After hooking up my Atari for the comical and overly-complicated "Communist Mutants from Space" review, I decided to grab some time with one of my favorite games of all time, Kaboom!

It's important to note that Activision was the first 3rd-party developer, started by a group of disgruntled Atari employees. They were also the first company to credit the designer and developer of a game, with their name included in credits and on the packaging.

I figure it's the perfect time to give this classic game a little love since it turns 25 this year. That's right people, this game came out in 1981. A quarter-century after it's release, how does it fare?

Gameplay

The premise is simple enough. The "Mad Bomber" at the top of the screen drops bombs, and you catch them in your stack of water buckets. If one bomb hits the ground, you lose one of your buckets. When you're out of buckets, game over. Simple as simple can be. You controlled your buckets with Atari's paddle controller, which was really just a big knob.

That's pretty much it, the bombs get dropped faster and faster until you lose. You're playing for score, there's no way to win the game outright.

It's simple, it's addictive. It's a classic in every sense of the word.

Is it fun?

The games first and second round are very very easy, letting you get a feel for how it all works. Then the speed and ferocity ramp up quickly. The bombs start falling fast and furious and you really need to concentrate to get any further. It's a game that after a few rounds you'll stop talking to people around you so you can focus on the task at hand.

It's not as accessible a game as you'd think. In fact, it's probably alot harder than you think. Games of Asteroids or Missle Command have a much better learning curve. My girlfriend watched me play for about a minute and decided she'd suck at it and didn't bother to try it.

Games are fast, lasting 2-5 minutes at the most. But those few minutes are in fact fun.

Is it worth the time & money?

If you own an Atari 2600, you probably already have this game. It's about a common as missle command. So If you don't own it, it won't be a problem to find. It's worth the small amount of money for such a landmark title.

However, and I cannot stress this enough, You need to play it on an old system. Buying one of those game collections for the PS2 or running it on an emulator isn't going to cut it. To get the right feel it needs to be played on antiquated technology. Plus this game in particular cannot be played properly unless you're using the paddle controllers. It's a niche controller, and can't really be replicated on a keyboard or current gen controller. Invest a few bucks and pick up an Atari 2600.

9 out of 10

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