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| josh TX | Nov 29 2007, 12:35 AM |
Monsterland Hall Of Famer
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Review: Wizard Of Wor (Arcade, 1980) In gaming company Midway's infancy, before the Mortal Kombat's and all the blood and gore they're known for, they released one of their first titles, the two-player co-op space shooter Wizard of Wor. (They love misspelling stuff on purpose, don't they.) While it didnt look like much on-screen, Wizard of Wor was a fun addictive title, and one of the first to give players more than one option on how they chose to play the game. All too commonplace now to have multiple paths in your favorite games, but Wizard of Wor might have been the first to do it in 1980. The object of the game was simple: Exterminate the monsters that float around a pacman-esque maze with your ray-gun. 5 or 6 monsters would usually appear on-screen at once. Some have the ability to turn invisible, so the bottom of the screen was equipped with a radar detector to track their movements while you couldnt see them directly. Pretty cool feature. After exterminating the first wave, a couple faster, smarter ones would appear. Destroy them and a "Worluk" would appear: a monster that floated quickly through the screen towards one of the two side exits in the game. Shoot him before he dissapears and you might get a shot at the Wizard himself, who floated through the maze dissapearing and reappearing and throwing small projectiles your way. If you did manage to kill him, it was worth buku points. Then move on to the next maze layout complete with a new pack of quicker, smarter monsters. Here's the interseting part: the game allows for two player simultaneous action, and this is where the decision making process really comes into play. On one hand you can work with the other player to eliminate the creatures, helping your fellow comrade and most likely getting further along in the game as you will have 2 guns working instead of one. On the other hand however, a blasted space hero is worth a hefty 1,000 point bonus. Drop your fellow spaceman in his tracks and you can cash in on a bigger score for yourself, and 1000 points is quite a bit in this game, considering the basic creatures are only worth 100-300 points each or so. Blast him on a double score round and your looking at 2000 a pop. It can definetly be tempting if you are trying to beat an old high score or just want to piss someone off. Regardless of which decision you choose, it's nice to be able to have one at all, especially in 1980. The points reward system was a clever way to make this work. Graphically, Wizard Of Wor was probably impressive in its day but is not much to look at now. From a distance it probably resembles some kind of pac-man clone without the dots, and the neon red colors the screen changes to when the Wizard appears will have old timers thinking they slipped back into a psychedelic trip from the 60's. The in-game bleeps and bloops for sound effects arent anything special either, although the pre-game screens do trigger an onimous but short little tune that gives the game more of the "Lost in Space" feel. Although the years haven't exactly been kind to Wizard Of Wor's dated presentation, the game still feels fun and controls as well as you would expect. The constantly changing mazes and 2 player co-op element add quite a bit of replay value to the game, and the strategy involved in working together or alone to succeed put this game ahead of others like it at the time. A solid effort that is worth playing again today. While it didn't exactly catch on and become a classic retro title, Wizard of Wor is remembered fondly by those who did play it so many years ago. My Score: 7/10  Atari 2600 version game packaging    Hunting the Wizard himself |
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| Josh's Retro Reviews · Toggle Up-Video Gaming | |
7:48 AM Nov 28
