Beany Bopper (Atari 2600)

Beany Bopper is hardly a title that seems like it tells you a lot about what you’ll be playing, but surprisingly, this odd pun on the word teenybopper is actually a completely apt descriptor of the gameplay, to the point it seems like the pun was conceived first and the game was built from there.

In Beany Bopper, you control a Bopper that you use to bop Beanies. The Beanies themselves are actually physically similar to propeller beanie hats, their faces the only thing really setting them apart from their real world inspiration. Boppers have no real world analogue though, taking the form of spheres with one eye they fire from, but these shots are pretty accurately described as “bopping” their targets, since they don’t actually eliminate them, instead stunning or slowing down the object on contact. There’s no real story reason behind the bopping of Beanies, but managing to take a title that seemed silly at first actually relate to the gameplay is still easy to appreciate.

When playing Beany Bopper, you move your Bopper around the screen to try and shoot the Beanies, these enemies being the only things that can kill you. When a Beany has been stunned, you must then fly over and pick it up, making it disappear from the screen and causing a points item to fall down. Points items can take on many different shapes such as people striking poses, bombs, planes, and more, but these shapes are more indicators of how far you’ve come in playing a round of Beany Bopper rather than having any unique functions. The game will only have two Beanies on screen at any time, and when one is captured, that Beanie spot is instead filled by the falling points item, the Beanies only returning once you are unable to catch the falling points item they were replaced by. Points items do spawn at different areas at the top of the screen and can fall at different speeds, so while you can have the screen clear of Beanies for a while to just fly back and forth to grab points, the Beanies will eventually get their chance to reenter when your movement isn’t quite able to keep up with the increasing pace of the falling bonuses. You can shoot the objects to slow down their descent if you can’t reach them in time, this again being one way you bop things rather than blast them. However, this period of point collecting can go on for a bit too long at times, flying back and forth making for some rather plain play but also being the main way you’ll earn your score in this game focused on trying to better your score on each repeat run.

Score also determines when the speed of the falling objects increases, but as you play, you’ll have to also worry about obstructions slowly scrolling into play. These squares and rectangles aren’t harmful, but they do block your path and Beanies will ricochet off them during their mad flight paths, making faster Beanies harder to stun. The game offers two modes of play, one where the Beanies bounce off the blocks and one where they pass right through, but removing that function of the blocks doesn’t really lead to a far different experience. There are already long periods where there are no new blocks coming in, and even when they do appear, they don’t often have many challenging arrangements, the game preferring to bring in smiley face patterns rather than ones that would really shift how you fight the Beanies.

Your Bopper is up to the task of fighting Beanies of course, but it does have a bit of an odd firing method. After pressing the fire button, this stun gun will fire out a shot that can cover most of the screen in any direction, even diagonally. However, the moment you fire again, if that shot was still out, it will disappear and your new shot will be the active attack instead. This can lead to some strategy, like trying to pick off a Beany from across the small play field or trying to machine gun one as it gets close to you, but a reliable shot with a more traditional firing method would have been preferable. Stuns can be a bit hard to read since the enemy sprite already flickers even before its incapacitated, its movement halting but fast play usually encouraging the player to stun and capture Beanies quickly only to learn that the stun might not have gone through properly. A reliable laser shot would make it easier to bop the baddies, but it’s not an awful system, just one that takes acclimation to use well.

Even if you do run into a Beany on a failed stun attempt, lives are actually rather generously distributed in Beany Bopper, making it pretty easy to go for large scores during longer sessions. Once you’ve successfully captured four Beanies on a single life, you’ll earn an extra life, although the game does max out how many you can hold in reserve. When you do get four Beanies though, special orange eyeball objects enter play that provide more points if collected but also come with a new risk. If they touch the bottom of the screen, they come back as much faster Beanies. Once you’re used to the controls well enough, it’s not too hard to reliably hit four enemies for that extra Bopper, but the increased speed later on will mean that you likely won’t be stuck playing Beany Bopper for so long that it grows dull. The cycle of play can become a bit repetitive, but it also makes this a pretty easy game to tackle if you want an achievable high score challenge.

THE VERDICT: There’s not much to Beany Bopper, but that does make it a decent fit for its focus on high scores. The switch between earning points and fighting enemies is reliable and easy to influence, extra lives are easy enough to earn to allow you to continue your run, and there are no drastic shifts to the formula that would jeopardize your performance. This does mean the game isn’t too exciting, but it isn’t a bad choice if you want something simple to challenge your reflexes. The laser system and stuns aren’t the most reliable though, but that doesn’t stop it from being a game where you can settle into a groove and lose track of time playing a simply designed challenge.

And so, I give Beany Bopper for Atari 2600…

An OKAY rating. Beany Bopper has got so few components that it’s pretty easy to point at what works and what needs improvement. The blocks that scroll in could do with a bigger impact, the laser system is a little strange, and stuns need to be better represented visually, but none of these are the kind of issues that prevent Beany Bopper from being a decent timewaster. Bopping Beanies and collecting points items is a cycle that’s easy to get lost in and one that you can ride for a while thanks to the lives system, but those lives come with the price of faster Beanies, so the task isn’t just a pushover and it will eventually claim all your Boppers. It’s a design that works well enough for score seekers, but it still can’t compare to games with more to consider in their designs. You can fire it up for a bit and you’ll do a pretty decent job at scoring high, but it won’t be as satisfying as a tougher challenge or one with more content.

The best thing that can be said about Beany Bopper is that commitment to the name. Saying it’s a game where you “bop beanies with your bopper” sound like nonsense but it is totally accurate, making the game oddly delightful even if the graphics can’t convey the same level of whimsy the box art and name do. For a game that seemingly worked backwards from its name, it came out pretty alright.