Atari Emulator - Pack Man

Because of the Atari days of the internet, somehow everyone ended up with a copy of the terrible Froggie and with Eric Wolz's version of Pac-Man.  But what about a version called "Pack Man" which is apparently from 1991?  You know, just before Windows 95 put the final nail into everyone else's coffin? 
Yes, you're right!  It was a great segué, thank you very much.  Whelp, it reminds me a little too much of the gameplay of another video game toothache known as Pushy Pig.  HOWEVER... and this is a big however, there is one aspect of this game that I do like.  Wouldn't really work with regular Pac-Man, but what the hell.  As the Pac-Man-like avatar in "Pack Man" you get three lives, with 100 energy points.  There's two "ghosts".  They don't kill you outright, but they do slowly sap away your energy points.  But what WILL kill you outright is if the two "ghosts" touch each other!  It brings an extra dimension of thought to the game play... even though it still kinda sucks.  But I'll try to plow past level 4 one of these days, I promise.

More Atari Basic nostalgia

God bless you, Atarimania!  They got almost everything that Mushca doesn't.  Of course, Mushca DOES have Compute!'s Castle Quest.  Love that one... I guess.  Oh, and Mushca also has Uncle Henry's Nuclear Waste Dump.  Typed both of those in!  Not as exciting as Candy Crush, sure, but sort of a similar gaming principle. 
But what does Atarimania have?  Well, I looked up Q.T. by Brian McWilliams.  A rare type-in game that has its own opening theme music.  It has 3 levels.  The first one's like Pengo, but without most of that game's bells and whistles.  The second one's like... the last level of Kangaroo?  Well, it's the meanest level anyway.  Your tiny bird avatar has to catch all the falling things... except for the girders.  You skip those.  Otherwise, you get all killed up.  Also, there's sort of a time element.  If you miss something that you can catch, the Jaws of Death get closer and closer.  And the third one befits a bird avatar quite well.  You have to try and pop the balloons that carry things up at you.  And then, you start over and go to the next level.  Each level has a different object: a key is the first, a lunch box the second... like the opposite of Pac-Man, you get the idea.
Atarimania also has Arena Racer... not a fan.  I typed it in and all that, but... oh, and I couldn't get J. D. Casten's Rebound to work either.  Or Rebound Contest, unfortunately.  But thank God they have a version for Mac.  And then I finally got Floyd of the Jungle to work!  But I think I have a version of it not available at Atarimania.  Here's the trick: you have to attach the Basic cartridge, of course, then go to Atari->Settings.  You have to uncheck all four of the things: the SIO patch, regular disk access, etc.  Maybe it's just the principle of the thing.  Just love that dorky old game.  I forgot how to stun the pygmies, but I finally figured it out again!  You have to... you have to wait for the next installment to find out!  Nyaah nyaah.

James Hague's games at Atarimania

Atari Emulator -> (The) Crypts of Plumbous

You're flying around the Italian countryside in your spaceship... it'll be normal by the next century, don't worry.  Brought to you by either Tesla or Elon Musk, one of those two.  It's either a routine patrol or a mere joyride.  WHEN SUDDENLY... a rogue spaceship comes at you!  Fortunately, it's coming at you just low enough to enable you to blast it out of the sky.  Firing, the worst-sounding missile exeunts your ship, so to speak, and boom!  Out of the sky it goes.  This goes on for a while, WHEN SUDDENLY... a SECOND ship appears!  Can you feel the Atari's resources getting strained or what?  This one's slower, though... at least, for now.  Because these aliens didn't fly across the light years for nothing.  They're after your secret wine cellar, buried in seven distinct locations, in groups of two.  Oh, they've done their research.  If you die fighting off these baddies, you'll have several paragraphs with footnotes about you forever in the anals of history... annals of history.  However, if the pastel purple baddie makes off with ALL SEVEN of your proverbial casks of Amontillado, you shall be forever known in the Book of Cosmi as a ROTTEN PILOT.  I $#!t you not, my friends.
...have I blogged about this before?  Maybe, but that was eight years ago.  This is 2019 now, and I was just able to pull off my little trick again.  I erased the spaceship, so constantly dying is not a problem now.  I actually tried the really, really tough level.  You get 30 spaceships on that one!  The only problem is you move too fast, and your bullets move too fast.  And why is that a problem?  Well, on the Atari, in the laws of Player/Missiles, a missile usually actually has to touch the bad guy to destroy it.  And if it touches too quick, well... it can't keep track of that either.  Anyway, watch this space for everything you ever wanted to know about James Jengo's "Crypts of Plumbous," but were too sophisticated to ask.
Oh, and there's a fuel gauge, but so far there seems to be no way to re-fuel your craft.  Something tells me that the programmer cynically figured that the game would become too difficult too quickly to have to worry about refueling at all!  Very cynical.  But for those of you able to pull it off, the level known as REALLY TOUGH actually gives you a bit of a reprieve if you get past 50 points!  It then becomes not so tough, for the pastel purple ship slows down again to a more human speed.

