Food Fight is one of my favourite classic Atari games, and so when I saw that the new game was out just in time for Christmas and launching exclusively on the Atari VCS I had to jump straight in. The game isn’t like most of the other modern updates of classic Atari games that has come out over the last few years. For the most part, we have received the Recharged series of games which give us updated gameplay and neon graphics. Whilst these are mostly good, after several releases, I’m happy to see a different direction with the new Food Fight game. This is so much more than I could have expected and is loads of fun.
You can watch the review on the Geek Battle Gaming YouTube Channel here!
In the classic game you’d have to dash across the screen and pick up an ice cream cone whilst dodging villainous chefs who will try to catch you and throw food at you. Likewise, you can pick up piles of food to throw at them. This game isn’t just an update of that concept and is a mix of different styles and has loads of secrets and things to unlock.
The game is something between a 3D platformer and a shooter. When I first fired it up my reaction was this is Atari does Splatoon.
There are various game modes and there is the promise of online play, but with the small Atari VCS user base, I’ve yet to get an online match. Methinks a little organisation within the community with be needed to make this happen.
There are matches you can play across six or eight arenas which include places like a town, and a shop, and vary in your objective. Standard stuff like getting the most “kills” and capture the flag. When I say kills, of course I don’t mean that as the game is too cute and whimsical for such violence.
Instead of heavy artillery there are guns that fire popcorn and you can throw marshmallow gloop. You can also throw tomatoes and fire pizzas.
The game controls really nicely and easy to pick up and play. I can see this as being a game that will be easy to jump into for a few matches at the end of the night or to squeeze into those spare few minutes where you don’t want to start playing a big adventure.
The game has a hub world and it kinda takes me back to the days of the N64 and Dreamcast. Its graphics are reminiscent of Dreamcast but that’s not a bad thing. Everything is super bright and colourful and reminds me of the hub world of Sonic Adventure and just generally of the rarely spoken of Floigan Brothers game which was full of charm and humour.
This is exactly what I think Atari need to do in order to take their franchises to the next generation. The game features appearances from all sorts of Atari characters. It has the Centipede from Centipede and bear from Crystal Castles owning and running businesses in the hub world like video arcades and restaurants. There are also cartoon versions of Nolan Bushnell who owned Atari and the guy who made the infamous E.T the Extra Terrestrial game.
I’d like to see the Atariverse continue in more games in the future, as I think they’re into something here to make the characters more approachable for a modern audience and marketable like how Sega and Nintendo’s characters are.
It was a surprise that you can earn coins to unlock versions of the original arcade games of a bunch of Atari games within the game. It doesn’t take long, but quite quickly you can unlock arcade birds to play Pong, Centipede, the original Food Fight, Breakout, Asteroids and more. You can even play Yars Revenge on an Atari 2600 in the arcade, and doing this allows you to unlock artwork in an Atari Museum you can visit in the game. It’s cool that there are also 3D renders of all the Atari consoles from the 2600 through to the Jaguar…although now I say that I’m not sure I saw a modern VCS in there!
The game also has a bunch of 3D platforming levels and a shooting gallery level too. These are just side sections to the main game, and almost feel like a proof of concept for what a bigger sequel could have a lot more of. I did half wonder if there was more to see or do as there seems to be a few areas in the hub world you can see but can’t currently get to. If these can be unlocked or will be reachable through an update, I’d be interested to see there be more to the game. If there is more and I’ve just not unlocked it I will feel a tad silly, but there isn’t anything obvious to suggest there is an ongoing story in the game to keep progressing and unlock much more. In this sense it reminds me of Splatoon where the focus is more on the multiplayer match up rather than a single player experience. The hub world with the nostalgia stuff also reminds me of the Sonic World 3D section of Sonic Jam on the Sega Saturn. It’s the first time we get to run around in the world of a classic game in 3D and can just explore and sniff out secrets.
I look forward to playing this a lot more in the months to follow and although I don’t know this, I expect there to be updates and new content added. It does feel like this release has a bunch to it, but is also the beginning of what will be a bigger game. My suspicion is that the VCS release is almost a way of getting feedback from the core Atari fanbase, and that when this launches of other platforms there will be improvements and new content.
For what this is, I’ve had a lot of fun with Food Fight so far on the VCS. It has a lot of charm and is easy to dive into and play.
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