Oh Shoot! (Atari 2600 Indie Review)

Oh Shoot!
Platform: Atari 2600
Release Date TBD
Developed by Phillip Meyer
Visit His Development Blog
Try the Demo
Link to point of sale at Atari Age store.

Imagine the OG pack-in Combat if it had active environmental hazards. Oh, and it was a LOT faster paced. And the map changed after every point. And the vehicle changed after every point. And the….. you know what? Screw it. Don’t imagine Combat. This is very different, actually. Your first impression will be “Updated Combat” but that’s just not the case.

When it comes to reviewing multiplayer-focused games, getting the players isn’t the worst part. Eventually, I can get my family to give me some time with just about any game. The big problem is parity. I just don’t have anyone around me who can match me on some genres. When I did Tetris Battle Gaiden as part of Tetris Forever, I had such an experience advantage over every possible opponent I could muster that I couldn’t really figure out how balanced the game was for anyone else. I had to watch my father and nephew duel in order to finish the review. This is the peril of indie developers making multiplayer-focused games. Unless the game is suitable for all skill levels out of the box, with either NO learning curve or one that gives someone new to gaming a fighting chance against a seasoned gamer, even getting optimal coverage from critics is going to be a pain in the ass. And that’s to say nothing about what the experience will be like for your actual consumers. The reason I bring that up is everyone who plays Oh Shoot should be, more less, on equal footing regardless of experience, even though it’s a modern Atari 2600 game.

Without the ability to shoot in any direction but straight ahead, you might find a situation where both players camp behind the scenery. Even with this “problem” I don’t know why on Earth there’s a toggle that allows bullets to pass through scenery.

My playing partners/opponents were my senior citizen father and TJ, my middle school aged nephew, who isn’t into Atari games. As stated in the first caption, this is NOT Combat. You can only shoot straight in front of you, and even when you specifically select slow movement, this is faster than, say, the tanks in Combat. We tinkered around with the different two player modes and agreed that the best mode was mode 10: fast/manual with FX turned on, which makes the environment change in the middle of shooting. We also turned off the ability to shoot through things, which I recommend because otherwise the game is just insanely boring. I don’t even know why that’s something that can be toggled on and off. With it turned on, players aren’t incentivized to use strategy. Just lob bullets from the other side of the screen with no regard for the setting except not to crash into it. With it turned off, Oh Shoot makes for a pretty solid competitive game.

If I could suggest one additional rule for Oh Shoot, which presumably I can since the game is not out yet, it would be to add the rule “regardless of the score, players must win via a bullet and not by deliberately crashing into the other player.” Or actually, just make it so the person winning must survive the winning round. Once we knew what we were doing, too often the games ended by the person (mostly TJ, the little dweeb) who built up a lead no longer trying to score the kill the “right way” and instead just look for any opening to crash into the other player, which gives BOTH players a point. First to 20 wins. I don’t even know if our idea is programmable on the 2600. That’s why they’re the game makers and I’m the game review writing person.

The hook, besides the active environments that shift, warp, or retract, is that there’s a pool of 1,024 different screens that are randomly chosen and change after a kill is scored. So every point is a fresh experience, with players being reset to their side of the screen for a new map. When I played my father in Combat, there was almost always a stretch where one person would score a few shots in a row before the person could even get away. That’s not the case here. You’re also assigned a random vehicle, which is not just a skin. The helicopters shoot in straight lines and their bullets don’t travel the full length of the screen. The jets shoot the full length of the screen AND their bullets can be aimed by moving up and down after you shoot. The UFOs can also be aimed but their bullets travel in a small wave. Finally the things that look like TIE Fighters shoot bullets that travel in a big, chaotic wave. And both players don’t always get the same ship, so luck probably does factor in a little too much sometimes.

Some rounds ended immediately when one or both of us flew into the scenery as it spawned.

Oh Shoot is probably not going to be a game that we pull out during family rec time. TJ wasn’t especially interested in it, but in fairness, he’s like that with 99% of games for anything before the PS4. When I was his age, I would have been exactly the same way with Atari. I don’t think he would have played this at all in most circumstances. Thankfully, he IS into Aliens, Predator, and Aliens vs. Predator. And that’s how I got him to play this. A couple weeks ago, he was my co-op partner for the 1990 Konami Aliens. When we finished, I told him about the Capcom AvP brawler, and today he asked to play that. I asked him “before we do that, can I get about fifteen minutes on an Atari game I have to play for IGC?” Well, I didn’t get fifteen minutes. He gave me almost three times that. Mostly because he whooped us, but that’s beside the point. Sure, he spent most of that time complaining that he could only shoot straight ahead, but he also slaughtered us. Actually, he came back in one down 13 to 7 and won 15 to 20, and I only got those last two points because he decided the best way to win was just to crash into me. He’s evil.

This is incredibly nit-picky but there might actually be too many options. Like, there’s the ability for the ships to move forward automatically. We didn’t like that at all. I really wish Phillip would have focused on optimizing a handful of modes instead of seemingly trying to cover every possible house rule imaginable.

What TJ didn’t know during our first round was this wasn’t a game from the 1970s. “You just played an Atari game that isn’t even out yet! You’re one of the first to play the full version of it, in fact!” His reply summed it up better than this review ever could. “It’s cool that they still make Atari games.” It is cool! TJ wasn’t Oh Shoot’s target audience, and frankly, neither am I. And actually my father said he liked Combat with Pong bullets a lot more than Oh Shoot. Probably because he actually wins rounds of that, and he didn’t win a single round of this. I thought Oh Shoot was fine. Not mind blowing, but for what it is, this was an enjoyable waste of a morning. I wasn’t ever going to be blown away by it. Well, I was blown away dozens of times playing it in the literal sense but that’s obviously not what I meant. I didn’t grow up with an Atari 2600. It holds very little in the way of nostalgia for me, so it’s not like I’m longing for a game like Oh Shoot. For my generation, there’s always a hint of a novelty to the Atari 2600, which is probably multiplied by playing a new game built today for it.

Missed ’em by THIS much. I will say that if one player had the jet and the other had anything else, most of the time the player with the jet was scoring the point.

At the same time, I’ve heard plenty about what a pain in the ass the Video Computer System is to program for and I get why someone would do that. Asking why anyone would make games for the Atari 2600 today is like asking George Mallory why he would try to climb Mt. Everest. “Because it’s there!” Yeah! Because it’s there! In that sense, it might not even matter if the game is fun or not. The experience is the point. The novelty of a new Atari game is the point. If that game happens to be fun, that’s a bonus. Oh Shoot is fun, for everyone. A kid who can count his experiences playing Atari 2600 games on one hand and still have fingers left over slaughtered us, and apparently not just so he could get to the game he actually wanted to play faster. Would I want to play it again? Probably not, because I’m not specifically into Atari two player shooting games. But, is it worth playing? Yeah. Why? Because it’s cool that quality games are still being made for the Atari 2600. Because it’s fun. Because it’s there.
Verdict: YES!
Try the Demo
A review copy was supplied for this review. I mean, obviously. The game isn’t out yet, but I forgot to put that the first time.