Level: VERY EASY
Rank: Pseudorookie
Points: 0-5, 7, 9

Rank: Novice
Points: 6, 8, 10-13...

Level: REALLY TOUGH
Rank: Ace Pilot
Points: 84

Rank: Fighter Pilot
Points: 107

Crypts of Plumbous' official home at Atarimania

Atari Emulator -> Labyrinthe

Well?  I'm at the end!!  Now what? 

Muscha Disk 57 - ...not actually on there, so you gotta download it separate

Labyrinthe's Home at Atarimania

Atari Emulator -> Synapse Software's "Slime"

Mushca Disk 175 - I gotta say... hello?  Anybody out there?  Okay, got that out of the way.  Thought I was sleepy, but I just got my second wind... after getting the contraband out of the car!  Tee hee hee... wait, did I say that or just think it?
And second, I just recalled another long-buried memory, just under "Fred Garvin: Male Prostitute" and just over all my terrible faux-pases in middle school.  In the Atari era, you would sometimes need a disk called a "Translator" disk.  I would, because I primarily had a 1200XL.  (#1200XLrules400drools)  And I forget which games needed the translator disk, but some of them did, mostly because of poor planning on the machine engineers' part.  God bless PCs and Macs!  Fortunately, going through the Mushca disks just might remind me.  Alas, not in the case of Synapse Software's classic called "Slime."  That needs 800 OS-B for those of you using the world-renowned Atari emulator.  And it's not kidding!  It'll crash, but you can always go to ... whatever.  File -> Machine -> and select "800 OS-B."  When you do, it'll reboot and you're on your way to Missile Command-style gameplay!  It's like Missile Command meets Plinko / Pachinko.  Spoiler Alert: so what do you do?  Do you a) rebuild the big pyramid shape that doesn't quite meet?  Or do you b) just ad hoc try to protect your ship from getting, as the game's name implies, slimed?  Somehow I don't feel the need to try and flip the score on this one.

Synapse Software's official home at Atarimania

Atari Emulator -> Crumble's Crisis

Mushca Disk 264, if memory serves.  i ACTUALL.... oops, did it again.  I actually tried hunting this down based on finding Caverns of Khafka here on this Digitpress list.  And from the first few minutes of gameplay, I think I see what the crisis is: everything kills you.  Everything.  The walls, the floating player/missile bad guys... apparently, the knife and fork DON'T kill you.  But as an Atari fan, the most distressing thing of all that kills you is the Atari symbol itself.  What?  How?  Why?  Why, Atari products have made me the person I am today!  And now they're killing me?  No.  This is a bridge too far, my friends.  Obviously this was a game ported from the Commodore 64.  It's the only explanation.  I gotta go.  It's a little past my bedtime as it is.  I'm late for my 11:00pm wakeup to take a leak!

Atari Emulator -> Typo!

