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iN008
08-05-13 08:57 PM
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noahd101
08-05-13 08:59 PM
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Game's Ratings
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08-05-13 08:57 PM
iN008 is Offline
| ID: 862071 | 2017 Words

iN008
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Frostbite : Atari 2600
A review by iN008

One of a kind?
Frostbite for the Atari 2600 received no sequels nor remakes so there really isn't anything to compare it to. Compared to many of the other Atari games it seems weird that it never received a port. However it was made available in 2010 by Microsoft, however it was the same game and it was a service rather than a physical copy. So there must have been a reason for it to not have seen the light again? Well I didn't see anything that bad about the game, let me go into a bit more detail here. Made in 1983, Frostbite was designed by Steve Cartwright who would go onto make games such as the PGA series. So what does this have to do with the game you ask? Well this game did do some things right, it did some things that hadn't been done yet on the Atari 2600.


Graphics and Design : 5/10
Graphical wise, the Atari 2600 was nothing special, with limited palettes and limitations on designs how did the game do? Well quite well actually, each thing that could be seen was easily identifiable, from the igloo to the polar bear. However what annoyed me the most was more of the main characters design. It just seemed weird, firstly it looked nothing like that of the box-art, secondly it wasn't that well designed, from what I can tell he has deformed feet and a brown hat on and that is literally all I can tell. The lack of details, or the deformation really looks quite bad and I under-stand it's the Atari 2600, but Pitfall! For example did a much better job when creating a character's sprite, heck even look at Keystone Kapers, the sprite is around the same size and is very basic, but it still looks a lot better than this. There is one upside to the character, and that is the fact if you wait until the temperature reaches zero he will freeze up and turn into a gradient of blue, darker at the bottom and lighter at the top, this is quite amusing the first time you see it. So what else is there about the graphics? Well one thing I like is that the enemies are easy enough to recognize, including crabs, birds and oysters. Starting with the Polar-Bear that will occasionally appear randomly, it's smaller than the main character, and consider the fact that the average human isn't that big compared to a polar-bear, why is this polar-bear so small? It just seems dwarfed, the birds are quite literally the opposite along with the crabs, fish and oysters, these are ridiculously big, around the same size as the main character, it really is just weird and the game just feels disproportionate. The game just doesn't feel right, it's all Topsy-turvy and looks quite bad.

Of-course there are some other aspects within the game, the water is a dark blue with a high contrast to that of the ice that floats above it, however, the blocks in which you float are rather plain, only the right and left side are "ruffed" up whilst the rest of the land is just boring and flat, they could have made it so the bank were the igloo is constructed was slightly shaped or something, but no they left it so that it was plain and rather boring. The Igloo also seems somewhat weird, instead of a semi-circle it looks like the long side of a oval, generally I wouldn't have had a problem with this but it just looks strange to me. The background was rather nice however, it featured a "sunset" of sorts and looked quite good, just ignore the fact it took half the palette up.

As per the information, being score and temperature. These seemed like they could have been moved to the bottom, this would have been more pleasing to the eye if it were displayed against the black bar at the bottom, however Atari games rarely do so and it's a shame they didn't try it. Overall I wouldn't say the graphics are overly bad, but they are a bit strange. Hence I feel it is justifiable to give it a lower score than I would usually give to that of an Atari 2600 game.

Sound : 1/10
As per usual, there is no background music, however I doubt that would be much of a bother since it would have probably been bad if the Atari 2600 games did so. There are however sound effects, most of these are, as usual, very annoying, every hop you do a sound effect, this sound effect is rather obnoxious and gets on my nerves, it's not the only one to do so, oh no sir! Other obnoxious sounds plague this game as if it were medieval London. For example, if you get caught by the polar-bear a really stuttering sound-effect is used and last until you get off the screen, so if you end up by the igloo and get caught your going to get quite the ear-full of it. It's not to bad since it doesn't really drone as much, however after the igloo is been used, the extra time is converted into points, yup you guess it, droning sound... besides that, the drowning and entering the igloo sounds are rather annoying and honestly I find it quite startling that these choices were made, the only half decent sound used in the game is when you catch a fish, but even that gets annoying after a while. Being honest though, I preferred to play this without sound since it was something that got on my nerves.


