OVERVIEW
The Mad Bomber is on the loose. He is armed to an infinite amount of explosives that can wipe out a whole city. You cannot let this evil madman get away with this. You got to catch whatever bomb he drops and save the city from imminent doom. Can you stop the Mad Bomber?
STORY - 6
You have up to three buckets of water to catch each bomb the Mad Bomber throws down. If just one bomb hits the floor, the whole place goes boom and we don't want that do we?
GRAPHICS - 8
The graphics aren't all that blocky like most early games are and that's a good thing. You can tell the buckets are buckets, bombs are bombs, and the Mad Bomber is the Mad Bomber thus there are no solid rectangle for graphics save for the background. For added effect, you can clearly see the fuses on the bombs lit up and when they explode, they look like actual explosions.
SOUND - 6
Who needs music? the sound of lit bombs, captured bombs, and exploding bombs are all you will need to enjoy this game without any distractions from background music so you are free to concentrate on catching those bombs.
ADDICTIVENESS - 7
The game is not as simple as it looks but when you start getting higher scores, you will always have the urge that you can do better. The game even rewards you for getting a high enough score. Get 10000 points and the Mad Bomber will have a nervous surprised expression on his face. Something like this
. Way to stick it to him if you've gotten that far. The game never ends until you get up to 999,999 points and you, my friend, are the ultimate player of the game.
DEPTH - 6
There are truly 8 levels of play which I'll refer to as speeds. You start off with Speed one and only have to catch 10 bombs. Speed two ,you have to catch 20, Speed three you have to catch 30 and so forth all the way to speed 8 and the game will continue in speed 8 mode throughout. If you die, you go down a speed mode.
GAMEPLAY TIPS
As a bonus, I'll include some gameplay tips:
-The difference between the two game modes is the size of the buckets. Game A will give you your normal size buckets. Game B will have the buckets shrunk to half size.
-There is also the option of playing a 1 or 2 player game. In this case, you and another player will alternate between turns to take on the Mad Bomber in a bit to have the higher score than the other player in a 2-player game.
-You can have a total of 3 buckets on the screen. These are similar to having lives. To get an extra life, you must score 1000 points when you have 1 or 2 lives left. Same goes for every score that's divisible by 1000.
-If you should lose a life, there is a positive and a negative side. The plus side is that the Mad Bomber will slow down a speed on the next go-around. The minus side is that it can be much tougher to catch the bombs when you are less one bucket on the bottom.
-You can use a life loss in your favor. If you manage to get your score close to a multiple of 1000 points, let a bomb drop and explode. This may cost you a life but on your next turn, you will regain that life due to reaching the 1000 point plateau.
-The goal here is to get as close to 999,999 points as possible. It seems like a long shot but to the lucky person who gets that much, the game will have what you might say is an "ending" as the buckets will freeze and whatever bombs were falling will stay there. This the same as getting the "kill screens" that occur in the arcade games that otherwise go on forever.
-If you manage to score at least 10,000 points, the Mad Bomber's expression on his face will change to a surprised look since he really did not expect you to score that many points. He will stay with that expression on his face until the end of the game.
OVERALL - 7
I rate this game a 7 because it's highly addictive and it is a good test of hand-eye coordination and reflexes. Activision has made some of the best game during the Atari era that were even better than most Atari-made games. Kaboom is one the best.
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| ID: 695285 | 29 Words
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