By Jason Lex Thomas, Jr. — originally published in COMPUTE!’s Gazette Issue 2, August 1983
Kickman is among the first in a series of new games Commodore has released for its 64 computer. This game is adapted from the Bally/Midway arcade game of the same name.
The 64 version, which comes in the form of convenient plug-in cartridge, resembles its arcade predecessor in many ways. You control clown who rides the streets of city on unicycle. Your task is to gain points by positioning the clown under rows of balloons falling from the sky. You must not let any balloons touch the ground. Instead, you must catch them. As you catch more and more balloons, they begin stacking up atop the clown’s head. It gets quite tricky when the stack gets four balloons high and the remaining balloons begin dropping twice as fast.
Intermixed with the balloons floating overhead are the familiar stars of the Pac-Man video game. Yes, it’s Mr. Pac-Man and his ghosts. Every so often, Mr. Pac-Man will drop from the sky and gobble up the balloons which are balanced on your clown’s head.
The Faster They Fall
Catching the balloons is easy at first. But as the game progresses, the balloons fall faster. Eventually, you will miss one. Luckily, if you’re fast enough, you can kick the balloon back up into the air for a retry. (Hence the name Kickman.) This works fine, but now you have to catch the balloon that was already beginning to fall and the one you just kicked back up in the air. Catching two balloons at once takes little practice.
Kickman is both fun and challenging. It can be played with joystick or the keyboard. And unlike some computer games, Kickman does not lose any playability when using the keyboard. A nice feature of Kickman is the ability to freeze the game at any point. You’ll really appreciate this when the doorbell rings or when your hands grow tired. Also, when RESTORE is pressed, the game resets itself to the beginning. This is handy when you get off to a poor start.
The Sound of Colliding Balloons
The graphics in Kickman are quite acceptable, and the sound effects of the balloons colliding are great. It really sounds as if the balloons are rubbing against each other. However, the music throughout the game could take more advantage of the 64’s excellent sound capabilities.
Overall, Kickman demonstrates that the 64 is, among other things, a good game machine. And I’m sure Kickman will offer most players lots of enjoyment.
Kickman
Commodore Business Machines, Inc.
1200 Wilson Drive
West Chester, PA 193S0
S39.95