#0026 Scramble

Alright, today we're looking at Scramble, a 1981 Side-scrolling shoot 'em up developed by newcomers Konami.

This game marks the first true side-scrolling shoot 'em up! See, while Defender might have had the side view aesthetic, it has little in common with the side-scrolling shoot 'em up of today. Scramble on the other hand uses forced scrolling and has multiple distinct levels, things that side shooters still use to this very day.

In this game, you play as the Planet Express ship and your goal is to make it through five different levels to bomb an enemy “base” at the end. You must dodge landscape obstacles which range from mountains to buildings, while avoiding and/or destroying enemies, all while making sure your rapidly depleting fuel supply doesn't drop to zero. You can refuel your ship by bombing or shooting fuel tanks that are scattered throughout every level. If you successfully make it to the enemy “base” and destroy it you're rewarded with text congratulating you on your accomplishment, then starting over from level one with slightly increased difficulty.

This game is... Not that great. I have to be honest here, I didn't care for it much. The controls are okay, we finally have rapid firing. It only took what, four years now? But the bombs are atrocious! They don't just drop straight down, nor do they follow the inertia of your ship, they kind of shoot our ahead of you then kinda fall at a weird angle that is near impossible to aim with. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if it were a standard shooter and you didn't have to worry about fuel, but the problem is that your fuel depletes at such a rapid rate that there's no way to complete the level without hitting at least a few fuel canisters, and the only way to hit most of them is to bomb them from above, but the aiming with the bombs is so wonky that my accuracy was maybe 1/10. And that's if I was lucky. Why was this mechanic necessary? Did they think the game was too easy? I understand that arcade games need to have the right balance of challenge vs. reward, but the game was hard enough with the random rockets launching up at you, you didn't need a depleting fuel supply as well. If I were actually paying for this with my own quarters, I honestly would have given up on it after the second or thrived try to go play Donkey Kong, and that's never a good sign. Speaking of Rockets, Those things are more annoying than the Qix was, and that's hard to do. There was never any pattern with them. Sometimes they launched in front of you so you could blow them up, or hit them if you failed, but then other times they didn't launch until after you pass over them, and sometimes they didn't even launch at all! There were times that I would be forced to fly extremely close to the rockets only to have one launch up at me before I could even move out of the way! And if that weren't enough, the sounds are below par, the graphics are sloppy and uninventive, and the colors are just nauseating, especially when you die. I actually got a headache from the flashing neon colors. I'm surprised nobody got a seizure off this, it's that bad. Here, here's some gameplay footage of me failing at this game. You'll see what I mean.

Overall, I didn't like it, but I can say that this game does have a legacy, I mean, it IS something different. While it's still a space shooter, they weren't content with just making another space invaders clone, they made something unique and distinct. And while the game itself falls flat, I have high respect for Konami for attempting something new, and without this game, side-scrolling shooters may have never gotten off the ground, which means games like Gradius or R-Type would not exist today. So while I can't recommend it, and I'll even go as far as to say that you should skip this game, I still have to respect it for attempting something different, that took guts, and I admire that.

Up next: Stargate