Source: Video Games Player – August September 1983 – – Q*Bert (Atari 2600)
While there can be no doubt that Q*bert is one of the great arcade classics and one of the most recognizable classic arcade characters, I always found it to be incredibly frustrating. Yes, it was a difficult game but it isn’t really the difficulty itself that really bothered me. It was the fact that I was always leaping to my death by accident because I never quite grasped the pseudo 3D viewpoint.
For those that don’t know, in Q*bert you controlled…well, Q*bert…in his effort to escape various creatures and obstacles by leaping around a pyramid. Game play was fairly simple. You just jumped from square to square up or down the pyramid. The goal was to hop on each square to change its color. Once all squares were changed, you proceeded to the next level. Of course you had to avoid getting trapped by the various on-screen enemies. However, for me the view point always caused me issues. It seemed like I was always leaping to my own death by accident. As the levels progressed, things got harder. You would have to jump on each square multiple times, enemies would move faster and there would be more of them, etc.
Q*bert was first released to the arcades in 1982. Ports to various systems started appearing the following year. While this add is targeted towards the Atari 2600 version (and mentions the upcoming Intellivison version), there were a wide variety of systems this game was ultimately available for. Because of the limited nature of the Atari 2600, it really isn’t one of the better ports. The graphics were actually ok for that system but the pyramid was smaller and there were fewer enemies. The controls also suffered (and I already hated the controls anyway).
The ad above is from the August/September 1983 issue of Video Games Player magazine. Screen shots are from the Atari 2600 version of the game.
