COLECO STANDS ALONE (NO KIDDING)

COLECO STANDS ALONE (NO KIDDING)

FEATURES

RICK JOHNSON

Take it from me—coming up with feature ideas about videogames is Desperation City. After all, each one of them is basically a variation of the three "classic" games, Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Logging Blimp. Once you get past that, it's mainly pretty colors and quaint names. Take a look at some recent featu-res: “Official Guide To Games With Space As the First Word In Name,"

"These Are The Carts For Left Handed, Tuesday-Stunned Players Of Southern European Extraction," "Everything You've Ever Wanted To Know About Videogames That Are Best Played In the Back Seat of a Lime Green Gremlin Traveling In Reverse To a Destination Just West of Low-Sodium Gomorrah'' and VIDIOT's infamous Dr. Omar Von Elmo and his grim expose on "Arcade Injuries." Ya! You bet!

The way the manufacturers are cranking out new product, you'd think they were pushing cheapo TV albums. You know, the kind where the guy hollers, "Call right this very second! Operators are standing by!" Can't you just picture a big room full of bored operators, standing "by"?

Then there are the very logical looking print ads that try to ram your shantyboat with technical blah like "Pete, you did a bang-up job, I'm putting you in charge of Pittsburgh, I know it's perfect, Peter, that's why I picked Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh's perfect, Peter. May I call you Pete?"

No matter which way you slice the bitter weenie, they've got something they want you to want. They need you to need, etc. But hey—it's one thing to sell you a cartridge that'll more or less present the game with decent graphics, sound and action. The ol' arcade experience pitch.

What's an arcade experience?

Depends on how creative (or dirty!) your mind is, I suppose. This here being a mom, dads and grannies rag, we'll pass on the leather arcades for now.

What the boys with the big pens want to convince us is that we can reasonably expect graphics, play action and ability to cut through a tin can and still slice a tomato vaguely reminiscent of the coin-op mammoths. I'm sure you needed that explanation about as much as you need a case of trick confetti. We're dealing with desperation, you'll remember. Like the old saying goes, when life hands you a lemon, start a record company, right?

The big, big biggie is this: considering the quality of most cartridges, how in the world could anyone think that standalone models are even worth the price of a new elastic Slinky?

Seriously—these ridiculous little preemie jukes rack up an apparent-usage score just slightly higher than the lie detector test James Arness gave the giant grasshopper in Beginning of the End.

They stand less than a foot tall (my actual foot), the screens are about the size of Gates Brown's brain and the controls were apparently designed with quadroplegic tree sloths in mind.

Worse yet, most of them play these rotten peep-a-diddle songs before and after every single match. It's getting to the point where I'd rather consumer test smoke alarms, scuba batons and can openers than sit through another teedledeedle rink-ditty.

These tiny tussles don't come cheap, either. Who does? You can expect to pay in the neighborhood of $59.95 for the better units. That's big bucks for the bing-bing, wacka wacka and a joystick resembling an ice-cold manhood ornament.

The cost factor brings up an "interesting" question. Are they meant for kids or adults? Or both? Or neither? Or dogs? They certainly look like they're made with little hands and intellects in mind. Fool the leetle dummies with a couple wrongo-perspective television commercials and they'll think it's the real thing, kids being notorious for their faulty banana-to-packing-crate ratio. What the heck, sit 'em down inside a bottle and tell 'em it's a can!

Adults aren't quite that gullible, except politically. Wait just a secondo, I thought, upon first viewing the Coleco blurb where the arcade Pac-Man machine is magically transformed into an itty-bitty one so the guy's wife can trick him into coming home and assembling her new decorative herb chart. Iz dis for real?

Au contraire, Pierre! Maybe Timex can make technology "beautiful," but no way is this glorified alarm clock gonna substitute for the Real Thing. Hellfire and shee-it, I'd rather play pick-up sticks during my AM bed bath.

Imagine my surprise when I found out I LOVE THESE GAMES! Just looking at 'em is no fair—you gotta play the muthuhs to properly appreciate 'em! So much for the free milk argument, Abby.

It just took us awhile here at the great multi-national financial conglomerate we humbly refer to as VIDIOT to actually sit down and try out some stand-alone jobbies. The problem was that we had to borrow them from a real-life little kid. Honest injun! And he almost didn't let us have the ones we wanted! He's a kid, after all. He's got priorities. As for us—we're just puttin' out a national magazine. Big deal!

When, after numerous requests and vicious threats like firing his pacifier mechanic, we finally got our mitts on 'em, guess what happened? Yup, the entire staff crammed into the trashy

corner where VIDIOT is slapped together to play these games to death. The broom tuner, the dog breeder whose mutt thinks the guy is a can of Kal-Can and even songbird Charlene, who we had in the closet hanging by her toes over a blowtorch, stopped all "work" and engaged in brutal combat to see who could splat dem spacers and hop them froggies.

You couldn't hardly ask for a better testimonial. If the they-say-childlike-wesay-infantile characters around here can deal with these rapturous rencontres, just think what you, the now-informed consumer can do?

After much debate and general hoo-haw (yes, hoo-haw), we decided to stick with Coleco's stand-alones this time because a) they're the best and b) the others aren't. We're scientists here, understand? We play these games in lab smocks with heavy duty nuke-washer gloves and an extendable stainless steel tweezer, if possible.

I LOVE THESE GAMES!