Have you ever thought to yourself, I like Pac-Man, but I also need to practice my touch typing?  Well, are you ever in luck!  The very game for you is something called "Typo" from TJ's Industries and Romox.  (Mushca Disk 74)  ...I've just realized that I've been very lazy about providing hyperlinks, so I do apologize for that.  I also need to update my very popular post about Len Dorfman's "Erg."  It apparently no longer has a home at Atarimania, and the link to it is faulty.  I mean, you try to search from the page you get, and you end up breaking the internet!  Well, at least Atarimania's small corner of it.
...where was I?  Oh, right.  Back to "Typo."  Whelp, once again it stretches the limits of what an Atari can do, believe it or not.  You do have the option of either typing random gibberish (Parental warning: "MILF" did come up amongst the Qs and Xs) or a series of random phrases.  You know, real Comp. Lit. type stuff like "Computers can be friends" and "Touch Typing can be Fun and Educational."  All that 16K allows, mind you.  I do hate to be a backseat programmer, but I might have programmed it so that you have to type different letters to move your avatar around the maze.  Again, asymptotically stretching the processing capabilities of the Atari. 
And now that all games are either mouse-based, arrow-key based or Nintendo-type-controller-based, a typing game at the very least seems a tad bit redundant, but it does speak to what has to be sacrificed in order to merge a Pac-Man-style game with a typing-style game.  Instead of four ghosts, "Typo" has only one, which looks like a Cheeto from hell.  Frankly, your avatar ain't that pretty either, but whatever.  And instead of going fast, the ghost has to go slow.  In order to maneuver around a maze and eat the dots, you have to type several hundred characters to do so.  But when you use Phrase Mode, they do include spaces and some punctuation!  Which is definitely way more than I can say for Atari diskette file names... boy, those were the days.  I'm definitely turning into an old man, reminiscing about how we used to go bowling and roller skating.  Dana Carvey is too, but he's not using the voice he used when he did his Grumpy Old Man character on Weekend Update.
But back to the Pac-Mannish qualities of the game.  For all you old multitaskers out there, you may be disappointed to find out that, yes, it is indeed true that you cede control of the avatar to the Atari's limited A.I. capabilities.  Apparently, one cannot play Pac-Man and practice typing at the same time.  The computer picks what dots you eat next, and you will often find yourself deadheading to an all-but-forgotten corner of the maze.  But, Video Game Lunatic, you ask!  What if the computer fixes it so that you run directly into the enemy Cheeto?  And how often does this happen?  Whelp, this much I can tell you... A) you have to start over, and B) often enough that you may find yourself having to slow down so that the Cheeto is never too far behind.  But who knows?  Maybe that's a good thing.  Good workplace training, anyway.

So here's what a typical "Typo" maze looks like... actually, I guess it's the only one.  But I do give the programmers more props!  Apparently they did the Atari font in... I forget the name of the mode, but it's the mode where you can have font characters in four colors instead of just one.  My own Atari games were usually Graphics 1, and not very good in general.. oops!  Did I just let that slip?


Typo's home at Atarimania

Romox's home at Atarimania.  I think their corporate motto was actually "Brought to you by Romox, you big Lummox!"

TJS Industries' home at Atarimania

Educational Typing games at Atarimania

Atari Emulator -> Caverns of Khafka

Now, here's my type of game.  Alas, it wasn't an integral part of my childhood, so I missed out.  But it's got everything: big points, fluid action like Pharaoh's Curse, lame random sound effects... what else?  Oh, I did detect a bit of a bug.  A very Atari-style one, too: see, when you complete a level, you are treated to that old rainbow effect, and you have to hear the whole Khafka song.  It takes about ten minutes for the whole ceremony... feels like it, anyway.  As the levels progress, things get tougher, naturally.  These pesky player-missiles fly horizontally across the screen, and while you're sitting there, waiting, if you get hit by one, the Atari will remember it!  And you will therefore lose a life.  But whatever.  Everybody takes a beating sometime.  Right, Henry Hill?
I was going to make a map of the game, but something called Digitpress beat me to it!  Here's their map of Caverns of Khafka.  See, Boulder Dash has too many levels, and 5 variations to boot, so someone else will have to do it, hint hint.  Here's my highest score so far.  Level ... I'm sorry, STAGE 4 is a little too mean so far.  Clearly, I need to learn how many Gets it takes to get the next anti-Red "power pill."

(7:06 pm) - Okay, I've finally kicked this game's ass enough.

