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Funkmaster V Reviews
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7800 Rank: Unranked
Genre: Submarine Simulator
Incomplete Prototype
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We Must Locate Any 7800 Flight Simulators in These Waters, and Then Torpedo Them. |
Pros:
Graphics seem improved over Computer versions
Cons:
Cancelled in the early stages... probably a good thing, too. |
Sir... Nothing Appears On the Radar... Not Even the Holy Ghost. Should We Be Concerned? |
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Overview: In my humble opinion, flight simulators are simply god-awful. These abortions programmers ported to the 7800 were mostly all ambitious, but they were just too complicated to enjoy, especially by today's standards. With GATO (which is Spanish for cat), Atari took war simulators out of the sky and stuck them out of sight in the deep deep sea where they belonged. Mercifully, this game was not close to being completed, or GATO would have been another simulator that belonged in the 7800 cat box.
What We Gotz Here: I was pretty harsh there, but I played the completed DOS and an Atari ST versions of GATO before writing this review, after I played the 7800 prototype. Fellow seamen, we are not missing anything. However, the 7800 version looked to have the best graphics of the 3 that I fooled with. GATO 7800 appeared like it aimed to break up the gameplay over four different screens: Periscope mode, radar screen (looks really cool), overhead map (not cool at all), and a status diagram of the ship. You can cycle through these screens on the prototype. There is also a conventional looking Prosystem menu screen (devoid of artwork), complete with familiar 7800 difficulty selections (novice, standard, advanced, expert). Also, there is a ship's log screen that randomly cycles through numbers and a non functioning "Refuel & Repair" option on the main menu.
Verdict: This game appeared like it was going to be snazzy looking, but the computer versions of GATO are abysmal, so I don't have much hope for what this could have been. Think of it this way... the flight simulators on the 7800 are terribly boring... and we fly PLANES. Can you imagine how bad these tropes would have been in a barely crawling submarine? Submarine? Oh damn... that reminds me... I'm hungry.
GATO was thankfully stopped before it was completed, destined for the Atari litterbox. DUD
Additional Information: I would like to thank AtariAge and AtariProtos.com for the screenshots used in this review.
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