Addictiveness and Replay-ability : 7/10
This is probably the only redeeming factor of this game, it is quite honestly fun. I've found that it has enough challenge for it to interest me enough to go and beat it. If you're looking for a Q-Bert like jumping puzzle thing, then this makes a good substitute. It actually makes quite the time killer, being a good balance of fun and challenge gives it quite the advantage over other Atari 2600 games. Heck I played this for well over 40 minutes before I reviewed it as I found it enjoyable and casual enough to relax whilst playing. I feel as if the game had better game-play than most other games for the system as it did incorporate difficulty into the game-play. Due to the long play-time I experienced I can at least say it as some addictiveness to it. It's odd though, I rarely experience this will games like this. This is a really good time killer and I recommend it as one of the best I've found as of yet. Definitely worth a play there.


Depth : 7/10 and Story : 1/10
Same rule applies as all my other Atari 2600 reviews, due to the lack of story, the story category is grouped with the depth category. Starting with depth, the game itself has no specific length and can be played for an X amount of time, this makes it quite the good choice for time killing as a "level" or "round" takes around 2 minutes maximum. Plus with the ability to changed the difficulty 1 through 4 you can get straight in to the harder part of the game with the likes of the polar-bear. You see this game is all about choices, be it jumping, timing or how long you stay on a ice-block, the ways you can be the "rounds" can be varied, for example you could do jumps to the bottom then return to the bank and then do it again or you could try and stay on the blocks and only go back onto the bank once you've completed the igloo, the later is my preference on this. The way you play also affects your experience of the game, I myself enjoyed the game very much as I liked the freedom that the choice provided me. This is one of the other redeeming factors of this game, as it really shows you that game-play is more important to graphics and even sound. After all, this game did turn out to be a great time-burner.

Surprisingly the story is quite detailed, of-course not in the game, but as on the box. Going something like this, your name is Frostbite Baily, you are beyond the North-West territory of "?", you build igloos for surviving.... well not that detailed, but it does describe some things. So basically your some guy who just needs to make igloos to survive, not that exciting but still, it's something after-all. To be honest from the length of the story you'd think they would have given you more information (look at the back of the box for reference.) it just really only describes his character slightly, he seems to have a mental disorder, I mean who exactly runs around and jumps on ice-flows? I mean his character as described to us just doesn't make sense and he just sounds outlandish and weird, he builds a whole new igloo every day? What's wrong with the one he just built.... I mean if he was traveling it would make slightly more sense but there is no notation of what he is actually doing in the region. So yeah I feel as if it should receive a low score story wise as the whole thing just seems weird to me.


Difficulty : 8/10
Being honest, I will say that the game is significantly challenging enough, once you've done a few rounds you'll notice that it does get harder. Ice-flows can diverge and more enemies can get in your way, it's quite nice and fresh for a change since usually the Atari 2600 games are blatantly easy or have ways to avoid difficulty completely. The basic game-play is quite fun in the game and is still challenging, you may occasionally have to time jumps when it comes to certain rounds, not to mention you may have to think fast. Your objective is simple, land once on each row and slowly build a igloo up. There are things that hinder you along the way, such as the less common diverging ice-blocks these come together and go apart and can add a bit more difficulty into the mix, these can be quite difficulty when there are many enemies, as these can knock you off, and don't think your safe on land... Polar bears also can be a pain as they appear on the bank and can sometimes stop your from returning, I've found myself being hit off blocks thanks to an oncoming bird since I couldn't get a chance to get to land and into the igloo. This altogether sets quite a good difficulty level and can be really satisfying to beat a harder round.


Overall : 6.7/10
Yeah the game suffers story, sound and graphically yet makes up for it on every other department, you see the Atari really can be blamed for that side so I've decided to ignore those categories and judge it fully on the rest of them alone, I'll still count graphical wise however. Not only is this game enjoyable but it's addictive and is just the perfect time killer. It's a shame it never received a port or remake, however we have one man to thank, Steve Cartwright, he gave us an amazing game, as I said he adding things that I had never seen on the Atari 2600, such as diverging and moving platforms and honestly, I'm glad he did. Not only will this be a game I go back to, but I ask you guys to give it a shot, ignore it's shabby interior and enjoy it for the game-play. Whether you play it at me asking, or just try it out to kill time, I ask you to play it, I feel it deserves more plays and honestly it is a fantastic game for the Atari 2600.