Atari Emulator -> Morky

Mushca Disk 49... I gotta say, Morky's a little dorky!  But I guess I am, too; really can't delude myself about that any longer.  And now that I'm on vacation... actual vacation, not one that involves a couple days at the hospital... I finally decided to see it all the way through.  That's the big question: what does it take to reel them in?  About three levels or so?  This game's got it all, I'm telling you.  And according to atarimania, it's based on a German type-in game ... see, a long time ago, there were these things called magazines.  Ask your great-grandparents.  They're like thin books, but with slicker paper to compensate for the lack of a hard cover.  Also, if you're not careful, you'll slice your fingers open with them!  Yeah, I miss those days NOT.  Go ahead!  Try it!  Drag one of these Cosmopolitan magazines along your finger, and not just because it's one of the sex tips they recommend.  Anyway, there used to be all these computer magazines before "Game Informer" came to dominate the scene.  And furthermore, video games used to be simple enough that you could actually list some computer code in a magazine!  A few pages worth of code, give or take.  You could actually type in the instructions for one of these stupid games, then actually play the game!  There were actually  programming environments that Microsoft didn't control!  And charge an arm and a leg for!  I'm guessing Morky is a combination of Basic and a few machine language routines.  USR 1536 and all that... ah, that takes me back.  And some of these type-in games are nothing to sneeze at!  The best is probably J.D. Casten's Rebound from Antic magazine.  It's got everything: a rainbow of vertical colors, six fonts it has to switch between, an avatar that needs two player-missiles, decent sound effects.  But Morky's got something!  Arguably, it's a little unfair... okay, a little to a lot unfair.  I confess I had to use the Atari emulator's state-saving feature about a few hundred times.  Take the ladder, for instance.  There's a couple rooms where you restart and have to climb down a ladder onto a platform... where you immediately get hit by one of the bad guys.  Five times in a row, thereby ending the game.  There's that, plus the globs of cotton candy that fall from the ceiling.  Some of them seem to know better than others where exactly I am, and usually on a ladder.  Also, there's the usual keys/doors motif, but here's a neat twist: if you push against a door without a key, you get killed!  As I sarcastically mentioned at the beginning, talk about door-key!  But here's the map in the attached picture.  The rooms all fit together nicely, unlike Willi... Cathryn Mataga's Shamus 1.  There's a little bit of overlap in the Red level, but those were the days, when you could do that with a maze in a computer game.  And even though this is a type-in game, I will say that the final room is devilishly fiendish.  I can't remember a finale that required such timing, even in games of complete machine language.  Takes me back to my old jump rope days in grade school, where they make you jump into two at once.  You know, timing.  Also, I'm a completely terrible juggler.  Use that information against me well someday.

Morky's home at Atarimania.com

Atari Emulator -> New York City (NYC): The Big Apple

Mushca disk 53... man, New York City's the meanest place on Earth.

Bounty Bob Strikes Back, Level 6 - The Grain Elevator

Oh, I LOVE this one!  A little like that one level on Donkey Kong with the big, killer bouncy things, a little like Level 9 in the original Bounty Bob game.  But what's the deal with those piles with the stink lines over them?  Only 50 points?  That doesn't seem right to me. But for those of you keeping score, this level features the most mutants you can subdue with just one prize: five in a row, then the two at the bottom. Seven in total! Maybe eight if you can get to that one in time on the right.

Flash Game -> Rikomin

Save yourself some heartache and don't bother looking up this game, but once upon a time there was a book about Flash game programming that would lead one to a whole website devoted to a game called "Rikomin."  Your basic flow control game - you have to place triangular blocks on a board and get these funky ghost-type creatures to the exit.  Much like "Ghost!" for Atari, only better music.  Also, don't bother looking up "Flash" either.  Adobe doesn't like it anymore.  On the other hand, what's the Candy Crush family of games running on?

Bounty Bob Strikes Back, Level 5 - "Jumping 101"

...oh, this level's mean.  I mean, this is at the very least a midterm exam in Jumping 102.  I mean, c'mon! ...oh, apparently someone's already done the heavy lifting for me here.  Never mind, vermin!

Bounty Bob Strikes Back, Level 4 - "Bob's Playroom"

Man!  Rough playroom!  I tell ya, when I was a kid, I got no respect!  My sandbox had quicksand in it!  They did cheat a little here with teleporters 1 and 2, but number 3?  Not on the same vertical grid!  Love it.  Well, you gotta take risks sometimes, as all the best-selling authors will tell you.  This one also features a very, very fast horizontal "elevator"... call it what you will.  It's one of those chunks of ice in the sky, and not on the cold lake, that you can stand on and float around with.  Had a few of those in "Quake," if memory serves.  Again, gotta have some "stragedy" in the timing of this one.  Let's see if I can get to 5 by bedtime.  That's right... no saved states for this one!  It's not like that crazy, crazy-hard Robot Factory.  Did I do all the levels for that one?  My mind tells me no; I did Jumpman and Jumpman Jr., that I do recall.

Bounty Bob Strikes Back, Level 3 - "The Suction Tubes"

...hello?  Anyone out there?  Oh, right.  I keep forgetting myself.  I'm not reviewing a game with the words "raven" or "fall" in its title.  A new game, that is.  It's like computer science degrees now.  Because of me, the job descriptions now say "We want someone with a computer science degree... a new computer science degree, within the past five years.  Forget it, Video Game Fanatic!  The State has a long memory and a short fuse.  You're doomed to wander the earth forever.   Hurry up and pass on to make room for the next generation of unfortunates."  Anyway, the suction tubes.  I like this one becuase... because it requires more strategic planning... I think a little more strategic planning than level 1, in terms of timing when you grab the various gifts.  Didn't level 5 of 2049er have a candelabra too?

