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Funkmaster V Reviews
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7800 Rank: Unranked
Genre: Action
Awards: None
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If You Think We Praise 7800 Homebrews Too Much Here, Welcome to the Wasp! Review |
Pros:
Fruity Graphics
Cons:
Its Pretty Much Ass |
This is The Same Screenshot Because it Just Doesn't Matter |
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Overview: Wasp! Is the first Atari 7800 release by disgraced hobby programmer Mark Ball (aka Groovybee). Is there such a thing as a disgraced video game programmer? LOL... why... yes... apparently there is.
Not only is this guy responsible for some total shit Prosystem games named Wasp! And Worm!, he stole money from people investing into what turned out to be vaporware Intellivision homebrews and he screwed around and helped tank the Atari 7800 XM module by wasting people's time and making false promises. What a guy. Eventually, he was shamed into the ether of internet obscurity, an accomplishment I hope to achieve one day. Maybe he's a decent guy deep down and just made some mistakes, but he stole money from people and that kind of makes you a butthole forever in my book. It is too bad, too... although Wasp! And Worm! are really crappy, he exhibited flashes of programming competence and there's evidence that he would have produced some pretty good games down the road. As it stands, Wasp! Is a simple dodge/ twitch game (like Frogger, Potieru, Sick Pickles) but lacks ramping difficulty... well....... any difficulty for that matter. It also lacks challenge, point, fun, and joy.
Graphics: The strong point of this game is absolutely the graphics. Wasp! must be some sort of hack of Robottron, because each stage opens with that trippy 3D tunnel/ Doctor Who wormhole gimmick. This always looks cool, but may be out of place for a game about some weird elf kid trying to score shrooms around flying insects. The wasps in this game kinda look like bees, but I'm no entomologist, so Im not sure. The protagonist in the game is a cutesy elf or electronic Hummel doll, and the playfield has near-Nintendo quality red mushrooms and purple and red sprigs of flowers. Sprigs is always fun to say.
Sound: The sound is almost non-existent, and more-over, is inappropriate. I don't mean inappropriate like it has some lady whispering what she would do to you in that alley over there for $20, I just mean the game's sound effects are lifted from some space game or something. But seriously, lets go talk to that woman instead of playing this crappy game. Who knows what she might say?
Gameplay: Simple games can be great. Simple games can also be boring. This one is boring... so much so, it borders on pointless. And when I say borders on pointless, I mean its actually standing a-hole deep in the sea of pointlessness. This kid/ elf/ man/ Hummel doll needs shrooms in a bad way, man. I mean he is Jonesin'. So you speed him around a simple screen, avoiding herky-jerky bugs that drain his health bar like a video game version of My Girl. These bugs tackle like the Rich Kotite coached New York Jets, so it is pretty easy to play loooooooooooooooooong, pointless sessions of this game. If Atari made this game back in the day, it would have added power ups, guns, extra bugs, traps, walls, slow down pills, electric funk and maybe even the spider ala Centipede. They would have at least changed the color scheme each level to help avoid "boredom zone outs". This game could have been made chaotic... and therefore fun. It could have felt simple yet tough, like Quantum.
Originality: This is a unique game in the regards that there aren't many games that suck like this.
Value: While Mark Ball's other completed 7800 game WORM! features a title screen ditty, a nice array of options, and a high score screen, WASP! features none of these. But you do get an exclamation point thrown in for free. So there's that.
Overall: Groovybee might have turned out to be a taint, but he made up for it by making some of the worst homebrews for the 7800 that exist. But all cruel jokes aside, he did show promise. Mark Ball was almost completed with two intriguing works-in-process, a breezy platformer called Henry's Hen House which featured 2 working screens and an excellent Boulderdash rip off entitled Apple Snaffle. I really wish he finished Apple Snaffle, but he disappeared before it was finished just like a grifter, or fart, always does. Worm! is better than Wasp! Both are bad... and these games only prove that you can add all of the superfluous exclamation points you want to boring animals' names and terrible video game titles, but it only makes the situation more pathetic and a tad sadder for the casual observer. Hard pass.
Wait for GOAT! Or SHRIMP! Or SLUG! I'm sure those will be GOOD!
But then again, they probably WON'T!
Other Reviews:
Video Game Critic: F
I would like to thank Atari Age for the use of their screenshot used in this review.
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