References :
GameFAQs : Box description.
Frostbite : Atari 2600
A review by iN008

One of a kind?
Frostbite for the Atari 2600 received no sequels nor remakes so there really isn't anything to compare it to. Compared to many of the other Atari games it seems weird that it never received a port. However it was made available in 2010 by Microsoft, however it was the same game and it was a service rather than a physical copy. So there must have been a reason for it to not have seen the light again? Well I didn't see anything that bad about the game, let me go into a bit more detail here. Made in 1983, Frostbite was designed by Steve Cartwright who would go onto make games such as the PGA series. So what does this have to do with the game you ask? Well this game did do some things right, it did some things that hadn't been done yet on the Atari 2600.


Graphics and Design : 5/10
Graphical wise, the Atari 2600 was nothing special, with limited palettes and limitations on designs how did the game do? Well quite well actually, each thing that could be seen was easily identifiable, from the igloo to the polar bear. However what annoyed me the most was more of the main characters design. It just seemed weird, firstly it looked nothing like that of the box-art, secondly it wasn't that well designed, from what I can tell he has deformed feet and a brown hat on and that is literally all I can tell. The lack of details, or the deformation really looks quite bad and I under-stand it's the Atari 2600, but Pitfall! For example did a much better job when creating a character's sprite, heck even look at Keystone Kapers, the sprite is around the same size and is very basic, but it still looks a lot better than this. There is one upside to the character, and that is the fact if you wait until the temperature reaches zero he will freeze up and turn into a gradient of blue, darker at the bottom and lighter at the top, this is quite amusing the first time you see it. So what else is there about the graphics? Well one thing I like is that the enemies are easy enough to recognize, including crabs, birds and oysters. Starting with the Polar-Bear that will occasionally appear randomly, it's smaller than the main character, and consider the fact that the average human isn't that big compared to a polar-bear, why is this polar-bear so small? It just seems dwarfed, the birds are quite literally the opposite along with the crabs, fish and oysters, these are ridiculously big, around the same size as the main character, it really is just weird and the game just feels disproportionate. The game just doesn't feel right, it's all Topsy-turvy and looks quite bad.

Of-course there are some other aspects within the game, the water is a dark blue with a high contrast to that of the ice that floats above it, however, the blocks in which you float are rather plain, only the right and left side are "ruffed" up whilst the rest of the land is just boring and flat, they could have made it so the bank were the igloo is constructed was slightly shaped or something, but no they left it so that it was plain and rather boring. The Igloo also seems somewhat weird, instead of a semi-circle it looks like the long side of a oval, generally I wouldn't have had a problem with this but it just looks strange to me. The background was rather nice however, it featured a "sunset" of sorts and looked quite good, just ignore the fact it took half the palette up.

As per the information, being score and temperature. These seemed like they could have been moved to the bottom, this would have been more pleasing to the eye if it were displayed against the black bar at the bottom, however Atari games rarely do so and it's a shame they didn't try it. Overall I wouldn't say the graphics are overly bad, but they are a bit strange. Hence I feel it is justifiable to give it a lower score than I would usually give to that of an Atari 2600 game.

Sound : 1/10
As per usual, there is no background music, however I doubt that would be much of a bother since it would have probably been bad if the Atari 2600 games did so. There are however sound effects, most of these are, as usual, very annoying, every hop you do a sound effect, this sound effect is rather obnoxious and gets on my nerves, it's not the only one to do so, oh no sir! Other obnoxious sounds plague this game as if it were medieval London. For example, if you get caught by the polar-bear a really stuttering sound-effect is used and last until you get off the screen, so if you end up by the igloo and get caught your going to get quite the ear-full of it. It's not to bad since it doesn't really drone as much, however after the igloo is been used, the extra time is converted into points, yup you guess it, droning sound... besides that, the drowning and entering the igloo sounds are rather annoying and honestly I find it quite startling that these choices were made, the only half decent sound used in the game is when you catch a fish, but even that gets annoying after a while. Being honest though, I preferred to play this without sound since it was something that got on my nerves.


Addictiveness and Replay-ability : 7/10
This is probably the only redeeming factor of this game, it is quite honestly fun. I've found that it has enough challenge for it to interest me enough to go and beat it. If you're looking for a Q-Bert like jumping puzzle thing, then this makes a good substitute. It actually makes quite the time killer, being a good balance of fun and challenge gives it quite the advantage over other Atari 2600 games. Heck I played this for well over 40 minutes before I reviewed it as I found it enjoyable and casual enough to relax whilst playing. I feel as if the game had better game-play than most other games for the system as it did incorporate difficulty into the game-play. Due to the long play-time I experienced I can at least say it as some addictiveness to it. It's odd though, I rarely experience this will games like this. This is a really good time killer and I recommend it as one of the best I've found as of yet. Definitely worth a play there.


