Review by Valter Prette
The game
Same Game & Robots is a collection of two different puzzle games: a mix of strategy and action. You get to decide your moves surrounded by a crescent game rhythm.
The first game is Same Game
This game is a variant of the Columns games based on the connection of similar items on the screen. This kind of game is very popular today in every hardware platform, but surely unknown during the early ’80. This is why Same Game is a very good addition to the Intellivision catalog. It is very interesting to imagine how this kind of game play would have been appreciated back then!
The objective of the game is to build columns of items of the same shape and color in order to make them disappear from the screen. The freed space becomes occupied by the other items falling down. The more pieces connected at one time, the greater the points you earns. The player must clean the maximum area of the screen before remaining without adjacent similar items.
The second game is Robots
This is an interpretation of “seek & destroy” game play, and your objective is to avoid the robots that pursue you. Your movement is limited to one block in any direction at a time. After you move, the robots move towards you. You need plan your moves to induce the robots to collide with each other; otherwise you will not survive a long time on the quadrant. When you are trapped you can use the hyperspace or a bomb that kill all robots one block away from you.
From a technical point of view
The quality of the games is average, and mostly, the graphics could be improved.
The colors are very important for the gameplay and perhaps they are not chosen optimally, due to the hardware constraints.
The animation is minimal and gives little help to the player to get involved in the action.
Robots in particular, may have been added as a bonus game in order to complete the offer because of the simple interface and the mechanics of the game.
We discovered some delay in the joy pad response, and maybe the commands are not executed perfectly each time. This is probably due to the use of emulators in place of the real hardware, since the cartridge is not yet released.
Praise to the quality of the audio: there are numerous spoken phrases that embellish the game and we advise you to use it with the Intellivoice.
For the audio, the developers have carried out one remarkable effort. |
