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Cat Trax is one of the many Pac-Man clones. The story is that you’re a cat being chased by dogs in a maze. Picking up an item in the middle of the maze turns you into the dogcatcher so that you can briefly ignore or even attack the dogs. Much like Pac-Man you want a joystick to play this game and I only tried it using a gamepad. I found the controls to be ever so slightly suspect and cornering was difficult, though possibly no more than in the 2600 version of Pac-Man itself. More worrying was some questionable collision detection; at one time I lost a life when there were clearly no dogs touching my cat (all of them being on the same line as me may have caused the problem). Given how well played the original Pac-Man is, clones like these can be a welcome relief and ultimately I enjoyed the game and will undoubtedly return to it when I have time. 
Funky Fish was my favourite. It’s basically Defender at a pace I can cope with. Some say it’s too slow, but I disagree. The story for this one is that you’re a fish protecting the ocean from evil, or something. It doesn’t matter; it’s just a good fun shooter. You control a fish that moves freely in an ocean environment. Your radar shows four main enemies. As you reach each one it starts throwing out smaller enemies. Shoot each of the smaller sprites then quickly collect the bonuses that appear before they turn back into something dangerous. Once you’ve killed enough of these little suckers, you can replenish your own energy (which drains at a constant rate) from the dying throws of the main bad guy. Then it’s off to the next one. In the second level the regions between main enemies are also filled with something dangerous, not sure what from the graphics, to increase the difficulty. Touching most things kills you instantly, so be careful. The game is very enjoyable with the only possible issue being that the random motion given to some objects (to make it feel like it’s in water) is faster than your fish’s movement. This does mean that you can get overwhelmed if the random movement happens to be towards you for an extended period — you simply can’t run away fast enough. Similarly, collecting bonuses can take a moment too long if they keep being swept away from you. If you’re not fast enough they can turn into an enemy just as you’re picking them up. Such is the game’s challenge. 
Pleiades is the sequel to Phoenix. It has three levels. The first is a Galaga/Galaxian style shooter with the bad guys moving in formation. The second is a mother ship guarded by giant birds. The third is a slalom sort of thing with momentum. Lather, rinse, repeat. I am told that the game is a sound conversion from the arcade version, though it lacks some of the extra detail. I should have tried the original arcade version before publishing this review, but I simply don’t have a MAME system up and running at the moment. Much as I enjoy the base game, like Donkey Kong Jr it becomes quickly repetitive only making things faster and more numerous for each iteration. By the fourth or fifth loop things are really moving too fast to truly appreciate, though I’m sure more avid players will be able to advance far further.  Conclusion It’s not fair to compare these games to anything made after 1983, but it’s unavoidable. Gamecube owners may do better with the upcoming Pac-Man with player-controlled ghosts and Gameboy connectivity than Cat Trax. Dreamcast owners should perhaps look to Ikaruga instead of Pleiades for their shoot-em-up fix. But people that want to relive their childhood feeling of opening a new game for their Atari should definitely support AtariAge by purchasing at least one of these games. |
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