Q*bert

The Good
QBert is an addictive game created by Gottlieb in the Eighties in which the object is to jump around a pyramid, changing the blocks to a certain color while avoiding the many types of creatures that roam about. Now, as a kid growing up with a Commodore 64, I wasn't familiar with this game at all. The C-64 conversion was produced by Parker Brothers, a company that released classic arcade games such as Frogger, Gyruss, and Popeye on 8-bit formats. Some of these conversions are very good, and QBert is no exception.

Almost everything in the coin-op version made its way into the C-64 port. Well, I say “almost” because not all the features made the conversion, but I'll talk about those in a minute. First of all, after the boring title screen, you are treated with the first level intermission, and these occur every two or so levels. These intermissions are consistent with the original version, even Q*Bert jumping around the blocks looks neat.

The graphics are detailed, and there are smooth animations throughout. I like how Coily the Snake looks aggressive as he makes his way toward you, and also the flashing of the pyramid to let you know that the level is complete. The sound effects are faithful as well, and although they have been slowed down a bit, this was not a problem for me. I enjoyed listening to all the short, but memorable, melodies.

As with the original arcade machine, the controls take a little to get used to since it is not just like the other games of its time. When I first played this game, I was lost and trying to control QBert only resulted in me falling off the pyramid. But two or three games later, I finally got the hang of things.

The Bad
Three things are missing from the C-64 version. These include the colorful instructions seen in the coin-op, telling players enough detail on what they need to do, and the high-score table that can be used to “score-attack” the game. Also, the coin-op is famous for its garbled sampled speech, but this is sadly missed in this version.

The Bottom Line*
Despite some missing features, this is an excellent C-64 conversion. The graphics and sound effects are all here, as are the smooth animations. The control scheme takes little time to get used to. C-64 owners who are fans of the original coin-op should get this port.

The Good
QBert has always been one of my favourite arcade games, and the commodore 64 version is an excellent conversion. Graphically the game looks excellent; characters and the pyramid are nicely detailed, and the animation and color are pretty close to the arcade version. Although the synthesized "voices" of the original are missing, sound effects are excellent. All of the various levels match the original about as closely as one could hope. This game has aged extremely well, and is as fun to play now as it was back when it was new!

The Bad
The controls; due to the four directional digital joysticks typically used on the C64, you control QBert by pushing up/down/left/right. Since QBert jumps diagonally around the pyramid, pushing down moves QBert down and left, pushing right moves down and right, etc. Getting used to this odd arrangement was aggravating, but possible. I've also tried holding the joystick rotated 45 degrees so I can push it diagonally, but this was difficult to do with the joysticks I had (as they weren't designed to be held in such a manner!). I'm guessing this odd control scheme was used since registering diagonal movement on the 4 directional joystick didn't work well enough, so overall there probably isn't a great solution to imitating the arcades diagonal controls (which was just a joystick rotated 45 degrees actually.) I also missed the synthesized "voices" the characters made in the arcade version; This is hardly an issue as sound effects are otherwise great and gameplay isn't affected, though I think the C64 could have been capable of a decent rendition.

The Bottom Line
Overall a very faithful port of the arcade game that is a lot of fun to play. The controls take some getting used to, but once you do this is probably one of the best home versions around.

The Good
Well, the first thing that catches your eye is that odd little creature with 2 legs and an over-grown snout. Weird little creature back in the day, still its fascinating that they came up with that odd bloke as a main character...genius really.

I noticed when I played the game that the game had astounding graphics! Very colorful back then, which helped gameplay a great deal.

It was fun for a kid, trying to move the QBert on those cubes and cursing when you made a wrong move while trying to eluding the bad guys.

The Bad*
None.

I swear I played this on the PC although not quite sure whether it was DOS or PC Booter. But then again, I also had an Atari back then, so I'm not 100% sure. Internet research didn't come up with much, although there seems to be a lot of people called Bert though...doh. Mobygames currently doesn't support the any PC platforms on this game, so that somewhat confuses me (and no, I'm sure it wasn't J-Bird...)

The Bottom Line
One of the best puzzle-action type games in the day. No wonder they made a remake.