I’ve recently hammered out four new videos in my Video Games Evolved series. I pay tribute to Bump ‘N’ Jump, Pac-Man, Dig Dug and Zaxxon.
Usually I do a run-through with the game as practice and then start recording gameplay footage, but of course with the arcade version of Zaxxon it took maybe 5 plays before I could survive long enough to get useable footage because the game is so bloody hard. The Atari and Intellivision versions are the most dramatic departures from the arcade, at least graphically. Sure, you can understand why the limitations of these two warhorses require a scale-back from the cool isometric pseudo-3D of the original, but still…. belch. That ain’t Zaxxon. They come off more as a sparse River Raid, without the river.
One game where the INTY comes off surprisingly best is its Bump ‘N’ Jump port. Usually the ColecoVision runs away with these arcade translations, but here, the Intellivision definitely captures the look and tone of the original arcade better than the CV. Heck, even the 2600 version holds its own. Will wonders never cease?