Atari 400 / 800 / XL / XE

Shamus should have been the Atari 800's mascot. It'd feel absolutely correct somehow. Shamus fits. I think he sort of wound up being Synapse's mascot, maybe. I assume that's who it's supposed to be; the goofy football-head shaped robot; strange and detached from humanity, yet lovable, yet powerful. I mean, the dude shoots laser knives out of his hands. You don't want to be on the bad side of him. When I say this might be the perfect Atari 8-bit game, I mean that it takes a standard Robotron 2084-style shoot-'em-up and then spreads the action out over 120 maze-like rooms, each packed chock full of mad robotic creatures and glitchy clock radios that bite. Also, the walls are electric, so be careful, but not *too* careful, or else the Shadow will getcha. Make your way to his lair, figure out the keys and the timing of the force field gaps, learn the maze, figure out there's a quicker way to get where you need to go. That's all the game needed, and they got the mix exactly right on this one. 9/10

Well, it's no Preppie!, but it'll do.

I'm gonna tell my kids this is a prequel to Splatoon. This is a ridiculously fun and satisfying game where - instead of "Basically Frogger, with better controls and a quirky attitude"," they've given us "Basically Crush Roller with personality." I need to give credit where credit is due: Russ Wentmore was a master at this kind of thing. There are plenty of Atari 8-bit games that are clearly supposed to be *like* another arcade game (oh hey, Jawbreaker, I didn't see you come in...) but Mr. Westmore kicked it up a notch. The first game, Preppie!, might actually be better than Frogger, even though it's - ya know - still built off of the same basic concept as Frogger. Preppie II is "paint three-screens of mazes while lawnmowers and - hilariously - evil frogs try to kill you." You know, *that* old canard. Look: once you've played this Preppie/Westmore version of "paint the floor and don't die," every game in that *very* specific micro-genre pales in comparison *until* (I would argue) Splatoon!, which came out three decades later on a vastly more advanced console. But I'm still gonna tell my kids this is the prequel to Splatoon! The preppie walked so the Squid Kids could ink. 8/10

My dad (Nigel) wrote this! 😅 Stephens Software being a nod to me (Stephen). So glad to know this little piece of software lives on! 👍

I have only now discovered this one and to my surprise, it's FUN!!! Not too easy, not too difficult (at least speaking from the first impressions), the controls are responsive and quite tight - and it seems more than OK as a game to try again and again.. Truly, a very pleasant find for me.

..also, the looping soundtrack is just an auditorial purgatory.

I was never a Spin Dizzy fan, but I could at least appreciate its controls and overall polish of that game. But this clone is just not good. The enemies are moving chaotically and way to swiftly, leaving the player with no chance to react meaningfully. The controls have this "anticipatory feeling", meaning, the player needs to perform the actions upfront a bit. And I have noticed, that on one particular screen, game's physics defies itself, rendering any movement from the starting position impossible. I have never managed to get more than 2 jewels, and frankly, the time spent to get those was a watsed one. This one's NOT a good game.

Very difficult to complete as a human, only a bot can beat it I think. Did a TAS run of the game using some modern tools, think it came out ok ;) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDr8BRdCi-Q

I have this on cassette. No system to test it on though.

Author here. I believe this to be the first 8-bit game with all (or nearly all) of the football players names inside for the league. All other games reused about 20 players names. It took 2 summer holidays to write this at the age of 17, released at the age of 18 to the Dean Garraghty PD collection at an All Micros Show in Stafford, England. I started coding a new version, all in 6502 in around 2020, but had to stop it due to time issues and other projects. Enjoy the game!