Video Game Review
Wacko
Arcade
1983
Developer: Steve Mayer
Publisher: Bally Midway

Before the days with shooters with advanced shader graphics complexes and score totals that were greater than the GDP of the entire world, we had game like Midway’s Wacko. Imagine a game like Geometry Wars but with much similar graphics and much smaller point totals and you’ll know exactly what the idea of Wacko is. Although even if Wacko had much better graphics and more bells and whistles, it probably wouldn’t make the game all that much better.

The idea of Wacko starts of simple. You play a little green alien called Kapt’n Krooz’r and you move around the planet’s surface shooting at enemy aliens. The catch is that you have to shoot the aliens in matching pairs (colours) to make them disappear. Let’s say you shoot a blue enemy and then a yellow enemy, nothing would happen but if you shoot both blue enemies in succession, they’ll both disappear from the playing surface. It gets more complicated as you progress with shooting the wrong matching alien can the two enemies you shot to become mutants of one another requiring you to shoot them again to reset them if you want or you can create more similar looking mutants and then shooting them off the playing field to score extra points. Later on as well, defeated enemies turn into eggs that you must avoid until all the enemies have been converted to eggs which you must then defeat. The game sounds more complicated than it is and is more challenging than it is difficult to understand.

It would have been better if the controls were better. Unlike a game using today’s technology like Geometry wars which enables you to fire your weapon at any angle, Wacko restricts you to the four cardinal points. At the beginning of the game, it feels more inconvenient than anything else but as the action becomes more frantic, it becomes incredibly easy to make mistakes because of misaligned shots. Also, the collision detection is a little weird with at times either touching by one pixel will be computed by the computer as a hit while hitting a target or colliding with an enemy within a couple of pixels will not register a hit.

The presentation isn’t bad but it could have been better as well. Even though the game was released in the arcades in 1983, the graphics could have been better. The playing field is on a single game screen although the background does change every couple of levels. Most games at this time in the arcade were beginning to look a lot better than this as well as this is the same year that the original Nintendo system was released in Japan. At least the sprites look good as Krooz’r and the enemies all have a distinctive look to them. You will never be confused by one enemy or the other. The sound is barely existent as there is no background music when you play. The sound effects get tired fast; especially the sound of spinning enemies. It can get a little grating on the ears.

Wacko is a fun little game that has a concept that exists in many other games today. The problem is that many other games like Geometry Wars or Super Stardust do it much better. It’s fun for a nostalgia trip but it’s not a game that one should rush to. It can be found through multiple compilations for previous generation consoles but usually those compilations have better games on it anyways. It’s fun for a couple of minutes but then it gets old. Perfectly acceptable for a retro gamer but for many others, interest will be lost fairly quickly.

☆☆