Toobin’ (Video Game Review)

Video Game Review
Toobin’
Arcade
1988
Developer: Atari
Publisher: Domark

While it’s very easy to remember the great games from the arcade era because there were so many amazing coin-op games, there were plenty of bad ones we try to forget about. Domark’s Toobin’ is one of them. While it tried to do something by adding a bunch of bells and whistles to what seemed like a simple formula, it offered little entertainment and wasn’t worth the quarters it cost to play the game.

The player picks between two characters: Bif or Jet. The player races down a chosen river trying to make it the end in one piece. There are plenty of obstacles in the way and bonus items to pick up for the player to try and collect. That’s pretty much the entire plot of the game.

Controlling Bif or Jet is a little more realistic (and more complicated) than one would expect for an early video game. There are four buttons that are used for navigation. Two buttons are used to control the left arm and the other two for the right arm. The two buttons for each arm are each for forward and reverse. So if you want to move forward, you need to hit the left-arm and right-arm forward buttons. If you want to move to one side or the other, you only hit the forward button for that particular side (or the reverse button if you want to go backwards). Hitting both reverse buttons holds you in place in a strong current (or if you hit the buttons fast enough, you can go backwards slightly). It’s representative of how someone would actually navigate around in an inner tube going down river. There is a fifth button that’s used to throw objects at an opponent.

The biggest problem with the game is that everything works against it to make it not fun. Races are not even close to exhilarating. In fact, the races only work if you have an incredibly short attention span. There’s so much going on that you have to worry about. Between racing an opponent and throwing items at him, trying to avoid obstacles, trying to float through checkpoints, trying to collect bonus items, and dealing with currents among other things make this game feel anxious and bloated. Plus the courses feel too long. It’s nice that there are plenty of courses in the game but it would have been nicer to have shorter courses so that they don’t overstay their welcome. There’s too much going on and it gets confusing at times.

The controls don’t help either. They feel clunky and at times unresponsive. It’s interesting that you have to have the guy in the inner tube use both his hands to navigate through the course using two sets of controls but it doesn’t seem to work properly all of the time. Sometimes smashing your hands on the console feels like it would produce the same results than trying to play the game seriously.

There are a couple of things going for the game. It does offer an incredible amount of courses. Some of them look really creative. One thing that is good for the game is that the courses aren’t simple and bland looking; although some of them look really strange. The music in the game is pretty good although it won’t spawn any earworms for people to need to worry about. The visuals are nice as well but then again, it’s not really pushing the boundaries of what arcade games were supposed to look like in 1988. It just seems that even the good things of the game feel average at best.

When it comes down to it, Toobin’ is awful. It was lame in 1988 and feels worthless today. Atari and Domark wanted the game to be a non-violent alternative to the abundant amount of violent games available in arcades in the late 80s but it’s not an worthy alternative. Actual inner tubing in the middle of a parking lot would be more entertaining than this game.

☆