The Atari 2600 was no stranger to 2D side scrolling shooters.  We saw a few iconic ones released on the console.  Defender being the most popular that I can think off the top of my head.  While the Atari 2600 was not exactly designed for this type of game, developers were still able to make the 8-Bit classic console sing.  Now, homebrew developers are taking their turn at making the Atari 2600 do things it was not designed to do, and doing it quite well.

Scramble is one such new homebrew title by an AtariAge forum member.  Unlike other Atari 2600 games, Scramble actually has a limited number of levels to traverse (six of them) and also supports two button controllers (such as plugging in a Sega Genesis pad).  Already Scramble is going outside the box of normal for the Atari 2600.

There are six levels of action in Scramble.  You will face destroying enemy fuel tanks, buildings and other enemy installations that, of course, add to your point total.

Scoring in Scramble is unique, pulling cues from modern mobile gaming by taking into account your distance travelled.  You will start Scramble with 3 ships and a hell of a challenge ahead of you.

I do find that the scrolling in Scramble is weird.  It sucks because other than how the scrolling affects the gameplay, Scramble is a good game.  You see, when you drop a bomb, it keeps place on the screen as it goes down, it doesn’t “slow down” and fall where you think it will.  Since it scrolls with the screen, you can almost drop a bomb from the top left of the screen and hit a ground target that is just entering the screen on the right- it is that type of scrolling.  It holds its place in regards to the screen location from which it was dropped.  That makes it hard to judge when to drop a bomb and leads to simply pounding the fire button and praying you hit your target.

What is here in Scramble is still a quality homebrew release and one that every Atari 2600 fan should be playing.  You can’t beat the price that is for sure.

Grab your copy of Scramble on the AtariAge forums.

Carl Williams

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