Aswald
08-15-2007, 04:22 PM
Graphics= 7
Sound= 7
Gameplay= 8
Overall= 7
Arcade-To-Home= Unsure.
This 1983 Konami game was clearly inspired by the game Donkey Kong: it was a four-screen climbing game in which you tried to reach the top of the screen while avoiding various enemies. In this case, you were trying to reach the Golden Bird of Fortune.
The thing that made this game different was how you climbed up: instead of just jumping or climbing up ladders, you fired a harpoon gun. A rod holding the rope where you were standing would appear, and you would climb up the rope. You would repeat the process until you reached the top. You could never jump; even a tiny gap would prove fatal if you tried to walk over it. Hanging from the ledges were short vines, which you could climb down on, but never up.
Naturally, there were various things that made your life difficult and cost you more quarters: dinosaurs and cavemen would patrol the areas, climbing up or down to reach them. Touching one was fatal. Waterfalls could wash you away, and flying across the top of the screen was the villanous Roc, which would drop bouncing boulders down on you. Worse yet, both dinosaurs and cavemen could shake the rod holding steady your rope, which, if you moved while it was being shaken, would make you fall, and they could climb up and down the rope, too!
In several places were caves. Dinosaurs and cavemen could emerge from or disappear into these, so it was dangerous to be near one.
Luckily, you were not totally helpless. You had a short-range flashlight you could shine left or right, which could dazzle and stun the dinosaurs and cavemen on a ledge- making them temporarily harmless- or cause the Roc to fall! If you dazzled a caveman or dinosaur climbing a rope, it would fall, too!
Along the way you could pick up feathers that would increase your score, or eggs that would make you stronger than the dinosaurs and cavemen (but NOT the boulders!).
The game did have a few subtle aspects. For example, you could only have one rope on-screen at once. So, if you were on a ledge, and something was climbing up the rope, simply firing the harpoon gun again would cause that other rope to vanish, causing the baddie on it to fall to its doom!
A timer counted down. Of course, you had to make it to the top before it reached zero. If you did, you received the bonus points. In the case of this game, however, it was rare to run out of time before either succeeding- or getting killed.
And that was it.
The ColecoVision version of this game is really interesting. It was a 1984 CV game- the same year that gave us such great arcade-to-home translations as Spy Hunter, Tapper, Burgertime, and Bump `N Jump. Sadly, Roc `N Rope did not reach the same level of quality.
For one thing, this game looks like one of the lesser 1983 CV games, such as Mr. Do!, Space Fury, and Time Pilot. The graphics are not bad, but they are flawed in certain ways. For example, in the first screen, much of the detail of the cliffs is lost. This makes it harder to see the cavemen and dinosaurs; had some of the dots been "left out" just above the ledges, then not only would the result have looked better, but the black would've made the baddies stand out more clearly. There is an unusual amount of flickering here, too. Strangest of all is the Roc- for some strange reason, it is outlined in black. This adds nothing to its appearance, but causes more flickering. It would have been better to have either left it out, or made the Roc itself multi-colored. The wheels on the second screen have lost much detail, although overall the screen looks good enough, as does the third screen, with the waterfall being especially effective. Still, the primitive "logs and ropes" look of the arcade version is mostly lost.
The cavemen and dinosaurs are single-colored, and somehow not always easy to see. They could have looked better; the single-colored insects in Ladybug, and the enemies in Cosmic Avenger, most certainly were.
It is strange that the Golden Bird of Fortune is not animated in any way, since it was in Coleco's Atari 2600 version!
The biggest problem with this game is the fact that Coleco left out the fourth- and simplest-looking- screen. Since there wasn't anything unusual about it, and the design was simple (just simple, long, horizontal ledges), there was absolutely no reason to have left it out, especially in light of the four-screen version of Donkey Kong Jr.!
There is not quite as much variety as there appears to be, since dinosaurs and cavemen do the same exact thing.
Sound, however, is very pleasant, with a nice soundtrack.
Gameplay, even without the fourth screen, is pretty good. Once you catch on to certain things, such as when the harpoon gun will hit a ledge, the game is fun. It is also very, very difficult. Even Skill Level One is tough, especially once you reach screen 10.
It would have been nice to have at least had the opening sequence in this game.
So- how is it? For me, it's tough to say, since this is one of a minority of arcade games from that era I never played. I tried it on an emulator, so I have some idea of it, but not in an arcade. Overall, it's pretty enjoyable, but it would have been much better with that fourth screen. As an arcade-to-home translation, however, it falls short of the others from that year.
If you are wondering what the four screens looked like, here are some pictures, thanks to Raccoon Lad:
http://www.arcadeflyers.com/?page=flyer&db=videodb&id=1503&image=1
http://emustatus.rainemu.com/games/rocnrope.htm
Sound= 7
Gameplay= 8
Overall= 7
Arcade-To-Home= Unsure.
