Granny Vinnie Reviews

7800 Rank: 46th Genre Rank: (Shooting) 5th Awards: 7th Best Originality, 5th Worst Gameplay Someone Hand Me a Gun! These Crazy Varmits Want me Eggs! Pros: Unique game with several levels and bonus stages Cons: Wrestling the controls proves to be tedious and not much fun Eggs are Never Safe... Even Underwater

Overview: Crack'ed? Crack'ed? Somebody was smoking the crack when they made this game. In this shooting title, not compatible with the Atari XE light gun (!!!), you take the role of somebody protecting 2 dozen precious commodities: eggs. Instead of hiding these eggs from the cruel, thieving eyes of the world, you proudly lay them out in 5 nests all across the cosmos, and then sit back and try to lay waste to anything that opposes your freedom to display eggs in weird places without harm or theft. This cracked mission of yours might take you to a lovely tree, a haunted house, the city sewer, even to the depths of the ocean or to another planet. While this might sound goofy enough, let's not forget our apparent favorite pastime of the protagonist...heading down to the Rooster Ranch and throwing eggs at some lunatic rooster. Yes, this might sound weird, but it's actually stranger to see it in person. One might think this was a strange hobby for a protector of eggs, to hurl them at a rooster...but quickly you will learn not to ask many questions concerning the crowning achievement of oddball menagerie: Crack'ed for the Atari 7800.

Graphics: The graphics are pretty weak in this game, and most of the evil egg snatchers are poorly done. But, who really can draw when they are smoking crack, anyway? Bad guys might take the role of birds, bubbles, three skulls in a row, squids, crazy animals that wave their arms and slide on their butts, rats, aliens, ghosts, or anything else you might have seen while undergoing an acid trip. This my friends, is why we should not do drugs...the game: Crack'ed.

Sound: Audio is disturbingly void again in this game, but if the 7800 could have handled it, I bet the game designers would have programmed some sort of Pink Floyd or Tangerine Dream trippy music loop into the background audio. The sound of the eggs splattering against the ground is impressive, though.

Gameplay: Gameplay is sadly horrible in this game. The sights on the screen are hard to control, and I always feel like I am fighting against them when trying to gun down one of the friends of Kaptian Kannabis and the Acid Dropping Koala Bears. (I don't know...I'm feeling punchy tonight). Gameplay is simple, but very demanding of your joystick dexterity. Also, the annoying feature of capturing an egg that was dropped by a creature that was shot is as annoying as heck. As the egg slowly drops, you must capture the egg with the right button and drop it into a nearby nest. This is also hard to control, and almost impossible to do when the nest is near the ground to begin with. Then there is the issue of the Rooster Ranch. I have never understood this part of the game, and it is very annoying. Instead using our sights to throw eggs at that butthole, the rooster, we are forced to use two pointers to aim at the target: one at the right of the screen, one at the bottom. This is probably as difficult as flying a space shuttle, and it is not as fun. If you play this game long, you will probably feel like me. I hate that #@%@ rooster!

Originality: This game is original, but also stupid. When an object is shot, it briefly turns into something else. If you shoot a bird, it turns into what vaguely looks like a cooked turkey. If you shoot one of the crazed animals that slide on it's butt, it turns into a toilet. Hmmmmmm...how refreshingly odd. The Rooster Ranch bonus stage is wacky, and it could have been fun if controls were easier to use. Alas, everything unique and fun looking in Crack'ed has been destroyed by the bad controls of the game.

Value: There are plenty of different boards for you to witness, but alas the controls will hurt any type of longevity this game could of had. Playing the game once or twice for a laugh is a possibility, but I would imagine most people would quickly yank Crack'ed out of the Pro System to play one of the better shooters for the 7800: Alien Brigade, Crossbow, or Meltdown.

Overall: It's a rumor, but this video game was what started Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign. Ok, that might be a lie, but Crack'ed is really a goofy game. Difficult controls simply destroy it. If the game designers did a better job at making this game easier to control, this could have been a cart that could have competed with the 7800's strong library of shooting games. Alas, all you can say is.............hmmmmmmmmmmm....how should I put this....oh yeah, CRACKED IS WHACKED!



Other Reviews:
The Atari Times: 6 out of 10
The Video Game Critic: D-
CV's Atari 7800 Panoramic Froo-Froo: 2.5 out of 5.0 (Weak)


Additional Info: I would like to take this time to thank Mitch Orman, owner of The Atari 7800 Page for allowing the use of his screenshots for this review.

Free polls from Pollhost.com

What is the most whack'ed thing about Crack'ed?

The premise of the game The tight controls The goofy egg-snatchers The Rooster Ranch mini game The Rooster Ranch controls

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