Taz (Atari 2600)

Taz for the Atari 2600 is unique because it is not only the first video game released based on the Looney Tunes cartoons, it is also the first video game ever made based on the Asterix series of comics. Taz is its name in North America, but to help it sell better in European territories, Taz the Tasmanian Devil was swapped out for the mustachioed Gallic hero Asterix in a game simply called Asterix. Both games play exactly the same and are just reskins to change the specific brand they’re tied to, but this extra bit of history does add an interesting extra element to taking a look at this relatively simple game.

 

Taz starts by first showing you a title screen with a rather unusual looking representation of the Tasmanian Devil, unable to truly capture his razor sharp jaws and making him look a little less fearsome for it. Asterix on the other hand shows its titular character in nicer detail and seemingly letting out a holler. Once the action starts though, Taz has the better claim to making a bit more sense. The Looney Tunes character’s distinctive ability to turn into a literal whirlwind of destruction has him represented as one in game, and in his hunger, Taz is looking to grab as much food as he can handle. There are eight lanes shown on screen that the player can move Taz around in, his horizontal movement allowing for more freedom but pressing up or down will immediately move you from one lane to the next. In these lanes, food will be flying in from the left or right side of the screen, the player wanting to put Taz in the path of it so you can score points for catching it. However, sometimes instead of delicious food, sticks of dynamite will fly through the lanes, grabbing one leading to a loss of one your lives. Extra lives can be earned by reaching certain points thresholds though so the starting set of three isn’t necessarily a limitation.

In Asterix, the manual actually has to do some set-up work to justify the action. Taking place after yet another failed raid by the Romans on the village Asterix lives in, Asterix spends his time after foiling those Romans’ plan by scavenging the area for useful items his friend Obelix might want for his birthday. Asterix is represented as just his head and is the playable character now for the early play, the objects flying in from the side now being things like cauldrons, helmets, and shields instead of food items. The specific food item or object in either game will change after you collect a certain amount of one type, the items rising in value so your score will increase in bigger jumps the deeper in you get without losing all your lives. Asterix exists before the invention of dynamite though, so the Gaul instead has to worry about the very odd danger of the music of Cacofonix, the famously off-key bard’s song represented by lyres streaming across the screen instead.

 

Neither visual approach really seems superior, the lyre a stranger danger to be sure but both games you can tell at a glance if a dangerous object is coming or not. In fact, early on, dodging is a bit too easy. The food and damaging objects fly in at a pace that makes avoiding trouble not too much of a challenge, especially when you discover one of the few tricks you have for ensuring your safety. When you grab food as Taz or a treasure as Asterix, the point value will be displayed. However, that point display has a purpose beyond providing information, since as long as it is visible, it prevents anything new appearing from the lane it is in. This means you can essentially form safe areas, waiting near the lingering point value while you watch the other lanes without worrying about any accidental contact with something lethal. While early on the game sometimes does throw a full wave of dynamite or lyres at you that can be a touch difficult to dodge if you don’t have a point value keeping a lane safe, most of the time, you can easily weave around the space and grab food items as long as you don’t get careless or greedy.

Luckily, things do pick up when the game finally speeds up the action. The Crazed Wave in Taz makes all the food and dynamite fly in from the side at a much faster pace and it becomes much more difficult to safely weave around incoming danger to grab the valuable food. While the early game is simple but interactive enough not to get dull, after the Crazed Wave begins and permanently ups the speed, making lanes safe with the lingering point values becomes a much more valuable trick and you’ll need quicker reflexes to get yourself out of trouble. Over in Asterix, the game actually swaps out the lead for his buddy Obelix during what it instead calls the Obelix Wave. Obelix doesn’t look very good as just a head in the Atari’s limited graphics, but funnily enough the items he aims to grab are now food as well, although eventually Asterix does return as the items you grab loop despite the speed remaining much higher.

 

The change in difficulty once the Crazed Wave/Obelix Wave starts does mean deaths will probably come more quickly and soon you’ll be made to restart from the earlier rounds that are perhaps too tame, but you can get to the sped up play fairly quickly as well, diving back in fairly easily as you try to get further than last time. However, going from one consistent pace to a different higher pace does make the play a bit uneven. The scaling of the point values to reward you more the deeper you go in does make earning extra lives when they’re actually needed possible, but a gradual ramping up of difficulty could have made the process more consistently engaging rather than easily working your way up the more frenetic survival challenge that awaits you a few minutes in.

THE VERDICT: Whether you play it as Taz or Asterix, this Atari 2600 game feels a bit imbalanced but not necessarily bad for it. The early rounds are simple but a serviceable introduction that can help you understand strategies like how floating point values keep a lane safe for a bit, and then when the action kicks up quite a bit you actually need to make use of that on top of sharp reflexes to snatch valuable items safely. It doesn’t take too long to get to the sped up action so aiming to beat your high score doesn’t require too much work to get to the point where that actually becomes a challenge. Only having two speed settings for the incoming items and danger means its simple play is limited in what it can offer though, a better fit for quick non-committal play than constant returns to reach a new high score.

 

And so, I give Taz for the Atari 2600…

An OKAY rating. Having Taz ease you in every new playthrough isn’t a bad thing, but the fact that shifting from the tepid start where you aren’t really being tested much to the zippy speed of the Crazed Wave does feel like it’s just wasting time until it throws the real danger at you. Once everything is moving at a faster pace there is definitely a lot more to the reflex challenge and thankfully that floating point trick gives you something to think about beyond just whipping around in a frenzy. Are you going to linger in lanes you made safe, or will you try to keep going for food as quickly as you can so that more lanes are made safe at once? It’s a simple question that’s appropriate to ask when there isn’t much time to think once everything starts moving by so fast, but it’s not enough to totally offset the tame start after you do end up losing your lives. To keep Taz more exciting, a gradual growth in difficulty would have been more effective, the early food grabbing able to get challenging more quickly without having to shove you in the deep end like the Crazed Wave does now. Continuing to speed up even after the Crazed Wave could have been an interesting way to making the high scores really require some skill, although there would be a point where it should stop before it just becomes the game trying to kill you off to make you restart. Making it climb up more gradually might make swapping in Obelix briefly in the European version less clean, but Asterix doesn’t really feel like it benefits from having its playable hero change so keeping Asterix in play and facing increasing odds seems like the better route anyway.

 

While a cancelled Bugs Bunny game might have beat Taz to the market if it had been released, instead the first Looney Tunes game manages to be a serviceable idea that isn’t a poor start to the cartoons entering the video game world. Asterix also gets to tag along as having a fine enough start, but whatever coat of paints it wears, this game is still a rather simple challenge and one that feels like it could have provided more consistent enjoyment. Its design favors quick sessions and yet it putters around a bit before it starts providing some decent danger, but surviving during the Crazed Wave is a fine enough challenge to warrant making multiple attempts despite having to tolerate the weak start each time you go for it. Considering some rocky games in both brand’s futures, perhaps kicking off with a game that’s merely okay might have been more than some expected, but having a simple clear idea for how the action unfolds benefits Taz and Asterix and prevents them from being an unfortunate start.