This 1983 Konami game was clearly inspired by the game Donkey Kong: it was a four-screen climbing game in which you tried to reach the top of the screen while avoiding various enemies. In this case, you were trying to reach the Golden Bird of Fortune.
The thing that made this game different was how you climbed up: instead of just jumping or climbing up ladders, you fired a harpoon gun. A rod holding the rope where you were standing would appear, and you would climb up the rope. You would repeat the process until you reached the top. You could never jump; even a tiny gap would prove fatal if you tried to walk over it. Hanging from the ledges were short vines, which you could climb down on, but never up.
Naturally, there were various things that made your life difficult and cost you more quarters: dinosaurs and cavemen would patrol the areas, climbing up or down to reach them. Touching one was fatal. Waterfalls could wash you away, and flying across the top of the screen was the villanous Roc, which would drop bouncing boulders down on you. Worse yet, both dinosaurs and cavemen could shake the rod holding steady your rope, which, if you moved while it was being shaken, would make you fall, and they could climb up and down the rope, too!
In several places were caves. Dinosaurs and cavemen could emerge from or disappear into these, so it was dangerous to be near one.
Luckily, you were not totally helpless. You had a short-range flashlight you could shine left or right, which could dazzle and stun the dinosaurs and cavemen on a ledge- making them temporarily harmless- or cause the Roc to fall! If you dazzled a caveman or dinosaur climbing a rope, it would fall, too!
Along the way you could pick up feathers that would increase your score, or eggs that would make you stronger than the dinosaurs and cavemen (but NOT the boulders!).
The game did have a few subtle aspects. For example, you could only have one rope on-screen at once. So, if you were on a ledge, and something was climbing up the rope, simply firing the harpoon gun again would cause that other rope to vanish, causing the baddie on it to fall to its doom!
A timer counted down. Of course, you had to make it to the top before it reached zero. If you did, you received the bonus points. In the case of this game, however, it was rare to run out of time before either succeeding- or getting killed.
And that was it.
The ColecoVision version of this game is really interesting. It was a 1984 CV game- the same year that gave us such great arcade-to-home translations as Spy Hunter, Tapper, Burgertime, and Bump `N Jump. Sadly, Roc `N Rope did not reach the same level of quality.
For one thing, this game looks like one of the lesser 1983 CV games, such as Mr. Do!, Space Fury, and Time Pilot. The graphics are not bad, but they are flawed in certain ways. For example, in the first screen, much of the detail of the cliffs is lost. This makes it harder to see the cavemen and dinosaurs; had some of the dots been "left out" just above the ledges, then not only would the result have looked better, but the black would've made the baddies stand out more clearly. There is an unusual amount of flickering here, too. Strangest of all is the Roc- for some strange reason, it is outlined in black. This adds nothing to its appearance, but causes more flickering. It would have been better to have either left it out, or made the Roc itself multi-colored. The wheels on the second screen have lost much detail, although overall the screen looks good enough, as does the third screen, with the waterfall being especially effective. Still, the primitive "logs and ropes" look of the arcade version is mostly lost.
The cavemen and dinosaurs are single-colored, and somehow not always easy to see. They could have looked better; the single-colored insects in Ladybug, and the enemies in Cosmic Avenger, most certainly were.
It is strange that the Golden Bird of Fortune is not animated in any way, since it was in Coleco's Atari 2600 version!
The biggest problem with this game is the fact that Coleco left out the fourth- and simplest-looking- screen. Since there wasn't anything unusual about it, and the design was simple (just simple, long, horizontal ledges), there was absolutely no reason to have left it out, especially in light of the four-screen version of Donkey Kong Jr.!
There is not quite as much variety as there appears to be, since dinosaurs and cavemen do the same exact thing.
Sound, however, is very pleasant, with a nice soundtrack.
Gameplay, even without the fourth screen, is pretty good. Once you catch on to certain things, such as when the harpoon gun will hit a ledge, the game is fun. It is also very, very difficult. Even Skill Level One is tough, especially once you reach screen 10.
It would have been nice to have at least had the opening sequence in this game.
So- how is it? For me, it's tough to say, since this is one of a minority of arcade games from that era I never played. I tried it on an emulator, so I have some idea of it, but not in an arcade. Overall, it's pretty enjoyable, but it would have been much better with that fourth screen. As an arcade-to-home translation, however, it falls short of the others from that year.
If you are wondering what the four screens looked like, here are some pictures, thanks to Raccoon Lad:
http://www.arcadeflyers.com/?page=flyer&db=videodb&id=1503&image=1
http://emustatus.rainemu.com/games/rocnrope.htm