Carnival, 1982 Coleco Ind. Inc. (20 From Colecovision #2)
18Outstanding port of the arcade classic by Sega in 1980. This is a simple shooting gallery game with 3 rows of owls, rabbits and ducks as targets. Also appearing will be icons that let you replenish bullets (and they give 5 or 10 extra bullets) and the letters B, O, N, U and S. Yep-- they spell the word "bonus" and you'll get extra points if you shoot them in the correct order. There is a rotating wheel at the top with pipes on it, and you must shoot all the pipes and targets to complete a stage. You will get a bonus for shooting all the pipes (an indicator underneath tells of bonus remaining), and an indicator to the right shows the point value for targets on each row. Near the top left, a sign will appear here and there that will allow you to add to OR detract from your bullet supply or your score. Bullets get more and more precious as the game wears on and you have to watch out for stray bullets that might hit a negative value sign! Another thing to watch for.. those ducks, when they reach the bottom row, can break off and fly downwards. They will try to get below you and eat around 10 of your bullets remaining! DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN! Even if you have tons of bullets left, each one is worth 50 points when you beat the current gallery. Once you beat a gallery you go to a bonus stage (possibly the first in arcade video game history), where you shoot a polar bear as many times as you can before he runs too fast for you to hit again. Each hit is 50 points, and he'll rear up and move the other way when shot. Later bonus rounds will add an extra bear to pay attention to-- up to a maximum of 3. This game has so many cool features to it; you can even turn the music off if it's annoying you (shoot the musical note box)! Brilliant conversion of the arcade hit. I will conclude this series one of these days with game #1, but some special surprises are in store in the meantime.. stay tuned!