Bounty Bob Strikes Back, Level 2 - Utility Hoist

...already forgot what I wanted to check.  But while Bounty Bob made some improvements over 2049er, sadly, being able to jump forwards while looking backwards?  Didn't make the cut!  Sad new day, go away!  I guess we all gotta grow up sometimes.  But, I do dig the ode to the font of Crystal Castles!  The arcade version, that is, not the various bastardizations for the home computer user.  Anyway, level 2 reminds me of level 7 in '2049,' with the obvious difference that it's a ground-based elevation device instead of one that hangs from the virtual ceiling.  This level also feels like level 2 of Electronic Arts' classic Hard Hat Mack, which does less to make it feel like a job than Bounty Bob does.  Where's the sense of adventure?  Well, do your chores first!  Put all the rivets in place, then actually rivet them in with the wandering rivet gun.  And watch out for the chaotic but regularly timed hot bolts that come flying down, like the bouncy things in level 3 of Donkey Kong, I might add!  I dare say!  This level's especially mean, because unlike Hard Hat Mack's Level 2, there's more of a danger of stranding yourself and not being able to make it back to said "Utility Hoist."  Also, what's the deal with the steaming piles down below?  They don't do anything to you, but...

Bounty Bob Strikes Back, Level 1 - Bob's Morning Calisthenics!

Interesting!  Bounty Bob is venturing into Ollie's Follies turf.  Even the sound effects here smack of the large looming shadow of Frank Cohen.  Particularly, when you dispense with one of those pesky mutant pixies that instantly turn you into radioactive goo.  For some reason, I really really want to get that one on the left when you start the level.  Unfortunately, it means you can't get the one after you pass through the portal.  Incidentally, the portals now aren't all stacked outhouse-style on the same vertical plane, as in Bounty Bob.  Again, that's pushing an Atari 8-bit to its absolute limits of its computing and artistic power.  And of course, it's the perfect opportunity to rethink the way you jump in these levels.  Also, there's the new timer that ticks off time in units of 10 instead of 100, if memory serves.  Let's see how well it serves.  I forget where it is, but time to replay 2049er!

Bounty Bob Strikes Back

Just got a new idea for a new series!  The sequel to Miner 2049er... incidentally, it's just about 30 years until we who've played this game slavishly... and that is the only way to play it, incidentally... we can say by Gum, we made it!  First Robotron 2048... oh wait, I think that's 2084.  Anyway, we got to 2049, by Gadfly.  Take that all you young 'uns!  Meantime, there's the oft forgotten sequel.  But they did improve on the jumping.  See, in Level 10 of Miner 2049er, you can only jump really really far.  Now, you can jump straight up, and choose when to move left or right.  It's slightly less realistic than, say, Super Mario Bros., where jumps can be controlled... I'm trying to think of a game where you can just have almost complete control - you know, move left and right when you jump... not coming to mind.  Anyway, let's just dive right in, shall we?

Track and Field vs. The Activision Decathlon - Whick Kicks More Ass?

Now HERE's a duo I'm pretty sure I haven't done yet.  But once upon a time I happened to have both of these on 5-inch disks from my secret illegal source guy, Gob dless him... I mean, her... I mean, them.  I've said too much already.  ANYWAY, I finally tracked them down on Atarimania and on Mushca - the Activision one is on disk 37 and the other is on disk 226... aw, does he like the Activision one better therefore?  I think so.  But yes, the short answer is the Activision one clearly kicks more ass.  Better, smoother graphics... that's about it.  But both involve the same movement of the joystick.  You move left, then right, then left again, and repeat until you get to the line, and you gotta press the button at the right time, maybe hold it.  Personally, I prefer my video games to be a little more fantastical.  I'm a nerd!  What do I care about athletics?  I wanna be a Pac-Man and binge eat everything!  I wanna shoot invaders from space, in alien or asteroid form or, more domestically, bugs and the mushrooms they use as barriers!  But I will give a shout-out to my best friend from middle school... we parted ways in high school... who kicked my ass at the big Activision 1500 meter dash ;) Miss ya, buddy.  You'll get another computer job soon!  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you.  Yes, it's those kinds of memories you try to push out of your brain, until you give up and accept them for the secret treasures they are.  Besides, you'd just replace them with worse mistakes anyway.

