coily - The fierce purple villian who re-invented himself in the 90's as Ekans for pokemon. Coily had even more disadvantages than Q*Bert; he had no arms AND no legs. He also had very poor depth perception. Everytime Q*bert hopped on a floating disk, Coily would say, ''WAIT FOR ME'', which Q*Bert never did. The end result was Coily falling comedically to his demise, which why I call him Wile E. Coily.
Sam and Slick - These two playful jerks could be absorbed by Q*BERT for points. While, they do not cause any trouble in the normal games, once you have to change color squares back and forth they begin to wreck havoc by switching the blocks you already changed! They were green and could be told apart by the fact the cooler of the two, Slick, wore sunglasses. Either that or he was blind. When Slick evolved arms, he eventually took over River City High School. Sam always had a worried expression on his face, like he forgot to flush right as the pretty girl goes into the bathroom.
The Other Purple Bad Guys I forget their names, but one was like MUG or something like that. Ugg? Anyhow, these guys were the most evolved in the game, with arms, legs, mouths, etc. They were also purple, which meant they were evil. Barney is also purple--see the connection?
Sinister and not-so sinister bouncing balls -These were balls that randomly cascaded down the pyramid. The green one was good, while the red one was bad ( kind of like orange and white gumballs.) The main cause of Q*Bert's foul-mouthed outbursts, there was also a rare purple ball which was actually a Coily egg. I know they don't really count as ''characters'' but they were in the game!
The NES version was a shoddy take off of the arcade. It also came out about ten years too late to make any waves in the market. The concept itself is good but the play control is really shaky. There are no special enhancements and the graphics are disappointingly plain. But if you are a Q*Bert fan like me, you'll enjoy it for a little while. ( I think I like the Atari 2600 version better!)

Graphics=6.0 Surprisingly dull for a later-era NES game. All the basics are there: Q*Bert, Coily, the disks. The game just doesn't look sharp or refined. The pyramids are as tricky as ever, with harder stages using mutilple colors on the squares and increased enemies. And yes, Q*Bert still swears in his own special way.

Sounds=5.0 Not too much to hear other than BOING! SPROING! HOP! FLOAT-FLOAT-FLOAT to the TOP!~Much like the arcade, this version leaves little for the ear. Perhaps this is because Q*Bert did not have ears; perhaps he had a small inner ear like dolphins. In any case, there are a few title songs but nothing that will make you bust out the stereo hook up with surround sound.

Playcontrol=4.0 Shaky at best. Ultra (who put out Q*Bert) tried to give you the option of deciding which way Q*Bert would not respond; diagnally or left and right. With a joystick, it gets a little easier. You may experience Coily-style depth perception problems trying to hop onto the disks because of the shoddy controls. Don't feel bad if you prop Q*BERT off the pyramid; he can't have many bones in his body to break!

Challenge=7.0 Taken at face value, this is a very fun puzzle game. If you can get a handle on the controls, it is a rather amusing experience. Q*Bert was a good arcade game, not as classic as Pac-Man or Donkey Kong but on a Dig-Dug, Joust sort of plateau. The harder levels require a lot of thinking just to figure out the patterns to switch all the colors to the correct shade.

Overall=5.1 It could have been much better, but alas Q*Bert falls in the rank of the average. Sub-par graphics, bad playcontrol, and a lack of good tunes weaken an otherwise great concept title. But hey, at least the little guy curses!

*BRU'S MUST GET OMETER*
If you were born in the 70's=7.3
If you were born in the 80's=4.0
If you were born in the 90's=That's weird!

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 03/26/00, Updated 03/26/00