Mouse Trap, 1982 Coleco Ind. Inc. (20 From Colecovision #7)
17"Muh-muh-muh Mouse Trap, Mouse Trap, cheese was the bait..", pop artists Buckner & Garcia would wail about this game back in the day. It's a bit of a Pac-Man clone with a maze full of cheese and as a mouse you must make off with the goods. Cats patrol the area with the intent on snacking on you, but you can turn the tables on them when you collect a dog bone (4 present on each level, and you can collect an excess of them to use for later). You can also move doors of a particular color with each button-- red for button 1, yellow for button 2, and blue for button 3. When you have to scoot quickly around in the maze to avoid the cats you want to remember by memory which button opens which door, so think the word "RIB"-- only spelled RYB. Red, Yellow, then Blue. An extra button is used to turn into a dog for a brief spell to attack the cats. In addition to the cheese and dog bones, there are also special prizes starting at 1,000 points and increasing by 200 for each additional prize you eat. The next prize will appear somewhere else in the maze and these prizes are seen in numerous other Exidy games (like Venture, Pepper II, etc.). If you select skill #2, 3 or 4, you will also face the hawk from the arcade game! The hawk will fly about the maze-- over walls and doors-- and can kill even the dog! To deter this aviary adversary move into the central space marked "IN". This will transport you to any of the 4 corners and make the hawk less tenacious, fly in a weird other direction, or fly out of the maze (the arcade game says it "makes the hawk stupid" [!]). But beware, since transporting to a corner can mean a cat is right there to get you. The sound samples from the Exidy arcade original were so awesome and are unfortunately not all replicated here.. but it doesn't really matter that much-- they got the gameplay and look of the original down pat. Definitely worth a high spot on any top Colecovision games list. Arf arf! Meow!