Sad New Day, Go Away

...am I right?  Oh, right.  Why, do you ask?  Well, first, here's the link to the cultural reference.  And here's a Wikipedia link.  Apparently, it's from an album called "One," as in he's only going to do one album.  But it happens.  And "In Living Color" does it in their Honeymooners parody, and it's a small part of eternity from now on.  TV eternity, not film eternity.  Film's a little better about preservation.  Anyway, the thing I was sad about is the ultimate passing of "Tetris Battle."  But, if the programmers are good, they should be able to translate all that ActionScript code to HTML5 in no time, right?  Am I right?  Ooh!  And they should do that douche-y thing where you scroll a website down now, and there's, like... multiple levels to it!  Like you're walking in a skyscraper through a glass covered bridge from one building to another.  That kinda crap.  In the meantime, I want to just save the levels for posterity, or posteriority, whichever comes first.

Atari Emulator -> Action!

For those of you old enough or Atari-ically inclined enough to recall, a company called OSS made a programming language called Action!  All the speed of machine language, but without the portability.  No messy line numbers of BASIC, what have you.  You know, just because you wrote what you thought was a good game didn't mean you could just waltz right in to Antic! and expect them to like it, and immediately start selling it for $34.99.
And somewhere, somehow, as part of the Action! package, there came three games.  One was called Amazing! (Mushca disc 108), a Pac-Man clone where you couldn't score more than 65,535 points, and you had land mines instead of power pills.  Another was Rats' Revenge (Mushca disk 127),... a clone of the final level of Donkey Kong where you have to get all the rivets, except that instead you have to run over all the girders while avoiding your (not-so) fellow rats.  The last one I remember was called "Gem" (Mushca disk 294) where you and up to four players total have to go into the Thunderdome, grab the gem, and return to your corner.  As these Graphics 1 games go, it's pretty good!  It certainly influenced my own Graphics 1 game-thinking a little bit.  There was one last one: a Defender-clone, but I never discovered that one, so screw it.  Maybe these were on an accompanying 5.25" disk or something.  Must've been it.  I didn't have an Atari modem back then, alas.  I could've really did some damage with that thing, lemme tell you!

Atari Emulator -> Tigris

...what, no Euphrates?  Tee hee hee.  Well, sometimes one tires of the world of the infinite game now.  I mean, who would've thought I'd be playing Candy Crush for the rest of my life?  Every once in a while, there's a slight pocket of resistance, and of course the failed game show.  Was it on CBS?  And so, I felt like playing one of those 3D Tetris clones.  (Note to self: "Drop it" on Mushca Disk 111)  But before I could to get to the Atari emulator one, I happened upon this one on Mushca Disk 107 called Tigris.  Addictive game play, as they say.  But I suppose most game play is.  "Fortnite" is the current reigning champion.  I mean, when world health organizations are calling for a stop to the video game-induced madness, you know they're on to something.
And so, this Tetris clone the Germany-based mortals have decided to call "Tigris" is much like the original Tetris, with a few tweaks.  Most notably, the German, first of all.  I guess the German for "next" is "Vorschau."  You'll find you'll be relying quite a bit on what the next piece is.  Second, you have the usual seven Tetriminos, but they've expanded the piece set a bit!  Unfortunately, you get a lot of 'Q's and 'X's in the mix.  Sure, there's the occasional two- and three-square Tetriminos, but there's a few five- and six-square ones as well.  You might call those Tigris-minos.  You don't get the full set, I'm afraid, but just enough to make the game last a lot less than forever.  I acutally just scored about 4000 points in my most recent outing, but I think that was mainly out of the luck of the draw.  Even love the music; two notes of impending dread.  Very German, indeed.

Atari Emulator - Wall War

...welp, I played that!  I'm down to the dregs now, much like humans and the last drops of oil on the planet.  Well, it is a more fun energy source than solar and wind.  Anyway, this is in the vain... vein?  Of Quarxon, and some of the sounds are like Demons to Diamonds... that's right, that stupid Atari 2600 game.  Well, there's something about it.  Plus, there aren't many Shoot 'Em Ups where you get to use the paddle, what can I tell ya?  I got to level 3, and apparently that's the extent of the advantage I get against the "robot" opponent.  Much like Quarxon, you have to shoot through a wall at your opponent's store of... whimsical magnetic fields?  And you keep shooting at that until it's all gone.  Fun times.  I have a newfangled appreciation for finite games.  And now, I must get back to Candy Crush and Tetris Battle.