FROGGER

SCREEN — Love this screen! Real fine resolution and sharp color contrast. Some things have been changed for the new format but they're really neato in their own way. The trucks are red/ turquoise cartoon numbers that are even more fun than dismantled Indian jewelry. Froggie-baby can actually change facial expressions! It's gamut-of-emotions city, featuring wonderment, satisfaction, grouchiness and vile pleasure. The turtles are very likeable, even if they do look like depressed ladybugs. The logs? What d'ya expect?

SOUND—Same hoppity tweets as the arcade and cart versions. Difference is the horrendous snake alarm, which sounds like a combination of the worst characteristics of air raid sirens and jittery lizards climbing patio furniture. THEME SONG—Same dim tweedly as the other versions only it seems even longer! And you have to sit there and like it if you wanna play.

CONTROLS—Praise Froggie! This one's got a reset button so you can abort at any time! I want one of these on all Coleco games in the future, got that, guys? Oh yes, the tiny joystick adapts far better to Frogger than the other games. PLAYFIELD—The adaptation to baby form makes for less "thinking" time and more desperate swipes. Fine with me! There are fewer lanes of motor vehicles and pond hazards, another plus for spigot-fists such as myself. But wait! No lady frog to jump on! Is nothing sacred? ACTION—Here's where the dot-at-atime motion really helps. Once you get your timing down, you're set. My only problem was predicting when the turtles were about to dive, because they don't change colors or anything on this one. Forced-snorkels, I say.

DONKEY KONG SCREEN—This is another stand-alone model that punts the VCS's rump. Resolution that's so sharp it almost hurts your eyes is just one of the visual attractions here. Donk himself looks more like a moth in a Ku Klux Klan robe than an ape, but it's awright, really! Mario and Bernice are also very sharp. Flaming barrels are flaming barrels.

SOUND—Peep, peep, peep—what all can be said about these silly sound effects? Picture your own feets making baby bird noises every step as you walk down the street followed by every cat in town.

TITLE SONG—Simian Dragnet squawks. CONTROLS—The joystick is very sensitive for such a stubby critter, which is unsettling at first. Sometimes I had to push once to get two steps, which is a real problem around the edges. You can't actually see the stupid carpenter plummet to his death, making suicide runs strictly no fun. No complaints on the jump button.

PLAYFIELD—Kong adapts well to the rectangular screen, it being of the ladder variety. Plus, it's another Coleco transformation that beats Atari's bogus teeter-totter rope-trick all to hell.

ACTION—The drastically reduced screen area makes for less of a freewheeling game than the original. That's made up for, however, by the dot-dot-dot action that perfectly compliments the timing nature of the contest. Only the ladders are trouble—Mario can get nailed even if he's just standing next to one. Could make the runt superstitious.

What's an "arcade experience," anyway?

GALAXIAN

SCREEN—Pretty hot pix here. The little red and blue pseudo Spiderman figures are as clean and clear as the inside of VIDIOT's piggybank. The big G's themselves look like neon sandbags but who's counting?

SOUND—You should hear the screaming missiles on this one! They sound like a meatgrinder full of parakeets, inspiring the player to kill fast and move on. When you get blasted, the speaker spits out an electronic nyah-nyah-nyah followed by the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth, thus spelling V for Victory for the machine. Wotta wise guy!

THEME SONG—"It's Howdy Doody Time" for the intro and some snaky mideastern thing for the outro. Both reprehensible!

CONTROLS—Here we find the correct ratio of sensitivity to grabability. I must confess I had trouble controlling with my right paw while firing away with the left. Next time I'll try it without the straitjacket.

PLAYFIELD—A bottom shooter like this is easily converted into the tabletop rectangle. One nasty twist is the aliens' ability to move out of laser range along the edges. No fair, but did Lynn Anderson ever promise you a rose garden?

ACTION—You're familiar with the phrase fast 'n' furious, righf? Well this minute melee is so F&F, you'll soon suffer from the malady known to a certain football announcer as "ragtag of the mind." But really, when you consider that each and every one of us wimpy Americans watch a year and a half of TV commercials in our whoopee lifetimes, what's the big beef?

PAC-MAN

SCREEN—Hit the switch and you're first greeted with a rather unimpressive looking red maze. But when play begins, the yellow dots appear and it's hot lunch on the rockslFar superior graphics to the Atari VCS version. The baddies (Inky, Dinky, Sidney and Satchmo) are solidJackson here, so there's none of that annoying VCS flicker.

SOUND—As you roll along your dotslurping way, a fearsome wailing begins, like something unspeakably Islamic is about to occur. The only way to stop it is to snarf the power tabs, making for true escape-from-Alcatraz vibes. The usual "deteriorating sound" (as our office deterioration expert deemed it) occurs when your Pac-Man becomes the chompee.

THEME SONG—God, I hate these tunes! This one is a kind of bad ballpark organ diddle that leaves you expecting a crowd to shout "CHARGE!"

CONTROLS—Here's where we run into a little trouble. If you're familiar with the frustration of trying to maneuver Pac-Lips around corners in the home version, this one'll really finish you off. The Joystick? Stubville, pops. You could wear mittens on the wrong hand and not do any worse.

PLAYFIELD—Making the maze fit a rectangular format changes things considerably. It's much harder to escape entrapment, regardless of your crime. ACTION—Tell ya one thing—these ghosts are too smart! They communicate via mental telepathy and attempt to gang-chomp you at any moment. Worse, my favorite escape valve—the gate to the other side of the maze—doesn't work because the bleepers wait there for you. One big disadvantage of this new format is that the motion pokes along a dot at a time, making anticipation a piece of turnip quiche.