Depth : 7/10 and Story : 1/10
Same rule applies as all my other Atari 2600 reviews, due to the lack of story, the story category is grouped with the depth category. Starting with depth, the game itself has no specific length and can be played for an X amount of time, this makes it quite the good choice for time killing as a "level" or "round" takes around 2 minutes maximum. Plus with the ability to changed the difficulty 1 through 4 you can get straight in to the harder part of the game with the likes of the polar-bear. You see this game is all about choices, be it jumping, timing or how long you stay on a ice-block, the ways you can be the "rounds" can be varied, for example you could do jumps to the bottom then return to the bank and then do it again or you could try and stay on the blocks and only go back onto the bank once you've completed the igloo, the later is my preference on this. The way you play also affects your experience of the game, I myself enjoyed the game very much as I liked the freedom that the choice provided me. This is one of the other redeeming factors of this game, as it really shows you that game-play is more important to graphics and even sound. After all, this game did turn out to be a great time-burner.

Surprisingly the story is quite detailed, of-course not in the game, but as on the box. Going something like this, your name is Frostbite Baily, you are beyond the North-West territory of "?", you build igloos for surviving.... well not that detailed, but it does describe some things. So basically your some guy who just needs to make igloos to survive, not that exciting but still, it's something after-all. To be honest from the length of the story you'd think they would have given you more information (look at the back of the box for reference.) it just really only describes his character slightly, he seems to have a mental disorder, I mean who exactly runs around and jumps on ice-flows? I mean his character as described to us just doesn't make sense and he just sounds outlandish and weird, he builds a whole new igloo every day? What's wrong with the one he just built.... I mean if he was traveling it would make slightly more sense but there is no notation of what he is actually doing in the region. So yeah I feel as if it should receive a low score story wise as the whole thing just seems weird to me.


Difficulty : 8/10
Being honest, I will say that the game is significantly challenging enough, once you've done a few rounds you'll notice that it does get harder. Ice-flows can diverge and more enemies can get in your way, it's quite nice and fresh for a change since usually the Atari 2600 games are blatantly easy or have ways to avoid difficulty completely. The basic game-play is quite fun in the game and is still challenging, you may occasionally have to time jumps when it comes to certain rounds, not to mention you may have to think fast. Your objective is simple, land once on each row and slowly build a igloo up. There are things that hinder you along the way, such as the less common diverging ice-blocks these come together and go apart and can add a bit more difficulty into the mix, these can be quite difficulty when there are many enemies, as these can knock you off, and don't think your safe on land... Polar bears also can be a pain as they appear on the bank and can sometimes stop your from returning, I've found myself being hit off blocks thanks to an oncoming bird since I couldn't get a chance to get to land and into the igloo. This altogether sets quite a good difficulty level and can be really satisfying to beat a harder round.


Overall : 6.7/10
Yeah the game suffers story, sound and graphically yet makes up for it on every other department, you see the Atari really can be blamed for that side so I've decided to ignore those categories and judge it fully on the rest of them alone, I'll still count graphical wise however. Not only is this game enjoyable but it's addictive and is just the perfect time killer. It's a shame it never received a port or remake, however we have one man to thank, Steve Cartwright, he gave us an amazing game, as I said he adding things that I had never seen on the Atari 2600, such as diverging and moving platforms and honestly, I'm glad he did. Not only will this be a game I go back to, but I ask you guys to give it a shot, ignore it's shabby interior and enjoy it for the game-play. Whether you play it at me asking, or just try it out to kill time, I ask you to play it, I feel it deserves more plays and honestly it is a fantastic game for the Atari 2600.



References :
GameFAQs : Box description.
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(edited by iN008 on 08-05-13 08:58 PM)     Post Rating: 1   Liked By: Elpizo,

08-05-13 08:59 PM
noahd101 is Offline
| ID: 862073 | 28 Words

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iN008 : GREAT REVEIW! i remember when i was small, my gramma had a plug n' play with a lot of activision games on it. i LOVED this game! 
iN008 : GREAT REVEIW! i remember when i was small, my gramma had a plug n' play with a lot of activision games on it. i LOVED this game! 
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